The Seventh Apprentice
by Saf Dawnheart
Summary: KH2. The only reason Char was going with Sora and the others on their journey was because Riku had asked her to. And as the seventh apprentice of Ansem the Wise, she never went back on her promises. — Sora/OC, Roxas/OC, OC/OC.
1. Chapter I

Hello, one and all, and welcome to my latest pride and joy, The Seventh Apprentice! Feel free to pick up some popcorn, because in all likelihood this is gonna take a while. It will cover Kingdom Hearts 2, but it's not as much of a boring novelization as it was when I posted it before.  
Anxclof: So, you figured you'd try again. And this time include the spoilerific addition of me in Roxas' dreams... (sigh)  
Me: What?! I have to glean my attention _some_how! But yeah, just enjoy, and be patient. I'll get to the good part soon enough. And honestly, anyone who gets put off by long chapters should just go ahead and leave now. Plus, the reason some stuff in the flashbacks are so bunched together is to distinguish between all the flashbacks, because putting a "--" between every one just gets annoying. So... sorry about that.  
Anxclof: So, disregarding Saf's ranting, go ahead and read.  
Me: HEY!

**_Disclaimer-_** YES, the Square-Enix people ARE writing KH fics by the penname of Saf Dawnheart! How did you know?! (sarcasm)

* * *

The waves lapped against the faintly moonlit shore, carried by the soft wind to barely touch the feet of the black-cloaked figure. The figure had just enough time to register the slight brush of the water before its attention was drawn elsewhere: toward the tall rock nearby, where an identically clad person had just stepped out of an odd portal of darkness. The taller of the two turned its head to acknowledge the new presence.

"You have arrived," it said, speaking in a deep voice that announced it as unmistakably male.

The other figure, in response, merely walked over to where their companion sat, and halted at his feet, but did not do anything else: simply standing still, as though waiting for more.

"I've been to see him," the other continued. "He looks a lot like you."

"Who are you?"

The other laughed slightly at the question. "I'm all that's left. Or… maybe I'm all that ever was."

His companion seemed confused at the cryptic reply, but nonetheless pushed on. "I meant your name."

"My name is of no importance." He turned toward the other and tilted his head slightly in an inquiring gesture. "What about you? Do you remember your true name?"

"My true name… is…"

* * *

"_Sora?"_

_Soft blue eyes open, framed by unruly spikes of dark brown hair. A beautiful sky, complementing an equally sparkling sea. __"Whoa!" The young boy jerks up, nearly bumping his head against the dark-cinnamon-haired girl in the process. The girl laughs at his response. "Gimme a break, Kai –!"_

_A silver-haired boy, looking slightly older than the brunette, runs across the beach. "Giving up already?" he taunts. The brunette, in response, only runs faster, determined to best his friend._

_The trio sits along the branches of a tree. "If there are any other worlds out there," the silver-haired boy mutters bitterly, "why did we end up on this one?"_

_Crude little drawings, of the spiky-haired one handing something star-shaped to another poorly drawn person. A deep voice says, "This world has been connected."  
__The boy in question whirls around with a cry of "Who's there?"  
__A darkly clad figure. "Tied to the darkness…"_

_The girl and the brown-haired one, sitting on a pier, staring out at the beautiful sunset. The girl stands up, her cinnamon locks standing out against the purple and crimson of the sky's current state, and turns to face the brunette. "Sora, don't ever change."_

_The silver-haired boy reaches out his hand. "The door has opened."  
__"What?" Sora says, bewildered, trying to take his friend's hand. But the opaque tendrils of darkness swallow the elder of the two before they can make contact._

_Sora stands up and turns, only to see a huge creature, black as night and with eyes blazing like golden coals. The girl tries to leap into his arms, but merely rushes straight through him.  
__"So…ra…"_

_"Roxas!" another brunette shouts. Her dark-gloved hands have currently taken up their custom position on her hips and her emerald eyes are glaring into his. "Wake up, you loser!"_

* * *

With a grunt, Roxas awakened from the strange dream. He sat up, and sighed as he settled one elbow on the same knee. "Another dream about him," he murmured.

Though admittedly that was the first time the mysterious girl had entered his dream… What a weird outfit she'd been wearing: a black hooded leather coat that matched her gloves.

_Ding, ding, ding… _

The blond turned at the sound of the clock tower, and opened the window of his room to let in the early morning sunlight. Unbidden, many other sounds followed as well: crows cawing; the trains chugging along. _Just another part of Twilight Town,_ Roxas thought affectionately.

He got up and changed into his regular outfit of white-and-red coat, all the while reflecting on the newest dream. Usually they were just vague flashbacks – such as the one before this one; that had been one of Sora rushing into combat alongside a blue-clad duck and a dog-like creature – but never before had the dreams come this strong. Roxas guessed he couldn't just dismiss the dreams as figments of his ice-cream-overloaded imagination after all, much to his disappointment. These odd recollections would be much more explainable if he knew they were just all in his head.

Roxas let out a slight growl as he accidentally stuck his right leg into the left pant leg, and berated himself for thinking too much on _dreams_, of all things. He'd never told Hayner, Olette and Pence about his dreams, so it was best that he didn't let them know something was bothering him. Then they would ask, and he would have to tell the truth; and then they would dismiss him as crazy. And that was the last thing Roxas wanted.

Finally managing to get the offending pants on, he headed on outside to meet the others at The Usual Spot.

He sat down in his own little area, near one of the brick walls, and listened absently to his friends chatter. Roxas tried to get into the conversation, he really did, but his treacherous mind kept wandering back to the strange new vividness of his dreams.

_Why is it that only _I'm _getting all these weird flashbacks? _he wondered, staring down at his hands and abruptly becoming very interested in the textures of his black and white rings. _I mean… _He allowed his gaze to pass over Hayner, Pence and Olette, who were currently grumbling about the injustice of something new Seifer had done. _It's obvious that nothing weird's been happening to my friends, so…_

"Roxas?"

_Hayner. _Roxas turned to face his friends, who were currently looking at him expectantly. A little awkwardly, he gave a few quick, slightly disinterested nods.

Hayner sighed. "You don't even know what we were talking about, do you?"

Roxas allowed a small, embarrassed smile to cross his countenance, inwardly grateful that they hadn't asked what the matter was.

"Seifer's been spreading these rumors that we stole all the stuff that's been disappearing around town," Pence explained.

"I mean, I can't really blame him if he wants to think we did it," Hayner went on, standing up and crossing his arms so he could pace properly. "Since our groups don't exactly like each other and all. But why is he going around telling everyone _we _did it?"

"What are we supposed to _do _about it anyway?" Olette murmured.

Roxas blinked when he saw that everyone was looking at _him. _"Um, well…" he began, trying to think up something. "Maybe we could go find the real thieves."

"What about Seifer?" Hayner asked irritably.

"We have to clear our names first, remember?" Roxas reminded him.

A small growl of annoyance from his unruly-haired friend was Hayner's reply.

"Oh, no!" came a sudden cry from near the curtain that served as The Usual Spot's exit. It was Pence, and he was frantically staring at a camera. "They're gone! Our -- are gone!" He looked startled at the blank where the word was obviously supposed to have been.

"All our --, gone?" Hayner's face now wore an equally shocked expression.

"And not just the --, but the word --!" Roxas said. "They stole it, too."

"What kind of freaky thief is that?" Hayner asked, his surprise having calmed just a little.

"Seifer could never have done that," Olette said.

"Alright, time for some recon," Hayner muttered, and with that the three of them ran out through the curtain.

Roxas got up and made to follow, but suddenly a feeling of nausea took over him and he swayed, collapsing to his knees.

Voices echoed inside his mind, one deep and masculine and the other female, respectively. They sounded as though from a long way off:

_"His heart is returning. Doubtless, he'll awaken very soon."_

_"About time, I should say. Took a freaking year to get so much as the slightest response out of him!"_

_"Hush, Char."_

_"Why don't you try and make me?"_

Roxas groaned as the voices faded and he pushed himself up from the ground. _I guess I fell harder than I thought,_ he mused, putting a hand to his head to stifle the sudden slight headache. Standing back up, he brushed his pants off and looked around.

A sudden sound of footsteps heralded the arrival of Olette. "Roxas, come on," she said almost teasingly.

"Huh? Oh… right…" Roxas watched her head off, back toward where Hayner and Pence must've gone. It looked to him like they had gone in the direction of the Sandlot – no big surprise, really, considering that the Struggle tournament was in just a few days.

With that, Roxas started toward the Sandlot, brushing the curtain aside as he went.

The Sandlot was right outside the back alley, so he had no trouble getting there. Almost as soon as his foot touched the hard concrete ground he saw Hayner and the others talking with the other three of Seifer's gang. Roxas felt a feeling of slight panic bloom in his stomach as he walked up behind Pence. From the sound of it, this wasn't going to end well.

"Thieves," Fuu was saying in that simplistic way she had, pointing accusingly at Roxas and his friends.

"That was low, y'know?" Rai added. Vivi didn't say anything, being too timid to get into this sort of argument, and instead adjusted his weird little tan hat.

"Oh yeah?" Hayner challenged.

There came a snort from nearby. "Nice comeback, blondie," Seifer taunted, his long white coat billowing in the wind as he approached.

_"What_ did you say?!" Hayner snarled.

Roxas sighed softly. Oh, this was not going to end well at all.

"You can give us back the -- now," Seifer retorted.

"Yeah! You're the only ones who would take 'em, y'know?"

"Not that we need the -- to prove that you're losers."

Roxas could feel his temper rising at Seifer's words, and clenched his fist in an attempt to hide it.

"So what'd you do?" the white-coated teen went on, smirking at Roxas as though sensing his annoyance. "Burn it?"

"Replay," Fuu said.

Seifer laughed smugly. "Alright, _now_ you're talking!" Letting his eyes rove over the others, he added derisively, "Although I guess if you get on your knees and beg, maybe I'll let it slide."

Man, this guy was annoying Roxas. The spiky-haired blond narrowed his eyes even further until he was sure that they appeared as little glittering, blue slits. If only he could think of a way to get the little bully back for all this…

His eyes, slitted as they were, fell upon the three Struggle clubs that happened to be nearby.

_Hm._

Stepping forward, he bent his legs and kneeled at Seifer's feet, ignoring the scathing cackles of Seifer, Rai and Fuu. _Wait for it… wait for it…_

"Roxas!" Hayner yelled in shock.

And then the kneeling boy leaped up and raced toward the Struggle clubs, grabbing the one on the end as he went.

"You little –" Seifer snarled, seizing his own weapon and pointing it at Roxas. "You'll pay for that!"

Roxas swallowed. Great, what had he gotten himself into_ now? _Nevertheless, he managed to get the club so that both hands were clutching the handle and it was tilted upward to the right side. Somehow, it felt… _natural _holding this thing. It was weird, but true.

"Roxas, focus!" Pence called, and the blond gave a small nod in return.

"Kneel, loser!" Seifer shouted, and with that he practically charged at Roxas. Roxas barely managed to block it with his own strike and landed a flurry of blows on him, whipping around when the other attempted to hit him again. Quickly, before Seifer could do anything to stop him, Roxas dashed in and delivered one last finishing blow to his side, grunting with the force of it.

"Come _on," _the other taunted, getting to his feet almost at once. "Quit playin' around and fight!"

Roxas narrowed his eyes again. _Oh, fine then, if _that's _what you want… _

This time, though, Seifer took Roxas' moment of thought to sweep in from the side and hit him hard. Knocked backward, the spiky-haired blond quickly regained his bearings despite the pain of the blow.

Soon Seifer himself was kneeling, doubled over from Roxas' relentless onslaught.

"Errr, Seifer's not feeling so hot, y'know?" Rai said quickly, stepping in front of his leader.

"Tournament decides," Fuu added.

"Nice!" Hayner said, slapping Roxas a high-five. He eagerly returned it, rather relieved that he hadn't had to suffer further humiliation at Seifer's hands.

In the meantime, Pence had decided to get out his camera and snap a picture. Ah, but blackmail was a wondrous thing. Roxas turned and waved at the camera just in time to see the flash go off. Pence lowered the camera to give his friend a thumbs-up, only to have a white blur snatch it out of his hands.

"What the…"

The white thing, in three fluid motions, had managed to whip out of the Sandlot, camera still in tow. "What was _that?" _Hayner inquired irritably.

"The thief?" Olette wondered.

"Well, only one way to find out," Roxas said, and without another word he had vanished, following the white creature.

Hayner sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Man, he's just doing all kinds of weird things today, isn't he?"

* * *

Roxas finally managed to trap the speedy little thing after running through the woods – the creature hadn't been too hard to follow, really, since its white skin stood out against the blackness of the forest – and reaching the abandoned mansion. He was breathing slightly hard, but it was nothing serious; he whipped out his Struggle club and held it the same way he did before, all the while glaring defiantly at the white creature.

And then, to his shock, it seemed to _speak_ to him: a voice that seemed like nothing more than a slight vibration in his skull, but a vibration that formed words.

'We have come for you, my liege.'

"Huh?" Roxas' brow furrowed in confusion.

Seeming to ignore him, the zipper-like thing at the top of the creature's head, near the strange pristine symbol at the very top, moved so that the hood unfurled. Roxas, though somewhat unnerved by its words, ran forward to fight it. The way he saw things, since he'd just beaten Seifer, this _thing_ couldn't be that much worse. Freaking him out by saying really random things, but otherwise…

To his complete and utter bewilderment, however, no matter how he struck, no matter how much he dodged and parried the creature's attacks, the Struggle club seemed to go right through it, not unlike the cinnamon-haired girl to Sora in Roxas' dream. Roxas leaped back, frustrated. "It's no use…"

The stupid thing was still standing there, as though taunting him. He was about to run forward and see if he could just take the camera back and leave, but to his surprise something even weirder than the white thing's appearance in Twilight Town happened:

The Struggle club seemed to materialize in his hand, making a computer-like beeping sound as it did so. He only had one moment to slightly gather some nervousness at having no weapon before something else replaced the club. Lifting it up to get a better look, Roxas saw that it was a key-like weapon, blue at the end near the handle. The handle itself was yellow-gold; attached to it was a silvery chain with a steel circle that had two circles on top at the end of it.

"What –" Roxas started in confusion, only to have the key-thing seem to pull him forward toward the white creature. "What _is _this thing?"

Was it just his imagination, or was there a slight tremor in the way the white thing seemed to sway now? Shaking his head to clear it, Roxas quickly got into his battle stance.

It came at him in its typical fluid way; the blond dodged just behind it and took a whack at it with the key. Shockingly, it didn't go through it the way the Struggle sword had; in fact, the key knocked it backwards. Feeling a slight twinge of hope, Roxas continued beating away at the white thing until it vanished in a puff of transparent smoke. The wind blew the thin pieces of paper that the white thing had had toward Roxas. Confused, he made as if to pick them up, only to have the key disappear from his hand as he did so. He felt a thrill of disappointment that the weapon was gone, but picked up the paper nonetheless.

Only then did he realize that these were the missing photos.

* * *

Now they were all back at The Usual Spot, and Roxas, Pence and Olette were crowded around Hayner to look at the photos.

"What's this?" Hayner asked, pointing to the picture he currently had on top of the pile in his hands. It was of Roxas, standing next to a happy-looking old man in front of one of the shops.

"I was his first customer," Roxas explained, smiling at the memory. "So we took a picture together."

"So, Roxas," Olette said. "Tell us about the photo thief." They all grinned at the fact that they could say photo again.

Roxas shook his head. "Not much to say. The pictures were just… lying there." A fat, blatant lie, but would his friends exactly accept the fact that a giant house key had just appeared to him and he had beaten the white creature up with it?

Hayner's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to speak, but Pence beat him to it. "So, does anyone else notice that all the stolen pictures are of Roxas?"

"So _that's _why everyone thought it was us," Olette said.

"You mean it wasn't Seifer after all?" Hayner sounded almost disappointed, and Roxas laughed, punching his friend in the shoulder.

"Hey, at least I got 'em back, right?"

"Yeah, I guess." Hayner grinned.

"So…" Roxas turned to Pence. "Are they really all of me?"

"Yup." Pence handed the group of photos to his friend, and Roxas flipped through them. Sure enough, all of them seemed to include the blond boy.

"Wouldn't it be weird if the thief wanted to steal the real Roxas or something?" Pence joked.

"Yeah, right," Hayner snorted playfully, elbowing Roxas in the ribs. "Why would anyone want a bonehead like Roxas?"

"Oh, thanks a _lot."_

Everyone laughed at that until Hayner turned away and waved at them over his shoulder. "Well, I should be getting home. My parents would kill me if I were out any longer."

"Yeah, me too," Pence agreed. The others waved at Roxas as they all headed to the direction of their respective homes.

Roxas sighed softly. "Yeah…" He pushed the red curtain aside, only to raise an arm over his eyes against the light of the late afternoon sun.

First the dreams, then that weird white thing calling him "my liege"… not to mention the key-thing… Roxas doubted there could've been a stranger day that this.

_Too bad, Roxas. It's going to get a lot worse._

* * *

"_Where… am I?"_

_…"Who's there?"_

_…"Who're you?"_

'Restoration at 12 percent.'

* * *

The darkly-garbed, hooded figure walked up to the red-cloaked man sitting at the computer. At the former's side was a girl with long red hair, sixteen at the very most, who was clothed in the same black way as the other. She currently had her arms folded across her chest.

The red-cloaked man spoke. "Organization miscreants… They've found us."

"Well, this is just _perfect,"_ the girl snorted. "Just what we need, eh, DiZ?"

Her companion's glittering amber eyes swept down at her for silence, and the girl rolled her eyes in response. The amber-eyed person turned his attention back to DiZ. "But… why would the Nobodies steal photographs?"

"Think about it," the redhead interrupted before DiZ could open his mouth. "It's data, but the idiots would never know the difference."

DiZ gave a single nod and turned his gaze back to the computer screens. "We're running out of time," he murmured, looking at a certain screen that showed a spiky-haired figure on it. "Namine must hurry."

"She's going as fast as she can, DiZ," the redhead said. "All we can do now is hope Sora wakes up as soon as possible."

* * *

_A strange yellow dog licks at Sora's face. The young brunette groans slightly and lifts his head. "Where am I?" he wonders, getting to his feet._

_Sora runs desperately to the ledge. "What happened to my home? My island?!"_

_Sora whirls around and sees the black, bug-like things surrounding him, and his words echo with despair despite the weapon he holds in his hands. "Riku! Kai –"_

_"Who's there?!"  
__A tall, brown-haired man points a darkly gloved hand with all the authority of fate itself. "They will come at you out of nowhere, as long as you continue to wield the Keyblade."_

_The duck and the dog come flying out of nowhere, landing flat on Sora's back and knocking him to the ground. _

_"Hey, why don't you come with us?" the dog asks cheerfully. "We can go to other worlds on our vessel!"  
__"Sora, go with them," the brown-haired man says. "Especially if you want to find your friends."  
__"Donald Duck," the duck introduces.  
__"Name's Goofy," the dog adds._

_"I'm Sora," Sora says, placing his own hand on top of theirs. "I'll go with you guys."_

_"The Heartless have great fear of the Keyblade."  
__"So…" Sora begins, holding up the Keyblade to get a better look at it. "_This _is the key…"_

_"But the boy is a problem. He found one of the Keyholes."  
__Sora points the Keyblade at the huge keyhole on the door. A beam of light shoots out, seeming to resonate within the lock._

_"But why do you think we have these?" the brown-haired girl asks, raising her golden-bladed weapon by the spiky orange hilt to stare at it.  
__The blond, Roxas, shrugs. He closes his eyes for a brief moment, and after that a white blade, not unlike the girl's, appears in his right hand. "Anxclof, we're not going to know why the Keyblades chose us until we go out and _find out."  
_Anxclof sighs. "Not this again… Roxas, do you really think you'll be able to do that to the Organization?"  
Roxas places his free hand on her shoulder. "If that means meeting my Other, and finding out what would happen, then yes, I do."  
__Anxclof rolls her eyes. "You know what Xemnas said would happen if we Nobodies ever came into contact with our Others."  
__Roxas laughs. "Oh, come on. Aren't _you_ curious, too? Didn't you say that you think your Other's out there somewhere?"  
A light of uncertainty flits across the other's face; but it's gone so quickly one can't be sure. "Okay, I'll admit I've had… ideas."  
__"Then why not come with me?" Roxas prompts. "C'mon. It'll be fine." He suddenly laughs, but this time it's tinted with an undertone of bitterness. "I can see it now: Roxas and Anxclof, journeying for the truth. Cheesy, huh?"  
The brunette grins slightly. "Only a little."  
__"Then, it's a promise?" Roxas gives her the _look_, the classic puppy-dog eyes, that he knows she can't resist.  
__Anxclof rolls her eyes and puts her hand on his. "Right. Whatever."_

* * *

Roxas shot up in bed, his mind still reeling with the force of this dream. "A key… blade?" he murmured, flexing his fingers as though he could still feel the weapon in his hand.

_So… the thing I fought yesterday was a Heartless? But… aren't the Heartless I saw in my dream supposed to be black? _

_And why was I talking to that girl… who was it? _Roxas wracked his brain for a moment, trying to get a good feel of the dream back in his mind, before he remembered. _Anxclof? I don't know her anywhere. Didn't she have a Keyblade too?_

_What a mess…_

* * *

Anxclof: (looks up) Man, you suck at writing action scenes.  
Me: Oh, shut up. It gets better once Char gets a better part in the story!  
Char: Pfft, thank GOD.  
Me: I live with two cynics. Please kill me now.  
Char: Eh, that can be arranged.  
Me: O.O


	2. Chapter II

Pfft, oh, _thanks,_ people. It really tells me how interested you are when NO ONE REVIEWS BUT KAZE... (complain complain complain) But oh well - THIS time around, I'm going to keep posting whether you want me to or not. (smirk) But yeah, thanks to Kaze for reviewing. (Oh, what excellent advice you give, my friend... XD)

Char gets some action in this chapter. Yay. And Axel/Roxas/Anxclof friendship at the end. (If anyone gets a triangle from that I'm going to puke...)

**_Disclaimer-_** Don't own.

* * *

Roxas headed over to The Usual Spot, deep in thought. He flicked a stray lock of blond hair out of his eyes as he walked through the back alley, the echo of his footsteps registering absently in his mind.

"A Keyblade…" he murmured. Noticing a stick lying on the ground, he picked it up, stared at it for a moment. "What was that all about?" he wondered at last, and tossed it over his shoulder.

The sound of something making contact with something else startled Roxas and he turned to see the stick hit a dark-cloaked, hooded figure square in the chest before hitting the ground.

"Oh!" Roxas started, taking a few steps, but before he could apologize the figure, without so much as a snort of indignation, turned and headed off toward the Sandlot. "Er…" the blond said awkwardly. "Sorry… about that…"

_Well, _that _was weird… _Ignoring the tremor of apprehension at the cloaked figure's appearance, Roxas continued on his way toward The Usual Spot. It seemed that all sorts of weird things were happening to him lately…

Upon entering his and his friends' normal hangout, Roxas spotted Hayner, Pence and Olette enjoying the sea-salt ice cream that Twilight Town was famous for. One would think that the four friends would have put on a few pounds by now from consuming so much of the icy-blue treat, but for some odd reason they didn't. The spiky-haired boy suddenly realized that only now had he noticed the strangeness of the inconsequential ice cream consumption – _man, these dreams must really be getting to me_ – and instead of dwelling on it he sat down on a nearby crate.

Hayner noticed his friend sit next to him. "Hey, Roxas. We saved some ice cream for you." As he spoke he picked up another ice cream by the stick and offered it to Roxas.

"Thanks," the other muttered absently, taking it and giving it a few quick licks. The familiar flavor of it seemed to soothe him, as though the ice cream were somehow telling him that everything would be alright. A heaven-sent message from sea-salt ice cream – not exactly the most orthodox method, but it would have to work for now.

"So… I was just thinking earlier, and… do you guys think we'll always be together like this?" Pence asked, practically blurting out the last part in a rush, as though he assumed the others would think the idea was stupid.

"I sure hope so," Olette replied.

"Well, we can't be together forever," Hayner said, looking somewhat bemused at Pence's words. "But that's what growing up is all about, right? It's not important how often we're together, but how often we think about each other."

Roxas allowed himself a small chuckle. "Get that off a fortune cookie?"

"That's it, no more ice cream for you," Hayner told Pence, shaking his finger in a mock-reproving way.

"Just thinking out loud."

"Man, today's turning out to be a drag already," Hayner muttered, his traditional morning mood-swings immediately taking effect.

"Maybe because of yesterday's thief?" Olette suggested.

"Nah…" The wild-haired boy suddenly leaped up, looking as though he had just gotten a particularly brilliant idea. "I think I know what it is. It's just because we don't want summer to be over, is all! So, you know what we should do?" he continued, getting up and pacing with a finger in the air to make his point. It faintly reminded Roxas of one of their teachers giving a lesson. "We should go to the beach! And why are we going, you ask? Because we haven't gone all vacation, that's why."

He paused for breath and turned to grin expectantly at them. When there was no reply, his happy expression faded and he looked annoyed. "Oh, come on!"

"Maybe you forgot," Roxas said, "but we're broke."

"Maybe _you_ forgot that I'm smart!" Hayner retorted. He gestured to Pence and Olette. "C'mon, guys!"

Olette stood up and followed Hayner out of The Usual Spot, smiling somewhat sheepishly at Roxas as she went. With a cry of "Hey, wait up!", Pence had run out as well.

Roxas stood there, feeling partly annoyed and partly depressed. _Why_ couldn't he just relax and enjoy himself like his friends? Obviously, there was nothing to worry about: aside from the fact that summer was nearly over, of course, but that was inevitable. No, he was just being selfish, letting minor little things get him down and keep him from enjoying the last week of true freedom with his friends that he had left.

He looked up at the sound of Pence's voice calling "Roxas, hurry up!" Growling slightly under his breath, the blond ran out the door without looking back.

Roxas found his friends in Station Heights, looking at a Struggle poster. He smiled to himself at the look of excited anticipation on Hayner's face.

Hayner clapped Roxas on the back. "Just two days to go. We _have_ to make the finals. That way, no matter who wins, we all get to split the prize."

"Okay, you're on," Roxas replied cheerfully.

"You two are gonna clean up," Pence said.

"Go get 'em," Olette added.

"Now…" Hayner began, pacing around them again. "How much munny do we need?"

"Hm… it's 900 munny each to get on the train, and 300 each to spend there."

"So… that makes a total of 4800 munny," Pence quickly deduced, and Roxas inwardly sighed. Seriously, why did his friend bother to still do math during the summer, anyway?

"To spend on what?" the spiky-haired boy asked, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"Pretzels, of course!" Hayner answered, giving him a 'duh-you-should-know-this' look. "We can't get watermelon there; they're, like, 2000 munny apiece. Crazy, eh?"

"…Pretzels it is," Roxas agreed after a moment.

"So… how much munny do we have?" Olette asked. "I've got 650, but…"

"800." That was Pence.

The three of them turned to look at Roxas, and he sighed. "Only 150. Sorry."

Hayner sighed irritably. "We still need another…" Pausing, he looked at Pence for assistance.

"That makes 1600, so we still need another 3200. We need to get 800 munny each."

"Alright, then!" Hayner dusted off his hands. "We have until the train leaves to do some odd jobs and earn ourselves some dough!"

"Didn't you say you had it covered?" Pence asked with a sigh.

"But those pretzels are sounding pretty good…" reminded Olette.

"Well, _that_ took forever," Roxas muttered as he walked down the streets of Station Heights, away from the job billboard. He was still nursing a few injuries on his hands and knees from trying to skateboard around town getting those letters to the citizens. He mentally chided himself for getting so distracted by the weird dreams that even he, the self-proclaimed master of skateboarding, would suffer wounds from falling off of said skateboard.

Roxas waved idly to the people who were calling out to him as he walked; tried to smile like normal and fall into society just like he always did, but somehow he didn't think he pulled it off very well.

He let his eyes rove lazily around the streets, and instantly shot to attention. If he didn't know any better, he could've sworn he spotted the tails of a dark robe disappearing around the corner into the underground tunnel. Normally Roxas and his friends never used the tunnels, finding the trains to be more comfortable and less exhausting. But, remembering the dark person from this morning, the blond felt his curiosity piqued.

"Wait!" he yelled, and instantly regretted it when a few of the townspeople nearby turned to give him questioning looks. Ignoring the feeling of embarrassment that threatened to warm his cheeks, he broke into a run down toward the tunnel where the person had disappeared.

He skidded to a halt at the entrance and peered out; but he was greeted only by impregnable darkness. Roxas felt a stab of disappointment, but at the same time something seemed to whisper in his mind.

_It's not totally impenetrable, Roxas. _

The blond furrowed his brows in a confused frown – the voice sounded familiar somehow.

_Come on, Roxas. The darkness isn't that much to be afraid of. You should know._

Roxas shook the voice out of his mind; however, he didn't end up dwelling on it for long anyway, because he suddenly heard a soft splashing noise from somewhere further off, followed by the sound of profuse swearing. The boy winced at the vulgarity currently assailing his ears and, ignoring the pang of fear at the thought of venturing further into the unknown shadows, pursued the sound.

It wasn't long before Roxas spotted the source of the splash and the snarl – it was none other than the black hooded figure he had spotted this morning! The blond opened his mouth, somehow not quite knowing what he was going to say, then closed it as he realized this wasn't the same person from before. They were wearing the same dark coat, yes, but this person was smaller, more slender.

And, he quickly realized, the one before him was standing hunched slightly, one hand against the wall, as though they were in pain. Somehow he felt he should recognize this from somewhere, for some odd reason. For a moment, he thought of Anxclof, the mysterious brown-haired girl. But no, this figure seemed broader in the shoulders to him.

Roxas blinked, realizing he was analyzing this dream girl a little more than was healthy. He shook Anxclof out of his mind and focused on the person before him. They were currently muttering something under their breath, something that sounded suspiciously like "shouldn't have gone out into town today anyway". Roxas took a tentative step forward. "Um, are you okay?"

The other's reaction was almost instantaneous. The hooded head jerked up, and even though their eyes were invisible Roxas felt the unmistakable prickle of a gaze on him.

And was it just him, or was there more tension in the way the free fist clenched now?

Roxas' shoulders tensed slightly in nervousness at the way this person was looking at him, but nevertheless he spoke again. "I mean, I heard you fall in here, and…"

"I'm fine," the other interrupted sharply, their voice revealing them to be female. Roxas blinked at that realization; he'd never really seen many girls regularly around Twilight Town – only Olette and Fuu. From the looks of things, this girl seemed more like the latter.

His traitorous nerves flared up at once, causing his heart to beat faster in the traditional way of a teenage boy around unfamiliar girls. "Are you sure?" was all he could manage.

An irritated growl came from beneath the dark hood. "Would you stop it? I'm _fine._"

Roxas couldn't help but narrow his eyes. "You don't look fine to me."

An intake of breath from the other signaled that she was about to protest, but a few seconds later the leather-clad shoulders slumped in another sigh. "Why do you care?"

The blond blinked again as he realized that her voice had gone from angry and defensive to soft and nervous in almost no time at all. Seriously, was this girl bipolar or what? "Well, because when someone hears another person fall, it's human nature to –" He abruptly cut himself off and raised one eyebrow. "Wait, why am I explaining this to you anyway?"

The girl snorted. "'Human nature', huh. Got it. Remind me to put it down on the list of 'Things I Already Know'."

"Look, be glad I even bothered at all!" Roxas growled. The more this girl kept talking, the more annoyed he was becoming… Almost like she was unlocking a previously-unknown temperamental part of him. Not to mention that her ensemble – the dark hooded cloak – was starting to look more and more familiar to him by the minute.

She took another breath for another comeback, but to his surprise her shoulders slumped again. "Why are we arguing about something so stupid, anyway?"

Roxas' anger waned into confusion at her sudden change of tack. "You started it, you know," he responded childishly, the first thing that came to mind. "And it might be a lot less aggravating to talk to you if you took that hood down."

"Well, hate to break it to you, Roxas, but I can't do that," the girl snapped back, her temper flaring up again at once.

"And why –?" Roxas' sentence trailed off and he stared in shock at her. "How do you know my name?"

The dark shoulders stiffened. "Crap," she muttered under her breath, getting to her feet and letting go of the wall.

"Don't go yet," the blond growled. "Tell me what's going on!"

"Are you deaf or just plain stupid?" she snarled, and to his alarm two swords, silver-bladed like the Keyblade but longer and thinner, appeared in each half-gloved hand in flashes of light. "I told you, I can't do that!"

"Why?" Roxas shouted, wishing desperately that he had the Keyblade with him. Or could he call it at will the way the girl had called her weapons? He concentrated hard, trying to blot out every ounce of his surroundings in his mind…

"Look," the other snorted, tossing her head. Roxas caught a glimpse of her hair, barely discernible as red in the half light, being thrown back behind the hood as she did so. "We're getting nowhere with this. I have to be somewhere."

"I'll follow you, you know," the blond said, taking deep breaths to calm himself. "I'll know what's going on here – why you look so familiar to me, this 'Keyblade' stuff, all the stuff with Sora and the dreams…"

The redhead froze in the process of bringing one of her swords back. For once Roxas thought he could detect a trace of nervousness in her stance. "How do you know those are connected?"

"Aha!" Roxas cried. "So, you _do_ know something!"

Her grip tightened surreptitiously around the hilts of her blades and she swore profusely again. "I shouldn't have said that… should _not_ have said that at all…" she muttered under her breath, and turned away, her weapons vanishing as she did so. "Like I said, I have to be somewhere," she went on. Roxas supposed she was trying to get her composure back, but her voice shook slightly.

With that, the sound of uneven footsteps clattering against the ground heralded her departure through the tunnels. "I said wait!" the boy shouted, but didn't follow. How stupid would it be, to just race blindly after this girl he barely knew, who he thought had all the answers to his predicament?

Sighing, Roxas took a few more deep breaths, trying to alleviate his fury. Man, that girl knew how to push his buttons, didn't she?

He turned away and walked back toward Station Heights and the light.

Meanwhile, the redhead paused in her tracks, wincing at the pain in her ankle from where she had fallen earlier. Up ahead she could see the lights of the Tram Common, the fastest route to the woods. She frowned at the heat that had built up on the back of her head and neck from having the hood up, and reached up to take it down.

"I wonder when he's going to realize who and what he truly is?" she murmured to herself.

* * *

Hayner, who had been counting up the munny supply with Pence and Olette, promptly spotted him and ran over.

"Hey, Roxas. Did you get enough munny?"

"Yep!" Roxas affirmed, holding out a few bills.

"Nice work, everyone," Olette said, walking over and looking only slightly irritated with Hayner that he had interrupted their munny counting. "Added to what we already have, we've got…" She speedily counted up the bills Roxas had, then placed them all in the orange bag she always had with her and held it out for them to see. "5000 munny!"

"Sweet!" Hayner cheered.

"Let's go get tickets." And with that, Pence and Olette ran into the train station, leaving Hayner and Roxas outside.

"We can't be together forever." Roxas turned in surprise as Hayner spoke; his friend didn't usually sound this serious. "So we'd better make the time we _do_ have something to remember."

"Hayner…?" Roxas began.

The other looked at him for a moment; then Hayner gave Roxas a none-too-soft punch in the stomach. "Gotcha!" he laughed, and raced off after the others.

Rubbing his stomach and looking affectionately after his friends, Roxas started forward…

Only to have his foot catch on something he couldn't see, and get catapulted onto the ground. Falling hard on his chest, smarting from the pain, he groaned as he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. The stick from before came flying out of nowhere, landing next to him. He put a hand to his lower lip to see if it was bleeding, because it definitely felt like it was.

A sudden feeling of leather caressed him where neck met shoulder, but Roxas didn't have time to wonder who it was, because the gloved fingers tightened and pulled him roughly to his feet. Roxas fought the grip at first; he assumed it was the girl from before, but then the person spoke in a decidedly deep, masculine voice. _The guy I accidentally hit with the stick this morning… What, are these coats the new Twilight Town fashion now?_

But the cynical feeling growing within him was replaced by confusion at what the other man said, and Roxas tilted his head to the side in bewilderment.

"What?"

"Roxas!" Hayner yelled. "Three minutes!" Roxas turned to see that the three of them were standing at the station entrance, waiting for him.

"Coming!" he shouted back, and looked back at where the taller person had been.

There was no one there.

"What the…"

"Four students!" Hayner was saying excitedly, showing the aforementioned amount on his fingers as he spoke.

"Roxas, the money," Pence called.

"Yeah…" The spiky-haired boy dug absently through his pockets, only to have his senses abruptly jarred by surprise. "What –?"

Olette and Pence turned to look, and even Hayner looked up from the ticket booth. "What is it?"

Suddenly Roxas remembered the way the hooded man had pulled him up; his leather-covered shoulders had seemed to jerk, as if his hands were moving something. "He took it!" Roxas murmured, and made as if to leave the station.

"Where are you going?" Pence asked.

His friend turned to face the others. "Remember when I fell? I had the money before that! I bet that guy took it."

Olette's brow furrowed in confusion. "Guy…?"

"He couldn't have gotten too… far…" Roxas scanned the others' expressions, which made his last words considerably less hearty than his earlier ones.

Hayner crossed his arms. "What're you talking about? There was no guy."

Roxas' head, previously searching the ground, jerked up. "But he…"

His friends shook their heads in disappointment and turned away.

"There wasn't… really?" Roxas looked back down at the ground again. "There wasn't anyone… there?"

* * *

The four of them sat on the ridge of the Central Station clock tower, nibbling away at their respective sea-salt ice cream sticks as they watched the sun go down. Roxas stared absently at his own ice cream, occasionally giving it a slight lick. His appetite had deserted him today.

As he lowered the ice cream stick, a tiny ice-blue droplet seemed to detach itself from the rest of it and fell downward into the oblivion below the tower. Olette noticed, and spoke as she took a bite out of her own ice cream. "It's melting."

Even that innocent statement seemed to spark Roxas' guilt again. "Guys… I'm really sorry about earlier."

Pence shrugged. "It's okay. That was definitely weird, though…"

"Boy, you said it," Hayner laughed, though it sounded somewhat nervous. "I mean, a guy only Roxas can see stole our hard-earned 5000 munny? Really weird, seriously."

Roxas flinched and tried not to let his mind twist his friend's words into an indictment. Looking out at the pale clouds painted by sunset's palette, he repeated the hooded man's words softly to himself.

" 'Can you feel Sora?' "

* * *

'Restoration at 28 percent.'

"_Namine, hurry!"_

* * *

The crimson-cloaked man sat in front of the computer, monitoring the process of the restoration of Sora's memories. The redhead that Roxas had encountered earlier leaned against the wall on the other side of the screens, where the beam to the virtual Twilight Town was, with her arms folded and legs crossed. Close by, the taller, hooded figure tossed the munny bag up and down in one hand.

"For the last time, stop showing off already," the redhead muttered, lifting a half-gloved hand to brush the long bangs out of her eyes.

"You're one to talk," the other said, and even though his hood was up the disapproving demeanor in his words was unmistakable. "Didn't we tell you not to let Roxas see you whenever you go into town?"

"Hypocrite," she snorted in return. "Who was the one that stole his hard-earned cash, eh?"

DiZ glanced back at them from where he was observing the computer screen. "Char, you know the rules we set up when we first came here. You must not be seen."

"I kept my hood up," the girl grumbled to herself, crossing her arms irritably; but she didn't say anything else.

"But what are we supposed to do with the munny?" the hooded man asked, turning back to his elder.

DiZ chuckled. "We can always buy some sea-salt ice cream."

The redhead relaxed from her position leaned against the wall so she could whip toward the man at the computer. "Oh, for the love of Kingdom Hearts, DiZ, _please_ no more of that stuff. I've had enough of it to last me a lifetime!" she groaned.

"I'd have to agree with Char, DiZ." _For once,_ both added mentally.

DiZ turned back to the computer, and spoke without looking at them. "Objects from that town must be kept out of the real world. You can delete that."

"We could still buy something with it, though," Char grumbled.

The hooded man rolled his eyes.

* * *

_A white-bearded merman floats in front of a merman Sora, a turtle-like Goofy, and an octopus-like Donald. "As the Keybearer," the white-haired man says, "you must already know: One must not meddle in the affairs of other worlds!"_

_A red-haired mermaid is floating up to the top of a large undersea cavern. "So many places I want to see… I know I'll get there someday."_

_Sora, Donald, and Goofy stand in front of an odd, small creature and a light brown-haired man, in a room dimly lit by the light of a candle. "Therefore," the small creature announces, reading from a scroll, "I hereby dub thee junior heroes."  
__"Heyyyy," Donald growls, "what do you mean JUNIOR heroes?"  
__"You rookies still don't understand what it takes to be a true hero," the small creature replies in the same sharp tone._

_A black-haired man wearing purple looks up. "I wish… for your freedom, Genie."  
__The oddly blue-skinned man looks shocked. "Al!" His body glows, surrounded by rings of pinkish purple for a brief moment, before, with a cry, legs pop out of him._

_A skeleton wearing black speaks regretfully. "Sally, why didn't I listen to you?"  
__His companion, a mannequin-like woman, steps up to him. "Don't worry, Jack. We'll come up with another plan for Halloween." She grasps his bony hands in hers. "Next time, we'll do it together."_

_"Power!" Sora cries as he drives his Keyblade into the ground. Smoke and flames billow up above him before becoming a surprisingly tiny red dragon that lands on Sora's head.  
"I am Mushu!"_

_The silver-haired boy places his hands indignantly on his hips. "Or are you too cool to play them now that you have the Keyblade?"  
__"Riku!" Sora says, a mixture of relief and shock on his face. "What are you doing here?" Anxiety crossing his countenance, he adds, "Did you find her?"_

_"I still can't believe it," Sora says to Donald, Goofy, and a red-haired boy wearing green. The Keybearer laughs. "I really flew. Wait till I tell Kai – … I wonder if she'll believe me. Probably not."_

_A figure in a red cape passes Sora. "I'm searching, too," Sora says, and he has to crane his neck upward to look the figure in the eyes.  
__The figure chuckles, lifting a hand to brush spiky blond hair out of his eyes. "Heh. For your light? Don't lose sight of it."_

_A strange yellow bear sits with a piglet, a yellow rabbit, two kangaroos, and a brown owl. The piglet speaks. "Sora, where are you going?"  
__Sora looks back over his shoulder to speak_, _and a sad smile tugs at his lips. "I'm going to look for my friends. They're waiting for me."_

_"Where are Donald and Goofy?" Sora demands.  
__"Instead of worrying about them," Riku says, "you should be asking about her." He steps aside to reveal the cinnamon-haired girl. _

_Sora points the Keyblade at the grand clock. The keyhole, once again, reacts to the beam of light that fires out of it. _

_Roxas and Anxclof sit at the top of what any Twilight Town citizen would recognize as the station tower. This time, they're not alone – a man in the same black coat, with fiery red hair and dark green eyes, sits between the blond and the brunette; they both look somewhat disgruntled at the arrangement, but don't really voice their complaints.  
__"So, Axel… why did you bring us here, anyway?" Anxclof asks, looking with slight hostility at the redhead.  
__Axel shrugs. "Hm, no reason." He fishes around in his pocket for a moment before bringing out a box. He holds it out to them. "Sea-salt ice cream?"  
__"Why do you have to bring those every time we come here?" Roxas laughs, but he reaches in and takes one. After a moment of staring critically at the box, Anxclof reaches in and takes one of her own. She takes a lick, mutters "Not bad", and leans forward to eat more.  
__Axel smirks at what the brunette is doing, but his smugness fades a bit as he turns to Roxas. "The reason I told you guys to meet me here…" He sighs and takes a deep breath, as though steeling himself. Roxas tilts his head to the side, causing his blond spikes to sway a little; and Anxclof looks up from her ice cream. "I want you two to call off this whole 'find your Others' thing."  
__Anxclof gasps indignantly, but Roxas sighs and runs one hand through his hair, slicking it back briefly before it falls forward into his face again. "I figured you were going to say that. But, Axel, we've already decided that we're going." He gives Axel a look that is thoroughly reminiscent of a child standing up to his parent.  
__"Yeah, you can't really stop us," Anxclof adds, biting into her ice cream a little harder than necessary.  
__"Can I help it if I don't want to lose my friends?" asks Axel, looking pleadingly at them. "You guys both know you can't just up and leave the Organization whenever you want." Dryly, he adds, "I would've tried if I could."  
__"We've already discussed that too, Axel," Anxclof says, glaring at the redhead. "Besides, we don't even _have_ hearts to miss each other with."  
__"It won't ever stop me," Axel murmurs, looking away.  
__Roxas blinks in surprise; clearly it's not like his friend to talk like this. "Uh, so, hey, why don't we head to the beach now?"  
__"Hm, I guess." Anxclof stands, managing to keep her balance on the tower rail, and licks the last of the ice cream off the stick. "I haven't been there since that time right after I joined the Organization."  
__Axel sighs. "Fine, change the subject. But you're going to have to face it sometime."  
__Roxas and Anxclof, who've already stood up, turn their heads slightly to look at Axel. Both dark blue and dark green eyes are filled with impatience, and something else. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," the latter mutters, and with a flick of her wrist a dark portal has opened. "Come on, let's go."_

* * *

DiZ was typing something onto the computer when Char stepped into the room. "Hello, Char," he said without turning around.

The redhead frowned. "How'd you know it was me?"

DiZ sighed. "How I know is not important. Did you check on Namine?"

"Yeah, she's being a good little girl, drawing all of Sora's memories back just like we told her to." Char grinned slightly, revealing that her two front canines were slightly longer than they should've been. "Don't worry, she's doing what she's supposed to be doing."

"Good. She will have to be working as hard as she can if our hopes for revenge can be satisfied."

Char's brow drew over her ice blue eyes, and she grinned again, this time a dark smirk. "Excellent."

A small blond girl stood in a white-walled room, with green and blue rings mostly making up the floor. In front of her was a strange-looking, tall pod. Before Roxas had time to examine his surroundings more closely than that, it disappeared, to be replaced by a backdrop of pitch black.

The girl appeared again, and Roxas spoke – tentatively, hesitantly, not eager to escape this part of the dream. "Who are you?"  
She turned to look at him, and opened her mouth to speak; but then –

Roxas opened his eyes and let out a small moan of disappointment. He had been so close to finding answers that time…

Suddenly his sleep-gummed senses sharpened a little, and he felt a prickling on the back of his neck. Someone was watching him.

He whirled to see who it was, but no one was there.

* * *

Whee... Nice and long. Oh, Namine, you little stalker, you...

Oh, and I drew out a slightly perverted alternate ending to that Organization flashback scene. PM me if you want to see it. (But I'll just warn you right now - it's really bad. x.x)

I'm not going to review-whore, because that's just stupid. I'll just say that reviewers get previews of the next chappie.


	3. Chapter III

Zomg, 'tis a semi-short chappie? From ME? Be still my heart...

Actually, it's only because I've split Roxas' third day into two chappies, to save you the trouble of focusing for too long. XD (chased with torches and pitchforks)

Thanks to Kaze and xoxReneeOrionxox for reviewing! (note: reviewers will be mentioned individually until I get a few more)

**_Disclaimer-_** If I owned Kingdom Hearts, this would be the actual storyline, and there would be a scene where Anxclof and Roxas get locked in a closet together. x3 (shot)

* * *

Roxas stood at Station Heights, staring absently at one of the Struggle posters. In reality, though, his mind was whirling.

Who had that girl been from his dream – the one wearing the white dress? And why had Riku spoken so scathingly to Sora, if they were supposedly best friends? Roxas would bet that the Heartless had something to do with it. Plus, who was this "Axel" that had tried to dissuade him and Anxclof?

But in the meantime, in the real world, the blond was left to try and figure out the meaning of these strange dreams. By now, he had resigned himself to the fact that the dreams weren't just his mind going for a loop while he was asleep, and that hurt him more than anything.

He was startled out of his reverie when he heard Pence's voice. "Hey, Roxas."

The blond turned to see his overweight friend coming toward him with Olette at his side. "Morning," the latter greeted cheerfully.

But before they could complete their journey up the hill to speak to him, time seemed to stop, and the two of them had frozen mid-step.

"Huh?" Roxas ran forward, but he was abruptly stopped by a random golden-haired girl that had seemed to pop up out of nowhere. Skidding to a stop so as not to hit her, Roxas felt the breath catch in his throat as he recognized her.

_That girl… from my dream…_

She spoke, her smile somehow not reaching her dark blue eyes. "Hello, Roxas."

Roxas blinked, not knowing how to react to her greeting. "Hi…" he managed at last. After a moment he began, "And you are…?", but she held up a hand for silence.

"I wanted to meet you at least one," she said.

"Me?"

She laughed softly. "Yes, you."

Feeling a little embarrassed, he rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously; but before he could reply the girl had walked off down the hill.

With a whoosh of the air, time suddenly seemed to kick back in, and Pence and Olette headed up to Roxas. "Olette dragged me along to go shopping," Pence complained.

"Don't complain, you needed to walk anyway," Olette retorted, and turned to the blond boy with a grin. "Hey, do you want to come with us?"

"Um… wait, did you just see that…?"

Pence sighed. "He's stalling."

Olette stifled a giggle behind her hand. "Very well then. We'll see you later, Roxas, okay?"

"Uh, yeah, right." Roxas watched his friends run off toward the Station Plaza, and then directed his gaze to the direction in which the white-wearing girl had gone. "Did she go to that haunted mansion?"

* * *

Roxas halted just beyond Tram Common's entrance to the woods, searching the dark gloom. He had seen the girl go this way, so where could she be?

He had barely taken a step forward when a portal of darkness coalesced in front of him. A swishing sound heralded the fluid slithering of the white creature from two days ago; only this time, there had to have been at least four of them.

One of them quickly materialized above his head and seized his arm before he had time to react. Roxas shuddered inwardly at the scaly feel of it and jerked away. "Lemme go!" he cried, turning around and racing back into Twilight Town.

As the wind rushed past his ears and ruffled his hair in his desperate sprint, he turned his head slightly and, to his dismay, saw that the white things were following him. _Great. _Now what was he supposed to do?

He turned back to face forward again, only to race to a clumsy halt when he realized he had reached the Sandlot. And who should be there but Seifer and the rest of his gang?

"Hey, chickenwuss," Seifer jeered as Roxas ran past.

Roxas whirled around and saw that the white things were slithering toward him, seeming to ride the wind in their pursuit.

"Who's that?" Fuu asked, quickly going into a battle stance, as did Rai. Vivi, being the timid mage he was, turned and ran clumsily behind the Struggle board.

"I dunno," Seifer growled. "But they've already crossed the line! Find a weapon!"

Looking around, Roxas noticed the Struggle club lying on the ground. He picked it up, getting into his own battle stance. Again, he was struck by how natural it felt holding a weapon like this. _Almost like Sora with the Keyblade…_

He didn't have much time to reminisce about his dream, however, because suddenly one of the white creatures came toward him in a fluid charge. As though that were a signal, the other three immediately split up as well to take on the others.

Roxas leaped backward to avoid the enemy's strike, and dodged past its slithering attacks to hit it with the club. But, like before, the weapon just went right through it, and Roxas was knocked backward.

"Not good…" he muttered as he got to his feet.

The others were standing back to back as the other white things circled around them. Then, time seemed to freeze again, but for the white things that continued to move as though watching their prey.

"Roxas!" came a sudden voice. "Use the Keyblade!"

Roxas looked up and saw the girl from before, leaning on the rails of the roof of one of the buildings. "Look out!" she suddenly called.

He whipped around and, with a burst of panic, saw one of the strange enemies gliding corkscrew-like toward him. Quickly, he did the first thing that came to mind: throwing his arms up in front of his face in self-defense.

A flash of white assailed him from behind his arms, and to his confusion the sound of the wind whispering reached him as well. Roxas lowered his arms slowly and gasped at his new location.

He was standing on what seemed to be a platform of stained glass. Looking around, he saw a certain boy with spiky brown hair sitting with his eyes closed and holding the Keyblade. Roxas' eyes widened as he realized who it was.

_Sora?_

Surrounding Sora, with blue sections of stained glass, were pictures of Donald, Goofy, Riku, and the cinnamon-haired girl. Upon walking around to further see the entire picture, Roxas saw that as a backdrop of the pictures, there was a shot of a serene beach and an ocean horizon.

With a sudden metallic murmur, something seemed to materialize in front of him. Three things, to be precise: a blue-hilted sword; a green staff with three rounded, blue spheres on the top of it; and a red-and-black shield with the same rounded circles as its design.

Feeling inwardly desperate at the fact that there was no exit from this place, Roxas stared at all the weapons in front of him. He walked forward slowly and found himself instinctively pulled toward the sword. Yes, offense had always been one of his worst points; perhaps the short blade would make it better. Roxas couldn't explain it, but he somehow knew that the sword would provide him with more attack power.

Tentatively he reached up to grasp the hilt. It felt heavy and awkward in his hand, but at the same time he could feel some sort of power flowing up into him. _Yes…_This would be the one.

The staff and the shield disappeared, and the sword in his hand materialized to be replaced by the silver Keyblade. _Hm. _Roxas lowered it to get a better look.

Suddenly he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He whipped around and saw more of the strange white enemies slinking up to surround him. His senses considerably sharpened from the danger, he dropped into his battle stance, with the Keyblade wielded to his right side.

Dodging around his enemies' strikes, Roxas lashed out hard with the Keyblade. It sliced through two of the white things, dissolving them in a wisp of light, but while he was preoccupied one of the others slipped behind him and struck him from behind. With a cry of pain Roxas turned and, dodging its next attack, hit it hard with his weapon. It dissolved as well, and the last one, though it landed a couple of blows on him, fell eventually to his attacks.

Breathing somewhat hard, Roxas relaxed and looked around. He saw something that looked like a treasure chest appear in a beam of light at the edge of the platform. At first he wasn't sure how he was going to get it open, but then he noticed the Keyhole on the front of it. _I wonder…_

He stepped up and extended the Keyblade toward the chest. The chest reacted to it immediately, popping open at once. Roxas looked inside and picked up what looked like a Potion. _At last, some healing items,_ he chuckled to himself. _Maybe now I'll fight without fear of dying to multiple enemies. _The thought gave him some comfort.

The comfort was eclipsed by sudden fascination as he turned to see a door, strange designs looping around the frame, coalesce in front of him in an identical beam of light.

_Be careful,_ came a soft voice. Roxas started and looked around, but eerily, there was no one there. The voice continued, and Roxas could feel his spine prickle nervously. _Beyond that door lies a completely different world._

The blond boy took a step toward the door, his heart pounding against his ribs. _But don't be afraid, _the voice said. _Don't stop walking…_

Swallowing in an attempt to calm himself, he seized the doorknob with one hand and turned it – slowly, as though afraid some sort of monster would fly out and knock him to the ground. But then he sighed and squared his shoulders. _Come on, Roxas! You fought all those things and won! What else could happen?_

And then he cringed and mentally cursed himself for the unintentional jinxing words.

Nevertheless, he practically yanked the door open, so that his head could fit through it, and he poked his head through to glance around.

He saw another stained-glass platform in front of him, with a couple of winding stained-glass paths leading up from it. Roxas blinked to clear his eyes at the myriad of bright colors in his vision; pushing the door further open with one hand, he stepped through.

Almost immediately after he'd entered a couple of the strange white things appeared, seeming to slide down from above. Roxas groaned inwardly and summoned the Keyblade to fight them off. As they dissolved in a beam of light, the boy wondered if there were going to be more of those annoying things ahead, on the other stained-glass paths.

He noticed a chest like the one he'd opened earlier, and tapping it with the Keyblade took out the Potion inside. Placing it in his pocket, he looked around again and shivered. Not only was the wind buffeting his already-messy hair slightly, but sheer blackness surrounded him on all sides beneath the path. _Wouldn't want to fall down there…_

Steeling himself, he took a few deep breaths and kept walking. He had to focus; had to find a way out of here. As he walked, he suddenly heard the voice again, and instinctively started at the strange words.

_You are doing well, Keybearer. Keep walking through the Station of Calling, and you will find the way home._

Roxas blinked. So, that was what this place was called…

_Station of Calling._

* * *

The very first boss fight is coming up next chap! I thought I did pretty well on it, but...

Anyway, this was mostly just stuff from the game; however, I felt like spicing it up a little, with Roxas' thoughts and details on the action.


	4. Chapter IV

YES, I'm not supposed to be on right now. Do I care? No.

Well, I'm sneaking on to give this chappie to you, so... be happy. x.x (Hey, that rhymes! XD -easily amused-)

**_Disclaimer-_** Own Kingdom Hearts, I do not - though I am the proud new owner of a crown necklace like Sora's. Oh yeah, and my OCs, too.

* * *

Roxas opened the door, only to find himself on yet another stained-glass platform. He sighed and wondered if this winding path would ever end.

He looked around for a moment, then felt his body prickle. Like someone… or something… was watching him. Like the feeling he'd gotten this morning, only twice as powerful.

He turned to see the man in the black hood for a brief moment, but his anger at seeing the other again was instantly eclipsed by an unpleasant mixture of shock and horror. Roxas backed up, frantically searching for an exit other than the one that led below, as what looked like blue antennae wiggled up from the depths. Following these strange appendages was the white monster that went with it… and judging by the roaring gale that accompanied its arrival, the thing wasn't happy at all.

Its entire body was off-white, but the symbol on the top of its head, like the smaller white enemies, was a pure snowy color. It had what looked like a blue scarf around its neck, where the "blue antennae" were coming up from like a mimicking darker cloud. However, its hands somewhat resembled crab claws, and Roxas gulped at the thought of being strangled by one of those.

Total fear taking over for a moment, he whirled around and started for the edge, only to catch himself and barely keep his balance in time. Slowly he turned, heart pounding like a relentless demon against the inside of his ribs. Despite his panic-fogged mind, one word was echoing insistently within:

_Fight._

Well, Roxas told himself, it was either that or leap off the edge. The former sounded much more appealing, but _maybe_ it was just him.

Putting a hand out, he summoned the Keyblade to him. As though that were some sort of signal, the monster threw its head back, and Roxas suddenly felt something surround him. Looking down, he gasped at the sight of his middle body almost completely covered in what looked like jagged purple-and-white, thread-thin lightning bolts.

He closed his eyes against the flash of light that permeated his vision, and then the next thing he knew he was bound by his wrists and ankles in midair by more of the purple-and-white stuff. The monster glided up from below and leaned forward, as if savoring its foe's fear; then it was pulling its "hand" back, getting ready to strike him. Roxas managed to get the hand that held the Keyblade, as well as the same ankle, free and knock it back with the weapon. However, the enemy wasn't fazed; it merely whooshed back in a series of quick, fluid motions, seizing him with its "hands" and throwing him high up into the air. Before it could strike back, however, Roxas had slashed it, hard, with the Keyblade on the way down, and the monster tumbled over the side of the platform.

The blond felt a wave of confusion wash over him; was it over that easily? He ran over to the edge and peered down, only to gasp in terror as he felt his center of gravity shift. He just barely managed to stick the Keyblade in the edge of the cliff before he fell down into the darkness.

Well, almost darkness.

Roxas chanced a look down and saw the monster hanging upside down on the platform, holding what looked like a sphere of purple-and-white light in its claws. It pushed down hard with its feet, shaking the platform and knocking Roxas off with it. With a cry, he fell, but as he twisted in midair something took over him, and he threw the Keyblade into the sphere. "Gotcha!" he yelled as the sphere dissolved, but his triumph was replaced when he slammed down on his back onto the platform. Pain shot up through him but he didn't have time to dwell on it, as the monster landed hard as well, leaving its head vulnerable to him. Quickly he got to his feet and placed a foot on the ground to help him get the Keyblade, which had stuck into the platform when Roxas had landed, out.

He landed a few good blows to the monster's head before it got up as well. Its head glowed for a brief moment before it fired more of the light-like stuff at him. Roxas rolled and dodged in midair and slashed at its head. As gravity pulled him back down again the monster suddenly seemed to push itself to the ground and lashed out at him with a claw. He was knocked backward but quickly steadied himself in time.

It wiggled back up so that its head was high above him again, only to push itself down again, this time standing on its head. More of the light-like substance, black and white, flared out towards him, but this time there was a lot more.

_Man…_Roxas thought as he whipped through the half-invisible onslaught, getting in a few slashes here and there and dodging more of the smaller white enemies in a strange battle dance. _Why won't this thing _give_ already?_

During his mental rant the monster had decided to send more of the light stuff at him, making pain blossom in his middle. _Gotta focus, Roxas,_ the boy reminded himself as he quickly tossed up a Potion to heal himself and continued his attack.

At last, after another binding of light and nearly falling off the cliff again, with a final, exhausted swipe to the monster's head, the battle was over. The creature threw its head back, its "scarf" flapping furiously in the wind. Roxas backed up again, feeling the Keyblade disappear in his hand as he did so, and whimpered when he saw the huge monster fall down… down… down, practically on top of him. He instinctively covered himself with his arms again, but behind his arms he saw a swirl of darkness surround both him and the fallen enemy.

His relief turned to fear as he felt the tendrils of darkness grasp his wrists and pull him forward, not unlike in his first dream with Sora and Riku. Roxas struggled furiously, reaching out his hand in a last desperate attempt to be freed. To his complete and utter shock, a separate hand took hold of his wrist, and the flash of white light that accompanied it nearly blinded him.

Roxas took down his arm from in front of his face when the light cleared to look around. He seemed to be in a dark bluish room, almost completely devoid of life but for the blond girl from earlier that sat in front of him.

He opened his mouth, not quite knowing what to say. The questions all tumbled around in his head; _what's going on _tripped over _why is this happening to me_ and stumbled on top of _what are the dreams about, anyway_ until Roxas felt that it was all nothing more than a desperate word scramble in his mind.

However, the girl put a finger to her mouth for silence, and spoke: slowly, as though afraid he wouldn't understand. Or… wouldn't _want_ to understand. "My name is Namine," she said.

Roxas just stared, feeling like an idiot. Mentally he chided himself and started to speak again, but again, she interrupted.

"Roxas…" she began. "Do you remember your true name?"

_Well, of _course_ I do, _he wanted to say. _It's Roxas. _But somehow the words felt like they wouldn't fit in a serious situation like this: like they would anger Namine, somehow.

A dark-clad hand yanked Namine to her feet, not unlike the way Roxas had been yanked up in the station plaza. "Say no more, Namine," the hooded person said in a deep voice.

"But if no one tells him, Roxas will…"

"It's best he doesn't know the truth. Char has already gotten too close to telling him before. We shouldn't push it again."

"Hey!" Roxas interrupted, feeling annoyed that he was being left out of this. He pointed accusingly at the black-coated man. "You're that pickpocket!"

The man ignored him, instead extending a hand to the side. Roxas heard something being conjured behind him and turned to see a portal of darkness swirling in shadowy circles. The black-coated man reached forward before Roxas could do anything and pushed him unceremoniously into the portal.

* * *

"Seifer, strike a pose, y'know?" Roxas awoke to the sound of Rai's voice.

"How's this?"

"That's _perfect,_ y'know?"

Roxas pushed himself upward on his hands and knees and looked around. The first thing he saw was Seifer's white coat, and then his friends in front of him, taking pictures with Fuu's camera.

"How about one more, y'know?" Rai asked eagerly.

Roxas stood up and walked up to them. "What's that for?"

"Keepsake," Fuu replied simply.

"Those freaks in the white jumpsuits are gone, y'know?"

"Cakewalk."

"What were those _things?" _Roxas asked, hoping for some answers.

"Outsiders, that's what," Seifer replied. The spiky-haired one mentally sighed; he never really got a straight answer from any of Seifer's gang, anyway.

"And if they don't wise up to the rules around here," the other continued, cracking his knuckles, "I might have to take a few 'disciplinary measures'."

Roxas heard footsteps and turned to see his friends walking into the Sandlot. He felt a thrill of embarrassment and horror as Hayner shook his head reprovingly and let out a "hmph" before he ran away. Pence and Olette exchanged an uncomfortable glance and gave Roxas an apologetic shrug before following. "Hey, wait up!" Roxas called, racing after them with a guilty feeling beginning to form in the pit of his stomach. First he runs away to find that girl Namine; then they come looking for him, only to find him seemingly goofing off with Seifer and his posse… _What must they think of me now? _Roxas wondered.

"Hey!" Seifer yelled after the retreating blond. "No chickening out of the tournament tomorrow!"

"We'll be waiting, y'know?"

Roxas dismissed their voices as fly-like buzzes in the back of his mind; he was too busy thinking of how he was going to cover this to Hayner and the others.

* * *

Roxas stepped into The Usual Spot to find his friends – what else? – eating sea-salt ice cream. Pence and Olette turned to look at him, but Hayner continued to look stubbornly away, and Roxas felt a prickle of frustration toward his friend.

"So…" Pence began, carefully, as though afraid of rousing Roxas' temper. "You hung out with Seifer's gang today?"

"No, it wasn't like that. It…" Roxas saw the disbelieving looks on their faces and quickly decided to change the subject. Unfortunately, it wasn't so tactful as he thought it would come out. "Oh, um, how was the beach? Wasn't that today?"

"We didn't go," Olette spoke this time, finding her shoelaces very interesting all of a sudden. "It wouldn't be the same without you, right?"

"You guys didn't have to do that…" Roxas rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. He turned to Hayner. "Hey, um, we could go tomorrow! We could get some pretzels, and…"

For the first time, his friend looked up, and fixed him with such a smoldering gaze Roxas flinched. "I promised I'd be somewhere," Hayner answered coldly.

"Oh," was all the spiky-haired boy could manage. Suddenly he remembered what his friend meant: the Struggle tournament.

_"You and I have to make the finals! That way, no matter who wins, the four of us split the prize!"_

_"Okay, you're on."_

_"You two are gonna clean up."_

_"Go get 'em."_

Roxas and Hayner shared an awkward silence; then Hayner stood up. "I'm outta here," he grumbled, starting in the direction of his house.

* * *

'Restoration at 48 percent.'

* * *

"So was that Namine made of data?" Char asked.

DiZ sounded somewhat bewildered when he spoke. "No. She managed to hijack the data herself." With an irritated sigh, he slammed one fist on the keyboard, causing a myriad of random characters to appear onscreen. "Look what she's done now… She's completely out of my control!"

"Calm down," the black-hooded man said, and Char nodded in agreement, making him turn to her in surprise. "What are _you_ agreeing for? You get angry easily yourself!" The redhead snorted and rolled her eyes, but did not argue.

"It doesn't matter," DiZ muttered. "As long as Namine accomplishes her goal, we needn't worry about what befalls Roxas."

"Yeah, I wouldn't think he needs to know his 'true name' anyway," Char added, doing air quotes on the words _true name._ "Knowing what he is and all."

The dark-coated man looked away, and Char raised one eyebrow. "Speaking of which…" She grinned, her slight fangs making it look more like a smirk, and the anonymous person sighed.

"What might be _your_ true name, Dark Emo Boy? Go on, refresh my memory."

The other looked almost pleadingly to DiZ, but the red-wrapped man was looking expectantly at him. "Yes. Do tell us."

The 'dark emo boy' sighed, and took off his hood to reveal dark skin, glittering amber eyes, and silvery-gray hair that fell well past where the hood of the coat began. "It's Ansem," he growled.

DiZ and Char exchanged glances, as though sharing their own private joke. The girl laughed, while the other simply looked what could only be described as cynically amused. "Nice to meet you, _Ansem."_

Ansem narrowed his amber eyes. "And just because I'm fighting the darkness all the time, doesn't mean you need to act like that, _Char."_

Char rolled her eyes. "Whatever, man. Do what you want." Her mood changed to a kind of fascinated brooding as she leaned over DiZ's shoulder to watch the computer screen, locks of red hair falling over her own shoulder as she did so. "Nearly halfway there," she murmured.

DiZ nodded simply, acknowledging her statement. "If the Organization doesn't manage to intercept us, this will all end in time."

Ansem gave a single nod in reply, but otherwise said nothing. The trio stood in silence for a moment before Char straightened. "Well, I'm gonna go get some pretzels," she announced.

"You do that," Ansem muttered dryly.

Char gave him a scowl. "None for you, then." With that, she swept out of the room, her dark coat making a swishing sound against the air.

Sighing, Ansem turned his own gaze onto the screen. "Sora…" he murmured.

* * *

_Sora seems to glide through what looks like a tunnel of light. He reaches out for the cinnamon-haired girl, but the image of her disappears before he can get to her._

_"It's up to me," Riku announces grimly, as Sora struggles briefly just before the Keyblade appears in the silver-haired one's hand. "Only the Keyblade master can open the secret door and change the world."_

_Riku, clad this time in a strange purple-red-and-white outfit, shoots a dark jet of fire toward Sora. Sora instinctively covers himself with his hands, but remains unscathed thanks to Goofy, who had blocked it with his shield just in time. "But I'm not gonna betray Sora, either," the dog says, almost defiantly.  
__"All for one and one for all," Donald adds.  
__Riku stares down in shock as the Keyblade vanishes from his hand and reappears in Sora's.  
__"My friends are my power!" the brunette says._

_Sora shakes the cinnamon-haired girl frantically, but she doesn't wake._

_A brown-furred, fierce looking beast speaks. "So, your heart won this battle," he murmurs, and Sora nods in agreement._

_A black-coated figure, similar to the one that had been showing up to Roxas, steps through Sora, and the brunette falls to the ground. He turns and stares in confusion at the retreating man.  
__However, the other whirls around and, extending his fingers, fires a shadowy beam at Sora. The Keybearer blocks it with his weapon in response, and manages to send the darkness flying into the wall.  
__The cloaked man and the younger boy stare each other down as the darkness seems to drip from the ceiling in a strange but oddly beautiful drizzle._

_Riku, wearing his purple clothes, is standing in front of a portal of some sort, holding a weapon that faintly resembles a bat's wing. "It is I, Ansem!" he cries, lifting the blade. "Lead me into everlasting darkness!"_

_Sora is on his hands and knees as his former friend brings the sword down. "Sora!" a voice suddenly cries, and the brunette abruptly leaps up to block Riku's strike.  
__"Forget it," Sora says, in what is as reminiscent of a snarl as he has ever gotten in these dreams. "There's no way you're taking Kairi's heart!"_

_Donald and Goofy reach out, looking horrified. Sora gives them a sad grin, and plunges the blade into his chest. The boy's heart coalesces in front of them and floats upward in a pink trail, to go into Kairi's body. The girl opens her eyes._

_Kairi tries to catch her falling friend, but he vanishes in a flash of golden light before she can touch him._

_Sora and Kairi, in a gentle embrace. "Kairi…" the brunette murmurs._

_"We may never meet again," an older brown-haired man says, "but we'll never forget each other."  
__"No matter where we are," his female companion, clad in a pink dress, adds, "our hearts will bring us together again."_

_"Take this," Kairi says, taking Sora's hand and slipping something into it. Sora looks at it and sees a star-like object on the end of a chain.  
__"It's my lucky charm," the girl continues, and places her fists on her hips to make her point. "Be sure to bring it back to me!"  
__Sora cradles it in his hand. "Don't worry. I will."  
__"Promise!"_

_Sora points his Keyblade at a pinkish mass of cloudy light. "Don't forget," Kairi's voice murmurs as the infamous beam of light shoots out of the weapon. "Wherever you are, I'm always with you."_

_Roxas' eyes blink open as he hears a knock on the door. Sighing, he sits up in bed, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. "Come on in, it's open."  
__After a moment, the door creaks open, to reveal a messy-haired, eye-rubbing, pajama-clad Anxclof. Roxas can't hold back a snigger. "Nice bed-head."  
__"Oh, shut it," the brunette growls, straightening her dark shirt. "Move yourself over so I have room."  
__Roxas blinks, and his cheeks redden slightly. "Uh… what…?"  
__"You heard me."  
__"Um, okay… Would you mind telling me what brought this on…?"  
__"Nothing!" Anxclof shouts back, a little too hastily, the blond notes.  
__"Oh, come on. You can tell me." Roxas does scoot over a bit as he speaks, just so Anxclof won't summon her Keyblade and slash at him until he gives in.  
__The brunette snorts. "Uh, _no,_ I can't. You'll laugh at me."  
__"Why would I?"  
Anxclof hesitates, and after a moment, during which it looks like she's about to leave, she lets out the breath she was holding. "Okay. Just don't tell anyone."  
__Roxas smiles. "Your secret's safe with me."  
__Without further ado, his fellow Nobody flops down next to him, and promptly stretches out, her hands in a nonchalant position behind her head. "Okay," she mutters, taking a deep breath. She turns her head so their eyes have met, dark green to dark blue. "I had this freaky dream, okay?"  
Roxas blinks again. "A dream? That doesn't sound like you. Nobodies don't dream."  
__"I _know_ that, okay?" Anxclof snaps back, but then sighs, as though the force of her anger has taken her strength. "I just… It was really weird, because I don't remember anything like this having anything whatsoever to do with me. In the dream, I'm someone else – a girl who's a lot like me. She's got a Keyblade too, I think. And…"  
__"And?" Roxas prompts.  
__"And… it was…" Anxclof bites her lip. "It was really weird. I was at the top of this tower – kinda like the ones here, but this one had a reflective bottom, so you could _see_ Kingdom Hearts in it. I was yelling at this long-haired blond guy, and –" She sighs. "Now you're going to think _this_ is really weird."  
__"I've probably seen weirder."  
__"Xemnas was there, too."  
__Roxas' eyes widen. "Seriously?"  
"Yeah. If I remember right, he was right next to the blond guy, smirking and taunting me and giving the blond orders. So, in the end, I get really pissed off, because these guys seem to have _killed_ my parents."  
__"Parents?" Roxas asks, tilting his head to the side. "Nobodies don't have parents, either. They just kinda… get…"  
__"Spawned, yeah," Anxclof mutters. " So apparently, my parents aren't good enough for the Organization, and so Xemnas killed them. I get pissed because of that, and I summon my Keyblade to finish off both the blond and the Superior."  
__Her voice trails off.  
__"And?" asks Roxas.  
__"And that's all I remember. When I woke up, I remembered it, and I got so freaked out I had this weird urge to get out of that room. And I knew Axel wasn't going to be mature about it, so…"  
__"You chose my room," Roxas concludes.  
__Anxclof looks a little embarrassed. "Pretty much, yeah."  
__The blond sighs. Almost against his own will he finds his hand moving forward to her shoulder. "Well, first of all, you made the right choice." He makes a face. "It's not like Axel's the most pure, mature person in the world either…"  
__"Another excellent point."  
__There's a few moments of long, awkward silence, during which both Anxclof and Roxas' cheeks tinge a dark red.  
__"I take it that promise's still intact?" Roxas asks teasingly, snaking his arm around her shoulders to pull her slightly closer. The breath catches in his throat when she doesn't pull away.  
__"Oh, what, the whole 'leave the Organization together' thing?" Anxclof murmurs. "Meh. Don't worry about it."  
__They manage to fall asleep like that, even though both of them by now are blushing redder than tomatoes.  
__Strange, because they're not supposed to have hearts…_

* * *

Roxas came awake with a start, his eyes bursting open. He sat up and looked around his room. "Right… promise…" he muttered under his breath, and swung his arm as if swinging an imaginary Keyblade.

_Kairi…_

_And Anxclof, too. _He blushes hard at the memory.

_So… how did things change from back then, anyway?_

* * *

Whee for the Anxy/Roku fluff. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when they have a "moment" - especially when you see how things get later on.

Review, everyone!


	5. Chapter V

Yeah, no cheesy fluff flashbacks in this chappie. Aren't you all happy:D

So, for the most part, this sticks to game canon... only, knowing Char, we all realize she's going to fuck it up somehow XD

And yes, I realize I've slacked off on my chappie previews... sorry. T.T I'll do my best, okay? The only reason I'm posting this at all is because I finished all my homework (stupid high school).

**_Disclaimer-_** Another chapter, and I still don't own KH. Seeing a trend here? However, I do own Char and Anxclof.

* * *

Roxas stumbled out of bed, not really focused on what he was doing as he threw on his clothes. So, Sora had made a promise to Kairi, to bring that charm back to her… Roxas wondered where Kairi had gone, to make her parting words to Sora sound so bittersweet as the brunette had pointed the Keyblade at the cloud of smoky light.

He remembered how strange it had been that Anxclof had dreamed, and wondered why. What were those Nobodies she and Roxas had been discussing, anyway?

Part of Roxas wished he still had the Keyblade, because while the Struggle club worked against opponents in Twilight Town tournaments, it obviously didn't have an effect on, in Rai's words, "the white freaks in the jumpsuits" that had been showing up lately.

Come to think of it, Roxas realized, those white things _were_ almost like the Heartless from his dream… only different, somehow.He frowned slightly with a wrinkle of his brow. Something was nagging him at the back of his mind, but he couldn't place what it was.

Suddenly he gasped and looked at his alarm clock. It read 8:25. He quickly rummaged through his mental filing cabinet and realized that the Struggle tournament started in five minutes.Hastily he shoved his arms into the appropriate sleeves on his shirt, growing impatient as the right sleeve stubbornly refused to accept his arm, and raced down to the Sandlot.

As he was running through the Back Alley, hitching a few short breaths between footfalls, Roxas heard a masculine voice say, "Hurry up; you'll be late!" _As if I don't know that already,_ the boy thought irritably. He rushed to a clumsy halt next to Hayner, who was standing on the edge of the platform that served as the Struggle field.

"About time, man!" Hayner hissed as his spiky-haired friend leaned over with his hands on his knees, trying to get his breath back. "Where were you?"

Lifting his head slightly, Roxas smiled sheepishly. "Asleep?"

Hayner rolled his eyes and punched his friend in the shoulder. "C'mon, Roxas. How do you expect to split the prize if you don't even show up to the thing in the first place?"

Roxas shot his friend a grateful glance as he straightened and opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the man who was the main producer of this year's Struggle tournament: an overweight man with thinning black hair and mustache who was nearly always seen in a yellow vest over a green shirt.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he cried in a booming voice, "Struggle-fiends of Twilight Town! It's time for summer's most sizzling clash. That's right – today is the day of our annual Struggle and title match! Who will be the one to break through the ranks and take on our champion Setzer?" Setzer, a man with long grayish hair and a pale purple cape, gave a casual wave to the audience as the producer spoke the Struggle champion's name.

"_Seifer_, y'know?" Roxas sighed mentally. _Three guesses who said _that.

"And who will leave today as our new Struggle champion?"

"Hayner! Roxas!" Both of the aforementioned boys turned and grinned when they saw Pence and Olette hailing them from the sidelines.

However, the duo's cheering was immediately deafened by the squealing fan-girls, who were currently screaming, "SETZER!" at the top of their lungs. Hayner rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the producer.

"Yes, the crowd is fired up," the overweight man said obviously, "so you know what's coming next: It's time to…"

"STRUGGLE!" the entire crowd shouted, and Roxas put a hand to his ear and winced at the cacophonic quality of their roar.

The mustached man stepped away and handed the microphone to a much thinner man who had pale blond hair. The blond one inclined his head in acknowledgment to his companion, then turned to the crowd with the clear-toothed grin of an announcer who knows how to work the audience. "Now, it's time to introduce today's four combatants, who fought their way up hard from the preliminaries! Regular finalist and head of the Twilight Disciplinary Committee: Seifer!" He swept his arm toward the white-coated teen, who smirked and slapped Rai a high-five.

"Completely out of nowhere – who knew he'd make it so far this year? – is Vivi!" Roxas blinked in surprise as the little black mage gave a small nod, but otherwise no other sign showed he had been listening.

"An underground favorite and local attitude problem: Hayner! And last but certainly not least, my personal favorite customer: Roxas!" The crowd applauded the four contestants, and Roxas risked a glance over at Hayner. His friend merely stared back in a "what are _you_ looking at?" kind of way. Roxas breathed a sigh of relief; it looked like Hayner wasn't too angry about yesterday now that his temper had calmed.

"This Struggle will start soon, but first the contestants must hear the rules." Roxas sighed and chose to tune the announcer out on this part; he didn't exactly need a refresher on the Struggle rules. The two battlers currently Struggling would try to get each other's orbs, and the one who had the most came out as the victor. Fairly simple.

"Now for our first match: Roxas versus Hayner!" The former blinked out of his thoughts as the mustached producer handed them their Struggle clubs and the boys walked onto the platform.

Seeing the serious look on Hayner's face, Roxas suddenly had an impulse to shake him by the shoulders and demand what was wrong. But instead he murmured, "Look… I'm really sorry about yesterday."

Hayner shrugged. "Eh, don't be. You need to learn to let that stuff go."

Roxas raised and lowered one shoulder. "I've got a lot on my mind."

"Don't worry about it, man. Just don't hold back on this, and maybe I'll let it slide," Hayner said in a surprisingly good imitation of Seifer. Roxas chuckled.

"Let's see if even the ties of friendship can withstand the ferocity of this tournament!" the announcer said dramatically, and stepped off the platform.

It took a while, and at the beginning of the match Hayner scored quite a few hard blows, but soon Roxas managed to turn the battle in his favor by trapping his friend into the corner. The timer beeped and the announcer quickly stood beside Roxas.

"And the winner is Roxas!" the elder announced obviously. The blond boy grinned sheepishly and waved at the cheering crowd. "Not even friendship will slow this kid down. And Hayner put up a great fight too!"

Turning back to the fallen Hayner, Roxas knelt beside him. "You okay, man?"

"I can't believe I _lost," _his friend groaned, getting to his feet.

"Hey, I had a lot of fun fighting you," Roxas said.

The shadow of a smile flickered across Hayner's face for a moment before it was replaced by mock indignation. "Yeah, well I didn't, wise guy," he snorted, punching the other's shoulder.

There was a snarl of "Out of the way," and Roxas was pushed aside as Seifer came onto the platform, followed closely by Vivi.

"Now, this next Struggle will be between Seifer and Vivi!" The former glowered at the latter, but the black mage merely trembled slightly, as though in laughter. "Whoo, look at those sparks fly. I guess Seifer didn't expect to have to fight one of his own boys, eh?"

Seifer transferred his glare to the announcer in a mute order of silence before turning back to Vivi. "Don't mess with your elders," he growled, and leaped forward to attack.

However, Vivi whipped to the side, causing Seifer to nearly stumble with the force of his failed charge, and struck a blow to the elder's side. Seifer got to his feet quickly, but Vivi dodged every attack thrown his way.

"When did Vivi get so tough?" Hayner murmured, a look of wondrous surprise on his face.

Eventually Seifer whacked Vivi on the side of the head, causing a single blue orb to fly out. "You're mine!" the white-coated teen said triumphantly and raced toward the orb.

But before he could get to it, the black mage had gotten in front of him and lashed out, hard, with his own Struggle club. Not only did Seifer fall to the ground, yellow orbs shot out in all directions.

The announcer was evidently shocked, but tried to get back his bearings. "I… I'm not sure what just happened… But the winner is Vivi! In a positively blistering comeback!"

"That's not Vivi," Seifer muttered as he got off the platform with Fuu and Rai at his side.

"Hm?" Roxas turned to face the other teen.

"Thrash him," was all Seifer said. He walked past Roxas and left the Sandlot.

* * *

Roxas headed up to the referee/producer. "Are you ready to take on Vivi?" the elder asked, and the boy nodded.

The black mage and the blond headed onto the platform, and the overweight man handed them their Struggle clubs. "Keep it clean, fellas," he said.

"And now, for the match you've all been waiting for: Roxas versus Vivi!" the announcer blared, and his words were greeted by an uproar from the audience.

Vivi merely stared unnervingly at Roxas, and all words of good luck went completely out of the boy's head. He shivered. _Seifer was right; this isn't Vivi at all…_

Despite his apprehension, however, he managed to defeat the black mage in a close match: seventy-four to sixty-nine orbs. Roxas was about to land the final blow when a whoosh of air assailed him. He looked around and saw that time had frozen again; Hayner, Pence and Olette had their mouths open cheering, and the boy thought he saw one of the little kids near the back of the crowd picking their nose.

_Time stopping… not _again…

Vivi, to Roxas' surprise, was the only other one who had not been affected; but the blond's surprise was instantly magnified when the black mage was enveloped in a globe of light. When the light cleared, one of the mysterious white things had replaced Vivi.

"Again?" Roxas said, feeling an unpleasant mix of anger and fear as two more of the white creatures dropped down from above. He felt the Struggle club disappear from his hand and knew without even looking that the Keyblade had replaced his original weapon.

"Again…" he muttered, and got into his battle stance.

Dodging around the enemies' attacks, Roxas speedily finished off two of the enemies, and struck the other one with a combination of blows before it could react. He straightened up, panting slightly, and looked around. He groaned inwardly at seeing that time still hadn't unfrozen. But a voice cut through the eerie silence, followed by the sound of gloved hands clapping:

"Roxas. All right. Fight fight fight."

Roxas whirled to see that the speaker was wearing one of the coats like the man who had appeared two days earlier. However, he knew that this person wasn't the one who had stolen the munny: the speaker was too thin, and his voice carried a sort of teenage arrogance, not the commanding deepness of the other's.

Roxas tilted his head to the side, furrowing his brow as something nagged at the back of his mind again, just like this morning. He felt like he should know this person somewhere, and yet…

"You really don't remember?" the cloaked figure asked softly, stepping forward so he stood across from the boy. "It's me. You know…" He lifted a hand and took down his hood, revealing spiked-back crimson hair and razor-sharp green eyes. "Axel."

"Axel?" Roxas blinked at the vague familiarity of the strange name on his tongue. _Where have I seen him before?_

Then he realized that this man was from his dream a couple of nights before. _Axel!_

"Talk about blank with a capital 'B'," the redhead snorted, but Roxas could see a shadow flit across his emerald eyes. "Man, oh man, even the Dusks aren't gonna crack _this_ one." As he spoke, to Roxas' alarm, two silver-and-red objects that resembled spiked circles – chakrams,the boy realized; he knew this thanks to the research he and Hayner had done on weapons for a school project – appeared in the gloved hands in a burst of flame.

"Wait a sec," Roxas said, taking a step away from the other; as he did so he remembered he was still holding the Keyblade in one hand, and that allayed his fears a little. …But only a little. "Tell me what's going on!"

Axel smirked. "This town is his creation, right?" he said, looking around and causing his reddish spikes to sway in the process. "So that means we don't have time for a Q & A." He swung the chakrams around on two fingers. "You're coming with me, conscious or not. Then you'll hear the story."

Roxas took a step backward, the adrenalin that accompanied the beginning of a fight starting to course through him. He could feel the air around him suddenly push against his hair and clothes in a breeze, and was confused about that, since time was supposed to be frozen. Apparently Axel realized this too, since he muttered, "Uh-oh" under his breath.

Roxas growled to himself and, feeling a sudden burst of frustration, flung the Keyblade to the side. "What's going _on?"_ he yelled.

The Keyblade disappeared in a flash of light, and to the boy's shock appeared in his hand again.

"Number Thirteen: Roxas," Axel growled, his tone flat, as though reciting something he had heard dozens of times before. "The Keyblade's chosen one." He smirked. "And what about Number Fourteen, hm, Roxas? You hiding dear old Anxy somewhere, too?"

Roxas stared at the redhead for a moment, his temper threatening to break. In the end, he decided to let it boil, and lowered himself into his battle stance. "Okay, _fine,"_ he snarled. "You asked for it!"

"Now that's more like it," the other said, grinning almost insanely as he swung the chakrams around again.

Roxas leaped into battle, but Axel hit him with the chakrams before he could get a blow in. He dodged around the other's attacks and, trapping him in a corner of the platform, slashed with the Keyblade. But before he could deal the finishing blow, Axel enveloped himself in fire and swung his fiery chakrams out at Roxas, knocking him backward.

"What now?" the redhead taunted, circling the boy. "Am I ringing any bells yet?"

His words, as well as the smirk that might've been used on a stubborn toddler, raised Roxas' temper even more, and he ran in to slash Axel hard and finish him off.

"Not bad, Roxas," Axel snarled.

In a sudden bleeping of data another man had appeared, this time wrapped in red so that only one eye and his mouth were visible on his face.

"So it _was_ you," Axel hissed, and Roxas blinked at the complete and utter look of blazing fury – no pun intended – in the emerald eyes. The redhead swung his chakrams up and flung them hard at the red-clad one, but they merely bounced off.

"Roxas," the red-clad man said, turning to the aforementioned boy. "This man speaks nonsense."

"Roxas, don't let him deceive you!"

"Roxas!"

"Roxas!"

The sounds of his name echoed in Roxas' mind, cacophonic and seeming to cause the air to swirl around him, and he cradled his head in his hands. "Hayner! Pence! Olette!" he screamed at last.

A burst of white light greeted his words and when it cleared, the audience was cheering for him again like nothing had happened. The black mage swayed and fell to the floor.

"What just happened?" the announcer blared.

_That's what I'd like to know,_ Roxas thought dryly.

Vivi got to his feet and walked off the platform just as Hayner and the others ran up to greet their friend. Roxas stood there, feeling like a loser for not accepting their congratulations, as the announcer cried, "Ladies and gentlemen: Roxas – our new top Struggler!" The crowd screamed louder at that.

"Roxas?" Hayner asked, waving his hand in front of his friend's face.

"Setzerrrrr!" the fan-girls squealed as the gray-haired man walked onto the platform, giving a few more casual waves.

* * *

In the Back Alley of Twilight Town, where Axel had warped in the brief distraction provided by the flash of light, the aforementioned man sighed. "So, Xemnas was right. He really doesn't remember…"

"Well, _yeah_," came another voice suddenly, and Axel whirled around, chakrams at the ready just in case. Footsteps approached out of the entrance to the Sandlot, and within moments another dark-garbed figure had stepped up to stand in front of Axel. "In case you haven't noticed, that was kind of the point with the whole 'kidnap him and put him in a virtual world' thing."

The pale green eyes narrowed. "I see you're DiZ's lapdog, as usual."

Char let out a sound that was half-growl, half-sigh, and glared indignantly at Axel. "I'm no one's lapdog. And even if I was, I'm nothing compared to you – Axel, the Flurry of Dancing Flames, the _traitor_ of the Organization."

In response, the spiky-haired man turned away and made his chakrams vanish so he could cross his arms across his chest. "Traitor, yeah, but not without a cause."

Char raised one eyebrow. "A traitor with a half-baked cause is still a traitor."

Without turning around, Axel chuckled bitterly. "When you're dedicated to what you do, it doesn't really matter, now does it?"

"Heh. You would know."

One black-gloved hand lifted up in front of Axel, and a dark portal was conjured, where it proceeded to swirl and hover in midair for its master. He turned his head slightly so he could speak to Char properly. "Just remember – when you've put Roxas and Sora back together," he smirked to himself at his choice of words, "I may or may not decide to give up on my 'foolish little venture'. Got it memorized?"

Without another word, he stepped forward and the darkness swallowed him up in a myriad of waving black tendrils. Char rolled her eyes and flipped her messy bangs back out of her eyes. "Arrogant little hedgehog," she muttered. "Don't know why we ever let him come over to hang out in the first place."

Yet there was a slight tremor in her words, a tremor of uncertainty of things to come. Remembering suddenly that she had a tournament to watch, she reached up and pulled the hood over her head before heading back the way she had come.

* * *

"Play fair now, you two," the producer said almost teasingly, handing Roxas and Setzer the Struggle weapons. "You're at the top of the bracket."

"There's only room for one up here," Setzer pointed out smugly.

"Well, may the best man win." The producer walked off the platform and Setzer turned to Roxas with an arrogant gleam in his eye.

"Hey, Rucksack," he greeted.

The blond's grip on his bat tightened in anger. If that guy had pronounced his name wrong on purpose… "That's _Roxas."_

Setzer ignored him. "How about you throw the match for me, save yourself a humiliating loss?"

Roxas cocked an eyebrow. "I don't think so."

Setzer shrugged, swinging his own Struggle club in a boastful, flourishing fashion and causing even more of his fan mob to swoon and collapse on the spot. "Fine then. Have it your way."

"Roxas, our underdog hero," the announcer blared, "versus Setzer, the Struggle champion! The winner of this match will be the true champ. That's right: bragging rights for a whole year!"

Roxas got into his battle stance. Setzer spoke now, his voice barely hearable among the cheering fans. "Whatever you think is right, you're wrong. And that's a big mistake."

"I'm not supposed to lose," Setzer groaned, picking himself up as the referee scribbled down their orb amounts on the board. Roxas straightened and looked around at the crowd, which was currently chanting his name. He gave a slight grin and waved.

The other walked offstage, the shadow of a smile on his face, and Roxas' friends ran onto the platform to congratulate him while the announcer handed him the championship belt and the trophy, yelling words of praise for the spiky-haired boy into the mike as he did so. Not far off, a certain dark-wearing girl grinned beneath the hood and started off toward Station Heights, disappearing into the mass of people going in that direction so as not to let Roxas catch sight of her.

Nevertheless, the flash of black among the sea of pale outfits caught the boy's eye at once. Though his gaze flicked over too late, barely seeing the tail of her dark coat, he recognized who it was at once – her tread was still uneven from falling in the tunnels. Roxas felt confusion rise within him; what was she doing back here?

"Hey, Roxas!" Hayner's voice jerked him back to face his friends, who were currently crowded around him. Pence was grinning and Hayner was clapping him on the back; Olette merely smiled and gave him a thumbs up.

Roxas shrugged, somewhat embarrassed at the looks of admiration on their faces. "I only did what I had to do."

"Yeah, but you were awesome," Pence retorted.

* * *

Later, the four friends sat at the ledge of the clock tower. Roxas, now wearing the championship belt, took out the trophy and stared at it for a moment before reaching over its "branches", to the colored orbs that it held. He tossed the yellow one to Olette, the red one to Hayner, and the green one to Pence, who caught it hastily before it could fall to the ground. The spiky-haired boy snapped off the blue one and held it up to the light, squinting a little as it reflected. The others followed his example.

"As promised," Roxas announced.

"One more treasure for us to share," Hayner grinned.

"I brought a present, too," Olette cut in, taking a box out of her pocket and opening it. Pence and Hayner made sounds of approval at seeing the sea-salt ice cream. Instinctively Roxas stood up to take one, then felt a jolt of alarm as his center of gravity shifted. He stumbled, and then cried out when he realized he was falling…

down…

down…

Images were running through the falling boy's mind: a red-haired girl in a school uniform, walking down to the beach while talking to a brown-haired girl who was wearing the same white shirt and skirt. The redhead suddenly spoke.

_"Do you remember those boys who used to hang out with us?"_

_"Riku?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"I wonder whatever happened to him. I sure miss him."_

_"What about that other boy?"_

_"What other boy?"_

"…Namine?"

_"The other boy, who used to play with us on the island. His voice… it always used to be there, but now it's gone."_

"Namine? What's… happening to me?"

_"Who are you? And that's not my name. I'm Kairi."_

"Kairi? I know you. You're that girl he likes."

_"Who? Please, tell me his name."_

"…I'm Roxas."

_"Okay, Roxas, but can you tell me _his _name?"_

Another voice seemed to speak through Roxas: a voice that was eerily similar to his own, and yet familiar, like a childhood memory one is trying to resurrect. "Geez, you don't remember my name? Thanks a lot, Kairi."The voice-that-was-not-Roxas' sighed in a mock-grudging manner. "Okay, I guess I can give you a hint: Starts with an 'S'!"

More images rushed through Roxas' mind; the red-haired girl and the brown-haired girl were standing at the coastline. The redhead placed a bottle in the water and watches the waves carry it away.

_"What's that?" _asked the brunette, tilting her head to the side.  
_  
"It's a letter I wrote yesterday, to the boy I can't remember. I said that no matter where he is, I'll find him. One day. And when I stopped writing, I suddenly remembered a promise we made. Something important… This letter is where it starts, I know it."_

_"Oh." _After a moment of awkward silence, the brown-haired girl straightened._ "I hope he gets it."_

_"He will." _Her friend looked out at the ocean, her brow wrinkled as though she were in thought._ "'Starts with an "S"'. Right, Sora?"_

* * *

'Restoration at 79 percent.'

* * *

DiZ was actually up from the computer this time around, but still staring at the screens intently. Char and Ansem were nearby, tossing a blue orb to each other in a strange-looking game of catch.

"His progress is astounding," DiZ murmured, sounding a little surprised.

"Who?" Char asked, twisting her head to face the elder as she spoke to him. "Roxas… or –" She broke off abruptly and whirled to face Ansem. "Hey, that hit me in the stomach, you loser!" With an indignant growl she bent to pick up the orb and threw it back at him. The amber-eyed man chuckled and drew up one hand to catch it easily.

"Yeah, well, given the fact that Axel showed up, I think we've done pretty well regarding Sora," Char went on. As she spoke she barely managed to reach forward and catch the orb in time from where Ansem had tossed it back at her.

"If a certain meddling redhead I know hadn't made the situation worse…" DiZ looked pointedly back at said redhead, and Char scoffed, casually giving the blue orb an underhanded toss back to Ansem.

"Whatever. Axel doesn't know what he wants."

"I expect part of him wants his friend back," Ansem suddenly cut in, causing Char to look back at him in surprise. Normally he didn't voice his opinions on this sort of thing. "And part of him dreads what will happen if he tries to betray the Organization."

"Again?"

Ansem ignored Char's snide comment and continued. "So part of it _is_ like you said – he doesn't know quite what he wants. He doesn't want to leave the Organization to retrieve Roxas, but he doesn't want us to merge Sora back with Roxas, either."

Char blinked for a moment, then sighed. "Y'know, that's an awful lot to feel for a guy who allegedly doesn't have a heart. And how did you know about Axel's friendship with Roxas, anyway?"

Ansem looked irritated toward her, even more so than usual. "We had to watch Roxas' memories of the Organization before they were fully erased, remember? It's not my fault if _someone_ decided to get bored and go out for some ice cream while that was happening."

"I still asked Namine about it," Char grumbled. "She used to live with the Organization, too…"

"So what happened when Roxas fell off the tower?" asked Ansem, turning back to DiZ.

"Namine's encounter with Roxas put his heart in contact with Kairi's," DiZ explained. "And that, in turn, affected Sora. You see?"

Ansem gave a long nod of understanding.

"Namine… she's good at what she does," Char murmured.

"Yes," Ansem mused, something unidentifiable in his voice. Mood immediately changing, Char looked sharply at him, but before she could speak DiZ was talking again.

"She wasn't born like other Nobodies. She can interfere with the hearts and memories of Sora and those aligned with him."

"Geez, DiZ, voice what we already know, why don'tcha?" Char grumbled. Evidently what Ansem had done had put her in an even worse mood. She sighed and leaned back against the wall with her arms crossed.

"But whose Nobody _is _she?" Ansem asked. Char and DiZ exchanged a smug glance, not unlike the one a day ago when Ansem had introduced himself. The aforementioned man sighed. "You know something I don't. Don't you?"

"Maybe," Char answered, still smirking. DiZ shook his head disapprovingly at her and turned back to Ansem.

"Well, I suppose if you _must_ know…"

Roxas awoke with a start. "I'm dreaming," he reminded himself, and turned to stare out the window. "But which parts… were the dream?"

* * *

Heh, at the beginning of the chapter Roxas is like "OSHIT D:". xP

I always love writing witty banter between Axel and my OCs. I find it really easy to get him into character, for some reason...

(waggles finger at Char) Short attention spans does not a smart person make.

I'll try to get everyone's chappie previews to them, I promise!


	6. Chapter VI

How you KNOW you have no life: A) your name starts with Saf and ends with Dawnheart, and B) you make almost daily posts on your fanfic. (Actually, this is probably only because I hate this story arc and want it to be OVER...)

So, yeah... feel free to hit me over the head with a heavy, blunt object for that. And the gazillion, bunched-together flashbacks in this chappie.

You'll probably see what I mean by "how things get later on", concerning the Anxy/Roku couple.

Onward with our tale!

**_Disclaimer- _**Do not own. I do, however, own my OCs and a copy of the game. And this ice cream cone I'm eating. Yum... ice cream.

* * *

Roxas and the others were gathered at the Usual Spot. Pence and Olette were huddled around Hayner while Roxas sat off to the side. He realized he hadn't contemplated these dreams for a few days now, but the most recent one made him think more than ever before.

The redhead who was in the school uniform… Kairi… had sent a letter to Sora. Wanted to remember him. Roxas' question was, why _couldn't_ Kairi remember her brunette friend? From the dream of her giving Sora the charm, it didn't seem like she could forget him that easily. So what had happened?

"Roxas!" Olette's angry voice broke through his mind, and he looked up and saw his friend with her hands on her hips. "Have you been listening to anything I've been saying?!"

The spiky-haired boy cringed slightly. Olette was _not_ a fun person when she was mad.

"We've only got three days of summer vacation left," Hayner cut in hastily, before Roxas could be subject to Olette's wrath. "So don't even _mention_ that assignment!"

"But we agreed we'd get it finished today," Olette retorted, crossing her arms.

Roxas turned to look at Hayner and Pence. "Yesterday…" he began slowly. "I fell off the station tower, didn't I?"

"You wouldn't be here if you did!" Hayner replied, confusing Roxas even more.

"Stop changing the subject," Olette said, annoyed.

"Okay, okay," Hayner grumbled, getting up off the box he sat on to stand. "You win. We'll do the assignment." He waved his hands around mockingly. "Stupid 'independent study'. Now, do any of you have any bright ideas for a topic?"

"Maybe we could study the stuff that's been happening to me," murmured Roxas, looking at the ground. "Y'know – the dreams, and the guys in white…"

Hayner made a disapproving noise in his throat. "Forget it."

Roxas' head jerked up, and he fought the flash of indignation that had scythed through him. "Why not? It's an easy topic. I dictate, Olette writes. What's so hard about that?"

"Look, things have been weird with you and the town since the photos were stolen, right?" Hayner asked bluntly.

"Well," Pence said, "tomorrow we're going to search the town and find out what's been going on."

"Lots of people are helping out," Olette added. Although she still looked huffy at Hayner and Pence, her temper seemed to have calmed a bit.

Roxas blinked. "They're doing all that… for me?" Seeing the looks on his friends' faces at his seriousness, he looked down and grinned. "I'm gonna go get some ice cream!" he announced, and ran out of the Usual Spot to the shop.

"So, there's this weird rumor going around. Wanna hear it?" Pence asked between gulps of ice cream. Olette nodded, and Hayner and Roxas shrugged.

"You know the stone steps at Sunset Station?" The others nodded; the train took passengers to Sunset Terrace when they wanted to watch the skies from Sunset Hill. "Well, we just use 'em all the time without thinking about it, but get this: Apparently the stairs count differently going upwards than downwards!"

"Seriously?" Hayner asked, eyes widening slightly.

"And there are six other weird stories like that, too," Pence went on. "It's like…" He seemed to grope for words for a moment. "…the seven wonders of Twilight Town."

"We should investigate that for our school project!" Hayner clapped Pence on the back, causing the shorter boy to wince slightly. "Pence, you're a genius!"

"There might be other rumors going around, too. I'm going to go search the seven wonders."

"Oh, no," Olette interrupted. "You're not doing all of them by yourself. We're going to split up."

Pence opened his mouth as if to argue, but at the look on Olette's face he relented.

The four of them gathered around the map of the Seven Wonders that Pence had made earlier. "Okay, so…" the girl began. "Pence, you can go to the wall at Sunset Terrace–" she pointed to the location on the map as she spoke – "and you might as well do the steps too. Hayner, you can go to Sunset Hill and solve the wonder there… and the tunnels too… and I'll take the waterfall, and the train above Sunset Hill."

Roxas turned to face her, which was rather hard since their heads were about four inches apart. "What am I going to do?"

"You're going to the mansion." She indicated it on the map.

"But… we were going to explore the mansion tomorrow," Pence pointed out tentatively. "And Seifer's gang was going to help out too."

"Are you serious?" Roxas asked, eyebrows raising in surprise.

"Yeah, I actually asked him to," Hayner said, a belligerent look on his face as if daring Roxas to argue.

Olette narrowed her eyes as she pulled back out of the circle. "Do you want to get this assignment over with or not?"

"Yes, ma'am," Hayner muttered.

* * *

Roxas trekked through the woods by himself, occasionally stepping over a root or a fallen tree. _Man, _he didn't realize how scary Olette could get when she was in bossy homework mode. He smiled to himself; he knew that he and the guys wouldn't have gotten their assignments done throughout the school year if she hadn't nagged them endlessly.

_But that still doesn't make it any less annoying… or terrifying, for that matter._

Roxas reflected on Pence's words just before the gang had departed for their various destinations.

"They say there's a girl who appears at the second story window of the old mansion, even though no one's lived there for years. Pretty weird, eh?"

The blond stopped in his tracks as he realized he had reached the mansion. Stretching upward and craning his neck to see better, his eyes widened slightly. There _was_ a girl there, her pale profile showing up obviously against the bluish-white of the rest of the room. But it wasn't just any girl.

"Namine?"

Roxas felt, rather than saw, the burst of white light against his body. When he dared crack open an eye, he gasped upon seeing his surroundings. The room, like the one he had appeared in after the fight against the white monster, was indeed bluish-white, only this one was different in that it had hand-drawn pictures on the walls. He took a few steps forward to look around and saw a few he remembered from his dreams: Sora, Donald and Goofy heading into battle; the portal that Riku and Sora had clashed at…

Roxas halted at one that seemed to prick at something in the back of his mind, like a buzzing fly that just won't go away. It was a picture of five figures, all clad in black hooded coats. The foremost two had heads of long blue or silver hair, and the others, who had their backs to the audience, made Roxas blink in surprise and look closer. One had a head of spiky, fiery red hair – _Axel? _– while the second's hair was longer and dark brown. He recognized this as Anxclof.

And the final one…

"Roxas?"

The boy whirled at the sound of his name, but didn't see Namine. Feeling his nervousness flare up, he looked at where he thought her voice was coming from, and gestured at the picture. "This is… me… And why're Axel and Anxclof here too?"

"You _are_ all best friends."

Roxas let out a harsh bark of laughter. "Very funny." Because last he checked, he didn't try to make friends with fiery guys who tried to kill him.

"Don't you want to know the truth," Namine continued, acting as if Roxas had not spoken, "about who you really are?"

Roxas snorted. "No one knows me better than me."

"I meant about the dreams."

"Well…" The boy felt his scorn melt into concern and the confusion that had become so familiar over the last four days. "I _am_ kinda confused about what's been going on lately."

He paced the room as he spoke. "Like, how do I know Axel and Anxclof, and why do I keep having those dreams where we're all together? And…"

His voice trailed off when stopped to look at the picture of Sora, Donald and Goofy racing into a group of the bug-like Heartless, their respective weapons of Keyblade, staff and shield at the ready.

Namine spoke softly, like a teacher trying to make a confused three-year-old realize that two plus two equals four. "You know these three, don't you?"

"Yeah," Roxas murmured, lifting his head. "Yeah, I do." He pointed at each of them. "Sora, Donald, Goofy."

There was a deep intake of breath before Namine spoke again. "A year ago, some… _things _happened, and I had to take apart all the false memories that had been previously chained together in Sora's heart. But now, I'm putting back all the real ones, exactly as they were before. It's taken a long time, but very soon, Sora will be his old self again." A slight stir to the air made it feel like Namine had turned to face Roxas. "The process has been affecting you too, Roxas."

"You mean the dreams?" Roxas tried hard not to let his excitement show; he was finally getting some answers to all this, and he wasn't about to screw up and leave too soon this time.

"Yes… you and Sora are connected. And in order for Sora to be complete again, he needs you."

"Me?" Roxas cocked his head to the side.

Suddenly he felt himself seem to zoom forward, and then the next thing he knew he was sitting on a chair on one side of a long, white table. Namine sat on a chair on the other side.

"Namine… who are you, anyway?"

"I'm a witch, with power over Sora's memories and those around him."

Roxas' brief sense of insight was starting to ebb now, to be replaced with a sense of puzzlement that was growing all too familiar. "A… witch?"

Namine shrugged, but the boy sensed that she was feeling more about this topic than she was letting on. "That's what DiZ called me, anyway. But I don't even know why I have this power – I just do." She laughed quietly. "I'm not even sure there's a right way for me to use it."

Roxas raised and lowered one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Well, I can't exactly help you there."

He immediately regretted his wording, but Namine just looked at him, the shadow of a smile flitting across her face before fading.

Roxas allowed his gaze to rove over the drawings on the walls before settling on the one of himself, Anxclof and Axel. "It's funny… suddenly I feel like I don't know myself at all… Who my real friends are, or anything. I thought I could confide anything in Hayner, Pence and Olette, but…" The spiky-haired blond felt somewhat embarrassed at spilling all of this to a girl he'd known for only a few days, but Namine merely gave him a glance that was both sad and understanding. "Now, I'm not so sure." He raised his eyes from the picture of himself and the redhead to meet Namine's, dark blue to dark blue. "I guess my real question is – what do you know about me that I don't?"

Clearly, this had not been the question to ask. Namine's eyes took on a sorrowful look, and Roxas saw her swallow, as though each word spoken next would choke her like thorns. She took a deep breath. "You… were never supposed to exist… Roxas." She seemed to add his name almost for good measure, but the blond boy was too busy feeling shock course through him.

"What?" he managed at last, his voice strangled and angry. "How could you say something like that, even if it were true?"

Namine sighed. "I'm sorry. I guess some things… really are better left unsaid."

* * *

Roxas blinked out of his reverie to find himself standing where he had been in front of the mansion. He quickly looked back up at the window, but all he saw were the curtains waving gently to the afternoon breeze.

"Hey, Roxas," Pence greeted as the blond entered the Usual Spot. Olette waved at her friend, but Hayner was nowhere in sight. "How'd it go?"

Roxas shrugged, trying to act nonchalant when his mind was spinning. "There was no girl after all," he lied. "It turned out to be a curtain flapping in the wind."

Olette blinked and shrugged. "Well, it doesn't really matter, anyway. The paper's done."

Pence snorted. "Yeah. 'The rumors were bogus', the end."

The girl shot a glare at him. "We wrote about all the work we did, remember?"

"So none of the seven wonders were really wonders after all?" Roxas asked. At his friends' nods, he sighed. "What a rip-off." He looked around. "Where's Hayner?"

"He said he'd be at Central Station with some ice cream."

"And that we should meet him up when the report was done."

Roxas couldn't help but let out an irritated groan. "And what exactly did he do for the project?"

"He helped out," Pence reminded the other boy. Roxas just rolled his eyes in response.

"You know…" Olette began slowly. "We only have two more days together." At the blank looks on Pence and Roxas' faces, she sighed. "Summer vacation, remember?"

The three made their way to Central Station and up the spiral steps to the top of the clock tower. Hayner was sitting on the ledge with an arm draped across an upraised knee and the other hand holding his ice cream stick when the others sat down next to him. Roxas in particular was especially careful, remembering when he had fallen off the tower.

_Or… had I?_

He shook these thoughts out of his mind as Hayner spoke – absent-mindedly, staring out at the permanently-dusk sky. "Tomorrow, we search the town."

"Next day's the fair," Pence added.

"The last day of summer…" Roxas murmured.

Hayner made a sound as though he had been shot. "Don't say that! You'll give me an ulcer."

"Not if you explode from all that ice cream first," Olette retorted, causing Hayner and Pence to burst out laughing, and she soon joined in. Roxas, however, stared up at the sky, almost completely disregarding the brightness of the later afternoon sun in his thoughts.

_I was never… supposed to exist?_

* * *

"Well, look at that," Ansem said, directing these words at Char. The three of them had abandoned their usual posts down in the computer room for the moment, and now were in the ruined dining room of the mansion where they all lived. The gray-haired man went on, "You actually managed not to meddle in Roxas' life today."

The redhead, who was standing against the wall with Ansem, narrowed her eyes and scoffed. "I was busy monitoring Sora's progress. You know that."

DiZ, who had previously been sitting by quietly in one of the two leather armchairs in the room, laughed. "I'm certain you were restraining yourself from going outside and spending all our money, Char."

"Don't start _that_ again," Char muttered. "One time when you want some pretzels and watermelon, and you're banned for life!"

"We're never letting you handle the money again, that's for sure," Ansem chuckled. "Not when you're hungry, anyway."

Char's face formed into a half-snarl, half-pout as she crossed her arms and looked away.

DiZ's single showing amber eye was glinting as he turned to Ansem. "My real question is, what about you? Are the holes in your memory starting to fill in?"

"Of Sora? Yes… the haze is clearing."

"That's a rather… blunt way of putting it," Char muttered.

DiZ ignored her. "The same thing is happening to everyone who had ties to Sora. Soon, he'll be just like an old friend who's gone away for a year."

Ansem let out another "hmph" and moved to sit in the leather chair that was opposite of DiZ's. "I've waited, and now I want to know. What were you and Char's motives for doing all of this?"

"You sound like an interviewer," Char chuckled, crossing the room to stand beside DiZ. At the narrow of Ansem's golden eyes, she sighed in mock annoyance. "But I suppose we _could_ tell you…"

She and the red-clad man exchanged glances before turning back to the dark-coated one. It was DiZ who spoke. "Revenge."

Ansem blinked; clearly he had been expecting something different. "Revenge?"

"What, is there an echo in here?" asked the redhead, rolling her eyes.

"Now, for the finishing touches," DiZ murmured. He leveled his gaze to meet Ansem's. "First, we must dispose of Namine. She did a fine job with Sora, but it's high time she disappeared." He laughed softly. "Roxas isn't the only one who was never meant to exist. I want you to take care of that, Ansem.

"Also…" He turned to look at Char, whose countenance alighted briefly with surprise before the indifferent mask was back in place. "I… or rather, _he…" _He gestured to Ansem, who shrugged slightly. "…has a job for you, Char. He's already discussed it with me, and I find it suitable, since you would be bored waiting for Sora to reach the Organization with us."

Char blinked; it could not have been clearer that she thought that, with Sora's memory restored, she would be free to work more with DiZ and Ansem on the master plan. "Um, okay, sure. What is it?"

"Tell her, Ansem." The dark-cloaked man opened his mouth to speak, but DiZ cut him off. "In private."

This time, both of the others looked bemused. DiZ just smiled.

* * *

'Restoration at 97 percent.'

* * *

_Sora, Donald and Goofy stand on an island amidst a purple sea of whirlpools and darkness. "Gawrsh, is that all that's left of the worlds taken by the Heartless?" Goofy asks in trepidation.  
__"Those worlds will be restored if we beat Ansem, right?" Sora murmurs. "But, if we do beat him and all those worlds become disconnected again, what's going to happen to us?"_

_The purple-clad Riku turns, but darkness eclipses his form as he does so, and he is replaced by a tall, dark-skinned man with amber eyes and long gray hair. "All worlds begin in darkness, and all so end. The heart is no different." The man raises one fist and clenches it. "You see, darkness is the heart's true essence."  
__"That's not true!" Sora protests, raising the Keyblade. "The heart may be weak, and sometimes it may even give in. But I've learned that deep down there's a light that never goes out!"_

_The man reaches out one arm, feebly, as though he hardly has any strength left, to the door on the lone strip of land. "Kingdom Hearts! Fill me… with the power of darkness…"  
__"You're wrong," Sora says firmly, as the door opens, enveloping the other man in a beam of light. "I know now, without a doubt: Kingdom Hearts… is light!"_

_A dark silhouette, outlined starkly against the pale gold background, raises a Keyblade. "Now, Sora! Let's close this door for good!"_

_Sora, Donald and Goofy push hard against the doors, trying to force them closed. A normal Riku gives them a sad smile from the other side. "Take care of her," is all he says, as the door closes him off to his friends. Sora lifts his own Keyblade into the air, as does the dark silhouette, and, in a flash of light, the door is locked for good._

_"Kairi!" The girl in question looks up as Sora runs over to her, but their respective strips of land are drifting apart.  
__"Sora!" Kairi cries out, trying to reach for him, but nearly stumbling to fall into the endless mist below. Sora catches her just in time.  
__"Kairi," he says desperately. "Remember what you said before? I'm always with you too." The land is drifting further and further apart, and he starts speaking faster, trying to get his message out before he loses her forever. "I'll come back to you, I promise!"  
"I know you will!" Kairi says, and with that, even the most extension of their arms can't keep them from breaking apart as they drift away from one another._

_Sora, Donald and Goofy walk along a grassy path. "Well, now what do we do?" Donald grumbles.  
__Sora, walking with his hands intertwined behind his head of spiky hair, is the one who replies. "We've gotta find Riku and King Mickey, remember?"  
__"But, uh, where do we start lookin' for that there door to the light?" Goofy asks.  
__They spot a yellow-furred dog running across the path with something in its jaws. "Hey, look, it's Pluto!" Donald says, pointing.  
__"And that's the King's seal!" Goofy adds, excitedly, as he sees the envelope with a circle that has two circles on top of it.  
__Sora kneels down to better speak to the dog. "Hey, have you seen King Mickey?"  
__The dog pauses for a moment, as though contemplating them, then turns and runs the other way. "Hey, wait!" Sora cries out, and he and the others chase after Pluto._

_Sora is walking in a dark, grassy field. No moon, no stars to light his way. Suddenly he whips around at the sound of a voice. He relaxes for a moment, then at the feeling that someone is watching him he turns. A dark coated figure, hood drawn up, is standing there; it beckons to the brunette before seeming to fade into the night._

_Sora is walking up the path to a strange-looking castle. He tilts his head slightly to the side at it…  
__And then everything seems to go dark._

_The dark coated figure walks up to the one sitting by the rocks near the shore at a moonlit, dark beach. The one sitting at the rocks turns to his companion. "I've been to see him… He looks a lot like you."  
__Roxas' voice. "Who are you?"_

"_But why?" Roxas shouts at the young brunette.  
__Anxclof sighs. This time she's clad not in her normal black coat, but in a mainly white, sleeveless jacket with black markings along the bottom and sides; at the top is an X-shaped, steel zipper. Under the jacket, she wears a dark gray top that is slightly longer than the jacket, and red-and-black pants. "Roxas, I told you I've already made my decision. I have my own path to follow."  
__"And I'm not on it?" the blond snarls indignantly. "What happened to 'Roxas and Anxclof, journeying for truth'?"  
"Sorry, Roxas." The brunette's dark green gaze levels to focus on the boy's, and the orbs are filled with sorrow. "But there are some things I have to do alone."  
__She flicks her wrist, causing a Keyblade to appear in her black-and-yellow-gloved hand – the spiky orange hilt and dark golden blade that Roxas knows so well. After a moment, during which Roxas' angry breathing can be heard, Anxclof turns away. "Don't follow me." She speaks without turning around, and takes a step forward. "If you do, I'll kill you."  
__Without further ado, she leaves the area, the place that has come to be known as the upper area of the Hall of Empty Melodies. Roxas can hear her footsteps pounding down the stairs, and finally lets out the breath he's been holding.  
__"So," he murmurs to himself, "looks like I'll have to do this by myself, too."_

_Heartless, rising up from the ground to surround the hooded figure. Seeing his enemies, the boy whips out two weapons: two Keyblades. One is white with a yellow-and-blue shaft as well as what looks like Kairi's charm on the chain at the end; while the other is black, with a purple gemstone on its handle and a dark star on the chain at its end. The figure twirls them in both hands before bringing them to touch in an 'x' across his body.  
He whirls in an exquisite battle dance and rips through the Heartless with just two blows. Sensing that he is being watched, even as more Heartless rise up from below, the teen looks up. All he can see of the person on top of the blue-walled skyscraper is that they have unmistakably silver hair, the brightness of which is outlined conspicuously against the darkness of the sky.  
He leaps up, runs up the side of the building with seemingly superhuman strength, and tosses the black Keyblade up to the person at the top. The silver-haired one jumps haphazardly, managing to catch the Keyblade in midair. On the silver-haired person's way down and the cloaked figure's run up the side, they meet in the middle, and seem to exchange a silent acknowledgment of the other.  
The one in the black coat does a flip off the side of the building, landing almost perfectly on his feet, as does the one with the black Keyblade. They strike through the Heartless and turn to greet one another, but the feeling of congeniality is immediately dispelled.  
"You…!"  
The two clash their respective Keyblades, the hooded boy holding up his white weapon quickly to block every one of the other's strikes. He finally knocks the silver-haired man to the ground, and gets a good look at him.  
He is clad identically to the man with the white Keyblade, only his eyes are, for some reason, covered by what looks like a dark blindfold. "Why?" the silver-haired one asks, imploringly, in a manner that disgusts the other. "Why do you have the Keyblade?"  
The hooded one feels rage stir through him at the question he cannot even answer himself. Swinging his weapon downward, he snarls "Shut up!" and leaps forward to deliver the final blow._

Organization!Roxas is so angry and clueless. I love him. D: Consequently, I'm worried that he's somewhat OOC in the scenes with Anxclof. What do you all think?

And yes, I felt like splitting the group up for the Seven Wonders. I HATE that part of the game... Though part of me wanted to write Roxas' true reaction when he sees the dog coming out of the bag at Sunset Hill. xD;

Also, if you want a pic of Anxclof in her non-Organization outfit, PM me and I'll show you as soon as I can. (Or rather, when school lets me x.x')

Next chappie will be the final day with Roxas... and THEN Char can finally get some action.  
Char: Finally... (shoves iPod into her pocket)  
Me: ...Isn't that MY iPod?


	7. Chapter VII

Roxas blinked awake, barely remembering the dreams he'd had last night. Normally he'd be rejoicing at this, but this time it vexed him. All he could remember was something about Kingdom Hearts… a promise from Sora to Kairi… Anxclof leaving him to seek out her own path… and…

_Was that guy with the two Keyblades… _me? The voice had certainly sounded the same, but it wasn't the way Roxas would normally act. He wasn't an impulsive kind of person who would spit at someone for asking him the question he couldn't answer.

Or was he?

Shaking these thoughts out of his mind, the blond got up and absent-mindedly put his clothes on before heading out to the Usual Spot.

He entered and saw Hayner, Pence and Olette talking in a circle. Roxas laughed inwardly at the sight of them having fun. "Man, I could not sleep last night…" he said, a slight hint of a laugh to his voice as he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. Part of him really did want to laugh this off, and that would be easily possible if he could just spend the last days of his summer with his friends.

But to his surprise, the others just continued talking as though he hadn't spoken. The boy blinked, and raised a hand to nudge Hayner. "Guys?"

And even more mysterious, his hand just went through his friend. The others grinned at one another and rushed right past him out of the Usual Spot.

Roxas felt a myriad of emotions swirling through him: shock, a bit of panic, frustration at this new problem. He stepped up to the box where they kept their photographs and rummaged through them, just out of curiosity.

A new feeling entered him as he saw that all the photos that originally had him in it were now missing him, as though an invisible pair of scissors had managed to cut him out without ruining the rest of the picture.

And that feeling was _fear._

* * *

Roxas exited the Usual Spot, partly to go see where his friends had gone, and partly to see whether or not the rest of the town had been affected the same way Hayner and the others had. But mostly, it was just to distract himself from the fear that was pumping through him.

He took a few tentative steps forward, only to leap back as one of the white things materialized in front of him. He whipped to the side when another one appeared next to him, surrounding him on all sides other than the wall.

Roxas turned upon noticing that one of the portals of darkness had opened behind him, and faded to reveal none other than the pyromaniac Axel.

Now, Roxas had thought a good long while about what Namine had said, about him and Axel being best friends. At the time he had cast it scornfully aside, saying that he didn't make friends with people who tried to kidnap him and/or kill him, but lately… he had been getting… even more memories. Memories centered not around Sora, but of himself. Of himself and the redhead, sitting on top of the skyscraper from his dream, talking. Of Roxas and Axel training together, or joking about something that had exploded or malfunctioned in a certain blond scientist's lab. Of Axel and Anxclof laughing hysterically at the sight of a man with a dirty blond mullet terrified at something they had just done to scare him; and Roxas shaking his head in silent, yet amused, rebuke.

Yes… as much as Roxas hated to admit it, it seemed like he and Axel really _had_ been friends in what felt like another life.

The redhead broke Roxas out of his reverie by sighing as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Look at what it's come to. I've been given these icky orders to destroy you if you refuse to come back with me." He turned his gloved hands, palms up, in a slight shrug that said 'orders are orders'.

Roxas furrowed his brow as he thought of what to say. "We're…" he finally began. "We're best friends, right?"

Axel acted as though Roxas had not spoken, sighing and turning away slightly. "Yeah, but I'm not getting turned into a Dusk for…" Suddenly the blond's words seemed to hit him and he whirled back around, an excited look on his face. "Wait a sec! You remember now?!"

"Yeah."

"Great!" As abruptly as Axel's excitement had come, however, it was over, replaced by a sort of blustering nervousness. "But, uh, gotta make sure and all. So, um…" He thought to himself for a moment. "What's our boss' name?"

Roxas blinked and searched his memory as hard as he could, but nothing came up, other than 'the Superior'. He hung his head.

Axel let out a deep sigh. "Can't believe this…"

With that, he snapped his fingers, and the white creatures came gliding at Roxas. The boy quickly summoned the Keyblade and knocked them aside, only to come face to face with a new enemy. It was almost feral in its movements, disappearing underground so that Roxas couldn't attack it. After a while of trying to get it out of its hiding place, the thing suddenly exploded, knocking Roxas backward.

_Note to self – those things have a time limit,_ he thought almost dryly, turning back to Axel.

The pyro had his chakrams out, spinning them on one finger on each hand. A look of deep regret was in his emerald eyes, a look that plainly said _I don't want to fight you!_...

Nevertheless, he raised one weapon as if to attack, only to freeze in midair.

Roxas relaxed out of his battle stance, straightening up and lowering the Keyblade. _What the heck?_

Suddenly there was a voice in his head.

"Roxas, go to the mansion! The time has come."

The blond blinked, putting a hand to his hair as though that would make everything stop. He had a weird sense that he was dreaming up all this… that he would wake up, head to the Usual Spot and joke about it. _Yeah, I had this really freaky drawn-out dream last night. I had these visions, of black-coated guys and this girl I thought I had a crush on, and – you won't believe this – I actually fell off the clock tower! Pretty wild, huh?_

No, he realized. This was no dream. He couldn't deny it any longer. Something weird was going on, and apparently he had to go to the mansion to find out what it was.

He couldn't help the twinge of despair, though, and he lifted his head to the sky. "Hayner! Pence! Olette!" With that, he headed off in the direction of Tram Common.

* * *

Axel stood at the entrance to the Usual Spot, and let out a sigh. "The Roxas I knew is long gone," he murmured, raw desperation in his voice. "Fine, I see how it is…"

* * *

Roxas fought aside all the white creatures that got in his way – _where are these stupid things _coming _from anyway?_ – and managed to reach the mansion. To his dismay, it was locked, and more of the thin white things were slithering toward him.

He backed up, so that he was practically pinned against the door. "Don't call me and then lock me out…" he muttered.

Suddenly a vision went through his mind, of young Sora lifting the Keyblade, of the beam of light shooting into the lock. "Of course…" Roxas murmured. He raised his own Keyblade into the air and concentrated.

A beam of light, so identical to his dreams that he almost willed himself to wake up right then and there, fired out of the weapon, into the keyhole, and opening the door. "Awesome," the boy muttered to himself, and ran through the ruined courtyard into the building.

Meanwhile, the white creatures had attempted to follow, but in a whoosh of the air a hooded figure had appeared from the trees. It raised long twin swords, one in each hand, as the enemies charged forward to attack. A feminine cry of "Come on, then!" rang through the air, and then it was silent but for the sound of her weapons hacking through the Dusks in squelches of blood-that-wasn't-blood.

* * *

It occurred to the boy that he had no clue where in the mansion he was supposed to go. Feeling rather stupid for following his impulses, he looked around.

He guessed he could just explore and see what happened… but there were always those weird enemies…

But he could fight them aside anyway, weak little things –

Great, now he was starting to sound like Hayner.

Chuckling a little weakly to himself, Roxas headed up the stairs, defeating the white foes that got in his way as he did so. He entered the room near the end of the hall.

He closed the door behind him and looked around. Roxas realized that this was the room he had been in only yesterday, when he was talking to Namine. He started to pace the perimeter of the room, looking at the drawings as he went. There was one of him in the black coat standing next to Sora, and another of Sora giving Kairi a strange-looking fruit. Roxas stopped as one picture in particular caught his eye. It was of himself in the black coat, running, with a backdrop of murky navy darkness behind him.

As though on a signal, a ringing began in his head – trivial at first, like a fly in one's ear, then growing so that his head pounded white-hot with pain. Roxas fell to his knees, groaning in agony and holding his skull, as visions pulsed through his mind…

* * *

_A darkened city, full of neon lights. The unmistakable sound of rain striking against the concrete, and thunder booming. These things seemed to only slightly register in the back of Roxas' mind as he walked through the street._

_He passed a few darkened pillars that were holding the roofs of the "shops" up. Against the wall behind these pillars leaned Axel._

_"So," the redhead murmured, not opening his eyes, but rather seeming to sense his friends about to walk right on past him, "your mind's made up?" His voice didn't carry the usual cocky arrogance, but sorrow for what his friend was about to do._

_Roxas sighed and turned to his friend. "Why did the Keyblade choose me? I have to know. And if that means I have to leave…"_

_Axel's green eyes glittered with alarm and he whirled to face Roxas, walking quickly up to him in a flurry of foot-taps against the ground. "You can't turn on the Organization!"_

* * *

As abruptly as it had come, the pain was gone. Roxas moaned softly as he got to his feet and rubbed his head.

"Roxas?"

He turned at the sound of Namine's voice. Sure enough, there she was in her chair at the end of the long white table.

"Organization XIII…" he murmured, walking up to sit in the chair opposite her. "They're a bad group, aren't they?"

"Bad, or good. I don't know." Namine shrugged. "They're a group of incomplete people who wish to be whole. To that end, they're desperately searching for something."

"What?"

"Kingdom Hearts."

Remembering his dream, Roxas laughed softly.

Namine tilted her head to the side. "Funny?"

"It's just…" Roxas looked down at the table, and then back up at the girl. "I guess I've been running away from the question I really wanna ask – what's going to happen to me now? Nothing else really matters anymore."

"You are…"

Roxas looked back up from the table and saw that Namine was starting to fade. He pushed himself up from the chair slightly in his surprise. "Namine? What –?"

Her fading in a sea of white-and-yellow pixels was immediately heralded by the appearance, in a series of bleeping and flashing numbers, of the red-wrapped man from two days ago, when Roxas had first fought Axel.

The man spoke. "There is no knowledge that has the power to change your fate."

"But what _is _that fate?" Roxas demanded. "I want to know. I have the _right_ to know."

The other laughed, causing Roxas' temper to flare up. "What's so funny?" he yelled.

"A Nobody does not have the right to know. Nor does it even have the right to be."

"But what _is_ a Nobody?" Roxas shouted. "Tell me now!" As he spoke he summoned the Keyblade and got into his battle stance.

"Now is not the time for fighting," the other said reprovingly, the way a teacher might talk to an especially rebellious student.

In a flare of darkness, a hooded black-coated person had appeared. "DiZ, we're out of time," it said, identifying itself as the one who had stolen the munny. "Too many Nobodies!"

Another portal of darkness coalesced next to DiZ. "It's just as well," the red-clad man said. "Char has a job to do anyway. We'll want to get her started on it as soon as possible."

Namine stood in front of the portal, and spoke quickly, trying to get her message across before DiZ took her away. "Roxas, Nobodies like us are only half a person – part of the same heart of our other. You won't disappear – you'll be whole!"

Roxas blinked in alarm, for in his panic he'd heard only the negative word of her speech. "I'll… disappear?!"

"No!" Namine said frantically, even as DiZ stepped up behind her. "You won't disappear! You'll –"

At this point DiZ covered her mouth with one hand, holding her back so she couldn't reach Roxas.

"Wait!" Roxas cried, and ran forward with the Keyblade in hand to try and stop DiZ. But the hooded man blocked him, reaching out an arm.

Namine managed to shove the man's red-gloved hand from her mouth so she could speak. "Roxas!" she said, struggling against DiZ's grip. "We will meet again. I may not know it's you, and you may not know it's me. But we _will _meet again, I promise!" This last part seemed to come from a long way off, because DiZ was already stepping back into the portal of darkness.

"Namine! Wait!" Roxas reached out with his free hand, but DiZ, Namine, and the anonymous man had all vanished.

* * *

Roxas stepped into the library, and saw a dark brown table, a different color than the rest of the room. He stepped forward, took out a yellow crayon he had taken from Namine's room, and, letting his instincts guide him, drew out the symbols for the Heartless and the Nobodies on the golden, Venn Diagram-like circles in the middle.

He felt the ground rumble beneath his feet and raced back toward the door just as the floor disappeared beneath where he had been, revealing a flight of stairs that led below.

_This will all end soon. I just know it._

Roxas descended the stairs and entered the room just below. He blinked at the sight of the bluish-purple walls and saw a multiple-screened computer, complete with chair and keyboard. Curiosity compelled him forward to look at what was on there.

A picture of a boy whose hair was much more rebelliously spiky than Roxas' own was glowing pale blue. A few bars that were filling over and over again were next to said picture, and next to that, a message in the middle of the screen that read "Restoration at 99".

Sitting beside the computer was an odd device that Roxas felt should have some meaning…

With this thought the ringing from before returned, only much worse than before. It felt like his head was splitting open with the agony…

And another flashback went through his mind, causing the pain to resonate even more…

* * *

…A circle of thirteen chairs, lined around a patch of floor with an odd symbol on it – the symbol of the Nobodies – greeted him in his mind's eye. Roxas could recognize every one of the people sitting in each chair, having memorized the order even in his short time in the Organization.

And the one sitting upon the lowest chair of all was…

_Is that…_me?

* * *

Roxas raced out of the city, the white creatures – Dusk Nobodies – slithering through the air after him.

* * *

"Why?" the silver-haired one cried. "Why do you have the Keyblade?"

Roxas swung his white weapon out to the side. "Shut up!" he snarled, and leaped forward to deliver the final blow…

Only to have something strike out hard at his chest with one of two twin blades, causing Roxas to fall to the ground.

The silver-haired one looked around and saw another darkly-coated figure, this time with long red hair and blue eyes, lower her own weapon – one of them, anyway.

"I could've taken care of that myself, Char," he grumbled.

"You looked pretty helpless to me," Char retorted, and he merely rolled his eyes.

"Let's go," she said, mood turning solemn at once. "We have to take him back to An – DiZ."

The other nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right." With that, he thrust Oblivion into the ground, hilt up, next to the unconscious Nobody.

Char and her companion turned as one, and the silver-haired teen put out a hand as though to summon something, but before he could do anything a soft growl came from behind them.

It was Roxas, pushing himself to his feet. One eyebrow lifted over the dark blindfold in surprise, while Char just looked angry that her attack hadn't been enough to finish off the blond.

In one swift move Roxas had pulled the black Keyblade out of the ground and charged at both of his foes; Char whipped to the side, barely avoiding the dangerous blur of metal, and in the same moment swept around to stand behind him, her own dual swords at the ready. The silver-haired teen leaped back out of the way just in time.

"Quit fooling around!" snarled the Nobody.

"Who said we were?" Char retorted, causing Roxas to whirl around and glare at her. "Besides, _Sora_…" She emphasized the name with an almost taunting tone.

"Are you done already?" asked her companion, smirking. "Pretty pathetic, Sora, if you ask me."

"What're you talking about?" Roxas said, before he could stop himself, turning to look at his blindfolded foe as he spoke. "You're the ones who're losing!"

Char blinked slowly, and the silver-haired teen sighed, sadness showing despite the blindfold that concealed his eyes. "So… you really _are_ his Nobody…"

"DiZ was right, eh?" the redhead murmured.

"Why do you keep talking about that guy?" Roxas jerked his head up from where he'd been looking at the ground to scream at his enemies. "Shut up about that! Just shut up! I'm myself! I'm me!" As he spoke, voice rending the storm-filled air with its fury, Oathkeeper and Oblivion reappeared in each of his gloved hands, and he charged again at the other boy. The white Keyblade struck the silver-haired teen hard on the arm, knocking him backward with a cry of pain.

"Riku!" Char instantly leaped in front of her wounded companion, a look of pure rage distorting her countenance as she got into her own battle stance, dual blades out to her sides.

Riku fell to one knee, his uninjured palm out to catch himself. The redhead had already jumped at Roxas, but the blond parried her blow and thrust her weapons out of her hands; in the split second after he had disarmed her, the Nobody had managed to knock her to the side so that she skidded across the ground next to her swords.

"You two can't beat me no matter how hard you try, can you?" Roxas hissed, a mixture of triumph and anger in his voice.

"Guess not…" Riku's free hand – the one at the end of the wounded arm – moved to the back of his hair, toward where the blindfold's knot was. His mouth winced slightly at the pain of teasing his injury. "Heh… it looks like I have to do it."

Char's head jerked up from where she was massaging her pained wrists. "Riku, you know what'll happen if you –"

"I do know!" the silver-haired one interrupted. "But I need it now."

Before Char could react, Riku had undone the blindfold, and the black strip of cloth fell to the ground, revealing the teen's eyes as a dark aquamarine. The breath caught in Char's throat as Riku spoke.

"The power lying within my heart… the power suppressed by my heart…"

With a cry, he was enveloped by a dark violet light; Roxas crossed his Keyblades in front of him in a guarding stance. Char laughed softly, bitterly, and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Riku, you damn idiot," was all she said.

The light faded, and Riku's form was replaced by a much taller one, with long gray hair, tan skin, and amber eyes. Behind him hovered the "guardian" that Ansem usually had with him, reptilian and floating above the boy's shoulder, waiting for orders. Riku had transformed into none other than Ansem himself, and before Roxas could blink, his enemy had appeared right in front of him, no more than two feet away. His arms came up and seized Roxas in an iron grip; the struggling blond soon felt himself fall limp against "Ansem's" hands, and the Keyblades fell to the ground, promptly vanishing upon contact.

"The power of darkness," Riku – or was it Ansem? – said, his voice now much deeper and more commanding.

Char got to her feet. "I suppose you'll want me to call you _Ansem_ now, too?" Anger and sadness were audible in her voice, as well as blatant in her icy eyes.

He turned to face her, looking startled. "What do you mean?"

"Well, now that he's possessed your body and soul and all…" She waved her hands mockingly as she spoke.

"I hate to interrupt this charming little lover's quarrel," came a sudden deep voice, "but have you forgotten we have work to do?"

Char narrowed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes, DiZ," she muttered without turning around to look at the one who had just stepped out of the dark portal.

Riku turned, though, and lowered his eyes guiltily. "You know I only did what was necessary, DiZ."

The red-clad man laughed. "Of course, Riku; of course."

Riku frowned. "Call me Ansem."

The younger two followed him through the darkness, Riku putting his hood up. Even as he did so, Char was glaring daggers at him and rubbing her knuckle furiously across her nose and eyes.

* * *

Roxas lay unconscious beneath the device. Char and Ansem stood near the red-wrapped man as he pressed a few buttons on the keyboard.

"Will it work?" Ansem, currently hooded, asked at last.

"If we can maintain the simulated town until Namine finishes chaining together Sora's memories," DiZ answered.

Char looked as though she had been holding something back, but now she spoke. "DiZ… if I may…"

The man in question turned to look at her.

She spoke hesitantly, chancing a quick glance at Ansem. "Well… the question that's really been bugging me is… What's going to happen to Roxas when we're done with all this?"

DiZ shrugged and looked back at the computer, resuming his work. "He holds half of Sora's power within him. In the end, he'll have to give it back."

"Poor thing," Ansem murmured, his stoic amber eyes filled with pity and something else as he gazed at Roxas' limp body.

DiZ laughed, dismissing his companion's words and causing Char to frown slightly and look up from where she had been staring at the ground. "It's the fate of a Nobody." He pressed one more button; a beam struck down from the top of the device, causing Roxas to become data and disappear.

* * *

…Roxas held his head, feeling the pain dilute slightly now that the memories had come back. He managed to get to his feet and stared at the computer, at the device that had taken him to what he now realized was the virtual Twilight Town. The longer he stared at the computer, the more his fury boiled up within him, until he finally let out a snarl and summoned the Keyblade. The computer continued to beep, making the room resonate with its sounds, as though taunting him.

And with that, Roxas lifted the Keyblade over his head and smashed it, hard, into the screens. Suddenly he realized that the red-haired girl he'd seen those two times was the one who had struck him down with her swords, and that sent even more frustration coursing white-hot through him, at the thought that he could've taken his revenge every time she'd shown up. Letting this anger possess him briefly, he struck out even more at it, until the screens were nothing more than cracked glass.

Slowly he rose up, breathing heavily from the force of his rage. He heard something behind him and turned to see that a door had opened.

Roxas ignored the part of his mind that screamed that something was wrong and walked right on through.

Almost as soon as his foot touched the threshold more of the Dusks had materialized. _Great,_ he mentally growled, getting into his battle stance. _Don't these guys ever let up?_

He dodged past all their attacks, and defeated them all, even the ones that had the tendency to go underground where he couldn't get at it – the Assassin Nobodies, Roxas now knew. He felt a slight pulse of triumph at having defeated such an annoying opponent, but instantly chided himself. _They're just Assassins, Roxas. Get over it; it's nothing special._

"Simply _amazing,_ Roxas," came a voice dripping with sarcasm, and Axel came forward to pace in front of the boy.

Roxas felt a slight pang at the sight of his friend. "Axel."

The redhead stopped in front of him. "You really _do_ remember me this time? Well, I have to say," he chuckled, "I'm so FLATTERED!"  
Roxas took a step backward as the room erupted in a circle of flames. Axel summoned his chakrams and cast one arm out to the side, causing more fire to flare up and Roxas' fear to rise. "But you're too late!"

In that moment, the blond knew what he had to do. He concentrated and felt the Keyblades appear in his hands, one white, one black. _The Oathkeeper and the Oblivion, _he remembered.

He didn't want to have to dual-wield to fight his best friend, but from the looks of it there was no choice. Roxas felt backed into a corner. As much as he didn't want to fight the friend he only just now remembered, he had to.

Axel was clearly shocked as well, and muttered, "Two?", but abruptly the arrogant mask was back in place, the slight chink in it repaired at once. He swung the chakrams around on one finger and taunted, "Come here, I'll make it all stop!"  
_I don't _think_ so, _Roxas thought, and ran quickly to the side as Axel screeched, "Burn, baby!" and set the ground of the battlefield alight in a blaze of flame and coals. Roxas flinched instinctively at the feel of the heat beneath his shoes, but put it aside in his mind. He had more important things to think about…

Like figuring out how exactly he was supposed to get Axel out from behind the wall of fire that he had just concealed himself with.

As though answering his question, the pyro came flying onto the field, riding a wall of fire. Roxas whipped to the side and struck out with his Keyblade, knocking Axel into the air. Quickly, before the other could get back down to the ground, Roxas leaped up.

The sound of metal clashing on metal sounded as the Keyblades and chakrams met with clangs and sparks; Roxas jumped, pinning Axel to the ground, and beams of light shot up from the fiery field, rendering it normal again.

Now Roxas was free to continue his onslaught on the pyro, although he couldn't help but shake the sweat out of his eyes at the heat of the surrounding flames. Axel, on the other hand, didn't seem bothered by the temperature at all; on the contrary, he was grinning sardonically, enjoying every minute of it despite the fact that he was getting beaten by Roxas.

_You always were weird that way,_ Roxas thought affectionately, but the gentle teasing instantly turned to pain as Axel flung the fiery chakrams at him, followed up by a wall of fire. Roxas tossed a Potion up quickly to heal himself and, before Axel could utter "Burn, baby!" in order to set the field alight again, got in a few more slashes with the Oblivion. This proved to be too much for Axel, as, unlike Roxas, he had no healing items to help him; both of them instinctively knew the battle was over, and that the blond boy had emerged the victor.

"Roxas…" the pyro exhaled, groaning softly as he fell to the ground.

The flames cleared with a low, steamy hissing noise, revealing that Axel was bent over almost double, barely managing to keep hold of his weapons. Roxas mentally ordered the Keyblades to vanish, and felt another memory run through his mind… of the night when he had left the Organization…

* * *

_"Look," Roxas was saying without looking at his friend, "you didn't put up this much of a fight with Anxclof, did you?"_

_"But…" Axel broke off. "But that's different. It's not that I think you can't take care of yourself and she can, I just… I just…"_

_"Just what?"_

_Axel sighed. "You get on their bad side and they'll destroy you!"_

_Roxas gave a harsh little laugh. "No one would miss me."_

_With that, he walked away, without once looking back. However, he did hear Axel's parting words:_

_"That's not true… _I _would."_

* * *

Roxas stared at his fallen friend, not feeling guilt for having beaten his best friend so much as sorrow. _You think I didn't hear those words, Axel… but I did. _"Axel…"

The redhead lifted his emerald gaze to meet Roxas' dark blue. He was grinning, as always, but his eyes betrayed his true feelings. "Let's meet again, in the next life."

Roxas nodded. "Yeah. I'll be waiting."  
At that Axel chuckled, even as darkness began to envelope him. "Silly. Just because _you_ have a next life…"

Roxas didn't get to hear the rest, because his friend had already disappeared.

The blond sighed softly and turned toward the door to his right. _All I can do now is keep going._

However, as he went into the next room, he failed to notice the green-black-and-pink mound of swirling shadows just to the left of where he'd been…

* * *

Roxas crossed the threshold into the next room. The first thing he noticed were the pods: opaque, white, oval-shaped devices. Mildly disturbed, he looked around; two pods in particular – the only ones in the room that had something in them – caught his eye.

"Donald?" he whispered in disbelief. "Goofy?" Sure enough, the duck and the dog were each curled in their own respective pods, fast asleep.

_If Donald and Goofy are here, where's… _Roxas allowed his eyes to survey the room again, before they settled on the door just beyond him. He snorted inwardly. _I wonder who's in _that_ room?_

Stopping to pick up the Potion nearby, Roxas took a deep breath and opened the door.

It was the bluish-white room from his dream a few days ago, when he had technically first "met" Namine. In front of the large pod in the middle of the room stood a certain red-clad man. Remembering all that had happened to him at the hands of this man, Roxas made as if to summon his Keyblades, but DiZ spoke before he could concentrate enough.

"At last," he murmured, his tone almost sarcastic. "The Keyblade's chosen one."

"Who are you talking to?" Roxas retorted, stepping forward. "Me? Or Sora?"

DiZ gave him a look that suggested the answer should be obvious. "To half of Sora, of course.

"You reside in darkness. What I need is someone who can move about the realm of light and destroy Organization XIII."

Roxas snorted. "Oh, _really? _And if I may ask, who are you?"

"I am a servant of the world." DiZ chuckled. "And, if I am but a servant, you should consider yourself nothing but a tool, at best."

Roxas stared at him, his temper beginning to rise again. "Was… was that supposed to be a joke?" he snarled, and Oathkeeper appeared in his hand, followed by Oblivion in the other. "'Cause I'm not laughing!"

He raced forward with the black Keyblade raised, fully intent on running the man through with it. To his surprise and fury, it merely went through DiZ in a whoosh of bleeping and numbers.

"Oh, my apologies," DiZ said, as though this were but an afterthought. "This is only a data-based projection."

Roxas shook for a moment before lifting his gaze upward and letting out a frustrated scream that seemed to come from deep within him. He whirled around and tried striking with Oathkeeper, but that didn't work either. Both also did nothing; he continued to switch off like this until the data-DiZ disappeared. The boy fell to his knees, panting, only to hear the man's voice behind him and turn to face it.

"Come, over here."

Remembering all that this man had done to him, Roxas swung the Keyblades out to the side. "I hate you _so much…"_

"You should share that hatred with Sora. He's far too nice for his own good."

"No!" Roxas yelled. "My heart belongs to me!" He charged again and slashed at the data-DiZ with both blades, but predictably, the man just vanished.

Roxas breathed heavily with the force of his temper, and looked up at the pod. It began to open, all parts of it opening outward with a metallic _whoosh_. Roxas lowered his weapons and felt a wave of sadness wash over him as he saw the brunette sleeping within. "Sora…"

The Keybearer continued to sleep on, as if the Nobody hadn't spoken. The blond sighed softly and took a few steps forward, onto the foremost piece of the pod. "You're lucky," he said, feeling a strange smile make its way onto his face. "Looks like my summer vacation is… over."


	8. Chapter VIII

Yay! Enter Sora!

I posted this within a day of the last one because... because... Just because I COULD. XD And because I just saw the Transformers movie, and it inspired me, for some odd reason... Yeah.

Before any of you ask, NO, Char and Sora will not make out the instant they see each other. God, no. xP  
Char: Don't you wish...  
Me: You know what, maybe I DO!

**_Disclaimer-_** If I owned Kingdom Hearts, this would be the actual storyline, and Sora would've gotten with Char in the end instead of Kairi.  
Char: (facepalm)

* * *

The trains raced past one another, sending the sounds of metallic whooshes through the air. A small, dark figure stepped off one of these trains. Although they had a hood up, there was no mistaking the large round ears that poked up from the top of the hood.

* * *

Sora blinked his eyes open. The first thing he saw was an unfamiliar boy, standing with his back to him as though far away; all that the Keybearer could make out of the other was that he had blond hair and wore a white shirt. "Sora?" the boy called.

"Who are you?" Sora asked sleepily.

A burst of light replaced the blond in Sora's line of sight, and before he had time to recover from this, he could hear familiar voices.

"Sora!"

"Sora, wake up, a-hyuck!"

The brunette opened his eyes. His first thought was _what am I doing in here? _

"Sora!" Goofy called again.

Sora felt a soft rumbling beneath him, and then he could see the confines of his chamber beginning to open outward. He yawned and lifted his arms up behind his head in a stretch.

And then he realized that he'd outgrown his clothes; Donald and Goofy giggled at each other at that.

_Great._

His minor irritation with that was instantly replaced with happiness at seeing his two friends again. "Donald! Goofy!" he cried, leaping out of the pod to give them a hug.

Jiminy Cricket jumped out of Sora's pocket, landing on the boy's shoulder, and yawned and stretched like Sora had. "That was some nap."

"You mean…" Sora frowned. "We were sleeping?"

"We must've been, or I don't think we'd be so drowsy."

"When d'ya think we went to sleep?" Goofy asked.

"Hm…" Sora crossed his arms over his chest in thought, as did Donald. "We… defeated Ansem… restored peace to the world… found Kairi… and then we went to look for Riku. I think that's right so far?" At Donald and Goofy's nods of confirmation, Sora put a thumb and forefinger to his chin to think better. After a moment of trying to remember, he sighed in defeat and turned his head to look at the cricket on his shoulder. "What does it say in your journal, Jiminy?"

The bug in question got out his small notebook and flipped through it. His tiny brow furrowed in confusion. "Huh, there's only one sentence." He presented it to the others. "It says, 'Thank Namine'. Hm… wonder who that is?"

Donald put his hands on his hips. "Some journal _that_ is," he growled.

Jiminy blinked nervously. "Um, what say we find out where we are?"

Sora shrugged. "Doesn't sound like a bad idea."

* * *

They were in the middle of the mansion hall when they heard sudden footsteps on the stairs behind them. Sora instantly summoned his Keyblade, while Donald and Goofy whipped out their respective weapons of staff and shield. The person was obviously pacing above them and, from the sound of their voice, very agitated as well. Sora could only catch bits and pieces of what she – for that was what her voice identified her as – was saying.

"…don't see why I have to accompany the bozos… why can't… idiotic plan in the first place… don't care _if_ he doesn't want Sora to 'see his darkness', it's stupid…"

"Who's there?" Donald yelled at last.

The footsteps stopped at once, followed by swearing and cursing that made Sora wince.

"I didn't think anybody lived in this mansion," Goofy said. "So we got the right to know who you are."

There was a thumping noise, and Donald leaped back in surprise, nearly falling on his rear as he did so, when a dark-coated, hooded figure leaped down from the stairs. "Sorry, but I'm only interested in talking to the Keybearer."

Sora gave a start. "How do you know –"

The woman sighed. "I've done my research, y'know." She pointed at the Kingdom Key with a half-gloved hand. "And you've still got it out, moron."

Trying to hide how flustered he was, Sora made the weapon vanish and glared at her. "Tough talk for someone who chooses to hide her face in a hood."

The woman made a derisive sound. "Fine, then, if that's how it is." And without another word she reached up and took the hood down, revealing long red hair with messy bangs and ice-blue eyes. She didn't look any older than sixteen. "Happy?" she asked irritably, showing her sharp canines as she did so.

Donald and Goofy gulped at the fangs, as did Sora. The female rolled her eyes. "It's a birth defect, okay? Nothing to get your undies in a tight about."

Kingdom Hearts, this girl was annoying Sora and Donald. "Just name your business so we can pummel you!" the duck said aggressively, raising his staff for emphasis.

The girl raised her head to look at Sora, who was standing behind Donald and Goofy. "Is he always like that?" she asked, nodding toward the mage.

Sora rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, as did Goofy. "Er… well…"

"Hey!" Donald squawked.

She sighed. "Okay, well, since you asked _so_ politely, I'll get to my point." Taking a deep breath, as though to steel herself, she looked at Sora. "Wherever you are, I'm coming too."

"Whaaaat?" Sora and Donald cried; Goofy merely looked bemused.

"And why might that be?" the dog asked, lowering his shield slightly.

"Yeah, seriously," Sora added, his voice high-pitched with incredulity. "_That_ was sudden. You can't just be wanting an adventure or anything, right?" _Or going with us to find Riku,_ he added silently. _This girl doesn't even _know _Riku, so why would she care?_

The girl rolled her eyes. "I have my reasons. Now, are you going to take me along or not?"

Sora hesitated, and then turned to Donald and Goofy. "What do you guys think?"

"Obviously not," Donald said fervently at once.

"I dunno, Sora," Goofy said thoughtfully. "If she acts the way she does now in battle, I think she'd be kinda valuable." He blinked at the incredulous looks on his friends' faces.

"Are you crazy, Goofy?" Sora asked with feeling. "We can't just go around picking up any old person who wants to journey with us."

"Sometime before my mid-life crisis, thank you!" the girl called in annoyance.

* * *

Char listened to them talk in what she supposed they thought were hushed whispers. She frowned to herself at Donald's vehement response. _Am I really that bitchy? _

The obvious answer was yes, as Riku had told her at least a thousand times – though not exactly in the same wording, of course. She tried not to heave a sigh. As much as Char hated to admit it – and believe her, she _loathed_ having to admit it – she actually missed the little emo kid. Before he'd let the darkness take over him for good and taken that creepy new form, the two of them had been thick as thieves. It was actually rather fun annoying DiZ and lurking about the virtual Twilight Town; it reminded her of that golden age when the worst thing she'd had to worry about was a stray Heartless, or whether or not she would be able to turn in that spare research on time.

The golden age before –

Well… no good thinking about that right now.

Honestly, the only reason she had bothered to actually do as she was told for once was because Riku had been the one to ask her to do it. Mostly because, even as he pleaded with her to do this for him, she had seen a flash of the younger Riku, the one she had first met with DiZ, in his eyes.

"Hey, you!" Char blinked out of her reverie to find Sora waving a hand in her face. She promptly narrowed her eyes at the blatant violation of her personal space. "What is it _now,_ Key-boy?"

Sora frowned at the nickname, but kept talking. "Well… we've decided…" He sighed irritably, his tone grudging. "We've decided you can come with us."

"But don't think we're going to like it," Donald added, glaring at Char.

Char rolled her eyes. "Who said I had to like it either?"

Goofy quickly stepped between them before a fight could break out. "Er, I think we should just go explore the town outside."

"Yeah, I think we should," Sora said, sounding like he had lockjaw.

"I'm Goofy, by the way," the dog introduced. "And he's Donald, and he's Sora."

_As if I didn't know already; I've only been watching your memories for the past year now,_ Char thought dryly. "I'm Charisa Nightblaze; call me anything but Char and I'll rip your eyes out."

"Not even –" Sora began teasingly, but flinched as she whipped her head toward him.

"That means _anything,_ Key-boy." With that she tossed her hair back so her bangs were out of her eyes and started for the door. "You coming?" she called back roughly without turning around.

Hastily the trio made to follow, and Donald muttered "How fun is _this_ journey going to be?" under his breath.

* * *

"You know," Sora murmured as they were walking down an alleyway, "I think I've been to this town before."

Donald, Goofy and Char, who had been walking ahead, turned to look at him as he crossed his arms over his chest to think. "What's it called?" Donald asked.

Sora thought a moment; something was nagging at the back of his mind, but when he tried to catch it, like a butterfly it flitted just out of reach. He shook his head and straightened. "Huh. Guess I must've imagined it."

Char rolled her eyes and started back ahead, looking as though she wanted to be on her way as quickly as possible; yet after a few moments she stopped and let the others catch up. _She's hiding something,_ thought Goofy.

The four of them entered the room at the back of the alley, pushing aside the red curtain at the door in the process. Sora noticed there were a lot of boxes lying around in this room. He let his gaze rove around before they settled on three kids who looked to be about his or Char's age. One had wild blond hair and wore a gray shirt and camouflage pants; another was overweight, with a red shirt that had an unknown insignia on it and black hair. The last one was female, brown-haired, and wore an orange shirt over khaki pants. The trio was sitting there, looking bored out of their minds, as though waiting for something to happen.

Then the trio looked up and noticed the four trespassers standing almost awkwardly at the door. Sora, Donald and Goofy were looking around, but Char, who was pretending to examine her nails in boredom, had a strange look on her face. Like she recognized this scene from somewhere.

"What do you want?" the boy with blond hair asked aggressively, sliding up off the box he was sitting on.

"Uh, nothing," Sora said hastily, putting up his hands in what was supposed to be a gesture of peace. "Just wondering what was back here."

Char made a mental note: _Sora is _not_ the king of subtlety._

"Well, now you know that this is our spot," growled the blond.

However, the overweight boy stood up and walked right up to Sora. "What?" the brunette asked, uncomfortable under the other's stare.

"You're new around here, right?" the other asked at last. "I'm Pence. And that's Olette." He pointed to the girl, who waved and smiled at them.

The blond looked startled and somewhat annoyed at his friend's outgoing gesture, but he came up to stand beside Pence anyway. "Hayner. Nice to meet you all, but we've got things to do."

He left, leaving them all in awkward silence for a moment before Olette walked up. "Hey, did you guys finish your summer homework?"

"Homework?" Sora looked confused; Char could understand why. It was kind of hard to think about school when you were busy saving the worlds from Heartless. The boy exchanged a glance with Donald and Goofy, who merely shrugged in confusion, and then tentatively looked at Char. She was about to glare right back at him when she remembered the wording of Riku's request. Sure, she may be basically the "babysitter" here, but that didn't mean she had to scare the crap out of the brunette.

So in response, she just shrugged too, and Sora relaxed slightly.

He turned back to Pence and Olette, who hadn't seemed to notice the uneasy interaction between Sora and Char. "So, what're your names?" Pence asked.

"Oh, sorry," Goofy said, grinning as best a dog could. "We're Sora, Donald, Goofy…" He pointed to each of them as he spoke their name.

"And Char," the redhead in question cut in. For some odd reason, it felt like if she let one of them introduce her, then it would be too much like they were all friends.

And, Kingdom Hearts willing, she was _not_ going to become friends with any of these dorks.

Goofy blinked slightly at her hostile approach, but said nothing.

Pence and Olette exchanged glances, then Olette spoke. "We just met someone who was looking for you three." She made a hand motion toward Sora, Donald and Goofy.

"He sure seemed like he was in a hurry," Pence said. "He was wearing a coat a lot like yours," he added, directing these words at Char. "Except the hood of his was drawn up so I couldn't see his face. But he had these big round ears." He outlined said 'big round ears' on his head with his fingers as he spoke.

The trio looked thoughtful for a moment; Char just stood there, silently willing for them to understand. Then Donald shouted excitedly, "The King!", and Goofy nodded as well.

Sora grinned and turned to Pence and Olette. "Where'd you see him?"

"At the station," replied Pence, and Olette nodded.

"Thanks!" the brown-haired boy said, still with that infernal grin on his face. _Honestly, can't he learn to hide his emotions every once in a while? It can't be plainer how excited he is that King Mickey's here,_ Char thought, irritated.

"Well," Olette was saying, "we'd better get back to that assignment." She ran out of the room, in the direction where Hayner had gone. Pence tossed a quick "nice meeting you" over his shoulder as he followed.

Donald and Goofy's dark gazes followed the boy and the girl before turning back to Sora and Char. "Oh, boy!" Donald squawked. "The King's trying to find us."

"Will you shut up?" Char hissed, and in an instant her hand was over his mouth. Donald struggled and tried to speak against the green leather of her half-glove, but to no avail. "You never know who might be listening." Sora and Goofy looked bemusedly at each other, their eyes clearly bringing up the question of whether or not she was crazy. This only annoyed the girl even more.

_Oh yeah, I'm really crazy. Crazy like a bloody fox, I should say. You don't know about the Organization yet – just you watch._

She took her hand away and Donald gave her a glare that, if looks could kill, would've rendered her fly food on the spot.

"Well, anyway," Sora said after a moment, "we have to get to the station."

"Yep!" Goofy said, and the two ran out of the room. After one final glare from Donald, the duck followed suit.

At that moment, Char seriously considered going back on Riku's orders. He hadn't said she couldn't, after all – he had only assumed that she would listen and do as she was told. However, unfortunately for him, she wasn't the damsel-in-distress, flock-to-men-when-depressed, obey-any-order type. That would show _him_ he couldn't just tell her to run off with Sora and be done with it.

Then she felt the look of triumph on her face at imagining it fade. What good would it do, anyway, to just leave now, when more than likely Riku had turned off the beam to the virtual Twilight Town, and thereby to their headquarters as well? She would have nowhere else to go, having no Gummi ship to take her to any other world.

And not to mention, she mentally chuckled, that the only time she'd ever driven a Gummi ship, Riku had stumbled out, retching, and barely managed to say "Never letting you drive again". She felt a soft grin flit across her countenance at the memory.

"Hey, Char!" Sora had poked his head back through the curtain and had his spiky, chocolate-colored head tilted to the side. "Er, are you coming?"

In that moment, seeing the naïve look in the boy's eyes, Char realized she couldn't go back on Riku's orders now. No, the minute she had been spotted pacing above the stairs, she had dug herself good and deep into this task. And by Kingdom Hearts, she had to accomplish it, gently nudge Sora onto the right path. For the sake of her revenge and DiZ's on the Organization.

She flashed the brunette a grin, but undoubtedly due to her fangs it came out looking more like a sardonic smirk. "Yeah."

Sora blinked. "Um, are you okay?"

"Never better," Char answered, more brusquely this time. She could easily see that her change of mood had bemused the Keybearer, as shown by his wrinkled brow and nervous tone. She stepped up, brushing the curtain aside with the sweep of one hand and causing Sora to nearly fall over as she almost crashed into him.

"Oh, and just to warn you…" Char smirked wider. "I have mood swings. Thought I should tell you."

Sora gulped and nodded, jogging back ahead to Donald and Goofy – which looked rather funny, really, considering that his clothes were way too small for him. Char allowed her smirk to fade only a little.

Maybe Riku _had_ been wise in letting her do this… it was definitely going to be fun, as far as she was concerned…

* * *

Mwahaha. Oh, Char, you sadistic little bitch, you...

Also, I'm kind of concerned about IC-ness for Sora, Donald and Goofy. The Disney chars are surprisingly hard to write (since you hardly ever see them truly angry or sad or ANYTHING other than happy; seriously, they're just stereotypical Disney franchise as far as I'm concerned), and Sora... well, I have difficulty writing characters that aren't like me, and Sora's not like me at all. He's... Sora. xP

So, I'd like some feedback on that from you KH fanatics out there. (And YES, I know at least some of you are reading this - I've gotten over 200 hits on this fic. -.- Seriously, 200 hits and only 10 reviews? There's a problem here, people - do you just have trouble keeping awake for anything that's not yaoi?)


	9. Chapter IX

Yeah, uh... the only reason I'm posting this is because my school got let out ridiculously early for midterms. xD So, whee.

A semi-short chapter for me. Aren't you all happy? (tumbleweeds blow around; crickets chirp) (looks around) Man, I think they all died. Meh, whatever.  
Char: You're going to keep posting for the nonexistent fans, eh?  
Me: YEAH! ...wait a minute...

**_Disclaimer-_** Yeah, I totally own KH! And I also let those PWP yaoi stories run rampant around this fandom, because I love seeing my characters exploited to pieces even though everyone is obviously straight! ...no. Stupid fanweasels...

* * *

The four of them arrived at last at Central Station, with Char leading the way. Sora was a bit surprised that she knew her way around here so well… but then again, they _had_ found her in the old mansion, so it was only natural that she lived here and knew where to go. He looked up at the top of the clock tower and had a sudden, brief sensation of the thought of being at the top of that tower. Then he shook it off. Not like Twilight Town would let anyone sit up by the big clock… it was too easy to fall.

_And you know this how?_

Sora shook his head to clear it of the words that had echoed in his mind and started for the door, only to leap back in surprise as something materialized in front of him. It was long-bodied and off-white, but for the pure white symbol on top of its "head". He instinctively summoned the Kingdom Key, and Donald and Goofy whipped out their own weapons.

To Sora's frustration, he noticed Char merely sitting by, watching more of the white creatures appear and looking almost bored with the whole thing. _"Fiery in battle"? She's not even getting out her weapon!_

But even as one of the enemies slithered forward and made as if to attack them, there was a sudden blur of black and silver and the thing vanished in a flash of light. It was Char, wielding long twin swords, which were currently crossed in front of her in a guarding stance. "Well, what're you waiting for?" she snarled at the others, who were watching her. "Either fight or die. Your choice. I personally prefer the former, but that's… just… me!" She grunted the last words out as she dodged around another foe that had just popped up.

Sora nodded and leaped into action, striking aside two of them at once. Apparently these were stronger than the ones Char had defeated, because they came right on back to attack him. One of them extended a claw and struck, knocking him backward, but Donald quickly cast Thunder before it could react, finishing it off.

"Thanks!" Sora gasped.

"How many of 'em are there?" Goofy cried, flattening one enemy with his shield, only to have another take its place.

"They don't look like Heartless." This was Donald, even as he raised his staff to deliver another barrage of lightning bolts on the enemies surrounding Char. The redhead gave a hasty nod of thanks and ran forward to take on the next group of enemies that came her way.

"Well, we'll just have to defeat 'em before they can fight back," Sora panted. He whirled to the side of one of the enemies' attacks, barely dodging it in time, and slashed through it with the Kingdom Key.

Soon, though, the four of them were exhausted, and the enemies' numbers hadn't seemed to deplete at all. Even Char, stubborn and stalwart in her fighting, fell to her knees next to Sora, panting desperately.

"Dammit, where are they all _coming_ from?" she swore softly, so that only the Keybearer could hear.

The white enemies, as though sensing their foes' exhaustion, all seemed to leap at once. Sora weakly put up his Keyblade in an attempt to protect his friends as well…

Then a dark figure landed in front of them, ripping through the enemies' ranks in a few blows. Sora, feeling no impact, lowered his weapon and gasped at the sight of their rescuer's Keyblade – similar to Sora's own, but with a golden blade and a silver hilt instead of the other way around. He let his eyes look over the rest of the person, in particular the 'big round ears' Pence had spoken of.

Char was staring as well, one eyebrow raised, and opened her mouth to speak, but Donald and Goofy had already pushed Sora down, leaning on his back to get a better look. "Your Majesty?" Donald gasped.

The stranger, who still had his back turned to them, raised one finger and put it over his mouth. "You've gotta board the train and leave town," he whispered in a somewhat high-pitched voice. "The train knows the way."

With his free hand, he took something out of his pocket and handed it to Sora. "Here."

Sora managed to push himself out from under his friends and stood as he accepted it. He looked down at it; Donald and Goofy straightened as well and looked up to see the object, while Char looked over his shoulder. It was a small red-orange bag with a pale blue design on it.

Sora heard the breath catch in the redhead's throat and turned his head to look at her. "What's wrong?" But she had already pulled away and was staring up at the dusk sky with what she hoped was an indifferent look.

Suddenly Donald, who was craning his neck to look beyond Sora, said, "Your Majesty, wait!" The others turned and saw the small figure running off in the direction of Station Heights.

"Well, that was weird…" Char muttered.

Sora gave her a look. "Seriously, what was wrong with you earlier? Do you know something we don't?"

"Sora, I expect what you don't know could fill several encyclopedias at best," Char replied, causing the brunette to pout indignantly. "_Seriously_, though," she added, looking at Donald and Goofy as well, "I'm fine. I was just…" Damn, she couldn't think of a good lie.

Fortunately, though, the duck and the dog just shrugged at Sora and then looked back at the pouch in Sora's hand. "Was that really the King?" Sora asked.

"I'm sure it was," said Goofy happily.

"Now we know he's okay!" Donald grinned a duck-grin.

"Why wouldn't he be?" asked Char, pretending to be confused when really she had learned the whole story from Riku.

"Well," Sora began, "the King was locked in the realm of darkness when we closed the door to Kingdom Hearts after defeating Ansem, and restoring peace to the worlds. But… we just saw him…" He crossed his arms and put a thumb and forefinger to his chin again. "And if the King's here, that must mean Riku's here too!"

"Riku?" Char cocked her head to the side, but she had felt a little pang at hearing her friend's name. She wondered where he was now, and what he was doing. Probably bored out of his mind with DiZ, no doubt. The stuffy old guy wasn't really that interesting to begin with – smart, heck yes, but not interesting at all.

"Sora's best friend," Goofy explained. "He was locked in the realm of darkness with the King too."

_So, they don't see fit to tell me about when Riku was possessed by "Ansem"… Will they find out I already know before they can tell me?_

"Riku's gotta be here, too!" Donald was saying.

"Well, I'm going to go look for Riku, so we can go back to the islands together," Sora announced, puffing out his chest – a rather difficult feat when you've been wearing the same clothes and growing for a year. "What are you guys going to do?"

_Good question, _Char thought dryly.

"Gawrsh, Sora," Goofy said, and Donald crossed his arms with a 'duh this is obvious' look on his face. "Do you have to ask?"

"We're going with you, of course!" the duck said, and turned to Char with a venomous look on his face. "Though I'm not too sure about _her…"_

The girl rolled her eyes. "Like I said, I have my reasons for following you. And besides, I saw you fighting. Looks like you'll need me more than I thought."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" asked Donald belligerently, putting his hands on his hips.

"Exactly what I said."

Sora sighed. "So, what do you say, guys? Let's go on one more journey together."

He put out his hand, and Goofy and Donald added theirs on top of his. After a moment, Char half-heartedly followed suit.

"So, we're supposed to go to the station and get some tickets to board the train, right?" Sora asked, taking his hand out from under theirs.

"Seriously, why is someone with such a bad memory the Keybearer?" Char muttered, clapping a palm to her forehead.

"Hey!"

"Let's just go," Goofy said quickly, and he and Donald left for the station. After another moment of glaring at each other, Sora sighed and relaxed, looking over at the dusk sky.

"Look…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know what's coming next," Char interrupted. "You don't want me here, it's only because of my fighting skills that you're taking me along, the same old crap."

Sora looked back, blinking. "Yeah, actually. How'd you know?"

The redhead rolled her eyes. "I'm psychic."

* * *

The two of them had just entered the station, Sora pestering Char about whether or not she was really psychic, when they heard a voice behind them. "Wait up!"

They turned and saw Hayner, Pence and Olette run up to them. Donald and Goofy, who were further ahead, turned as well and walked back to stand beside their friends.

"We came to see you off," Pence said. "It just seemed like something we should do."

Sora raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Really? Thanks!"

Char just shrugged.

Suddenly the clock tower's bell rang. _Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong! Dong! _

Five o'clock, Char realized.

"You should hurry and get your tickets," Hayner said, looking slightly grudging at giving out advice to them.

"Right," Sora said, and headed on up to the ticket booth. "Four tickets, please," he said clearly into the speaker. Earlier he had looked into the pouch King Mickey had given them and seen 5000 munny inside, so he got it out in order to pay for the tickets.

"What is it?" Donald asked behind him, and Sora turned and saw Olette looking curiously at the pouch of munny.

She dug around in her pocket for a moment before bringing out a bag that looked exactly like the one Sora held.

"They're the same," Goofy said.

"Yeah," murmured Char.

Sora blinked for a moment at the look on the redhead's face, but nevertheless turned back around and slid 3600 munny into the booth's slot. After a moment it beeped in acceptance and four tickets printed out. The brunette ripped the tickets out of the slot and tore off one for each of them.

He started forward onto the steps leading to the trains, but stopped in his tracks, causing Donald to nearly bump into his legs.

"Sora?" Hayner asked.

"I can't help feeling like we won't see this town again," Sora murmured, so softly it was barely heard. However, that wasn't the real reason he had stopped; like before, he had felt something stirring at the back of his mind, something he felt he should remember. But again, it scuttled just out of reach of his mental hand.

"Why not?" asked Donald, rubbing his head and looking somewhat grumpy at nearly hitting Sora.

"You're thinking too much." This was Goofy.

Sora stood there a moment, then grinned. "Yeah, you're right."

Char just walked past him, in front of the navy blue train with a starry golden design upon it. Turning back, she growled, "Well? You coming?"

"Yeah," Sora replied, even as she was already going inside. He headed up to the door and, after Donald and Goofy had gone inside, paused at the entrance to the train. For some odd reason, he was compelled to say more than just a casual goodbye to Hayner and the others.

He rolled his shoulders to get those thoughts out of his mind and put one foot on the foremost step into the train, then looked back at the others. "Well, see you guys later," he said, waving.

"Hey, Sora," Hayner said, putting one hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Are you sure we haven't met somewhere before?"

"Positive. Why do you ask?"

The blond paused a moment before shaking his head and laughing. "Ah, never mind."

"Okay, bye!" Sora said.

And to his complete and utter shock he felt something _wet_ making its way down from his eye.

He put one hand to his face and took it away, feeling sudden embarrassment at the moisture that met his fingers. Swallowing, he knuckled the offending eye free of tears.

"You okay?" Hayner asked; Pence and Olette had worried looks on their faces too.

"Ah, y-yeah. Don't know where it came from," Sora replied, all the while wiping at his eyes.

"Pull it together, man."

Sora nodded. "Right, then. See ya." He turned and waved as he said it, nearly stumbling over the steps onto the train in trying to get on. He gave one final wave before the doors closed and the train roared into motion.

* * *

Sora leaned against the wall of the train, while Donald and Goofy chose to sit down. Char was sitting on one of the seats as well, one arm against the top of the seat so she could turn her head and look out. However, she was also furtively watching the Keybearer; she had seen what had happened between him and the others before the train had left.

Kingdom Hearts! If it was killing her this early on, keeping the secret of why he had cried from Sora, then it'd be a wonder if she still had all her limbs by the end of this stupid journey.

After a moment, the brunette took out the munny pouch from his pocket. "You know…" he murmured after a moment, causing Donald and Goofy to turn and look at him as well. Sora sighed deeply. "I'm sad."

"We'll be back," said Donald.

"Yeah, we can go see Hayner and those guys again," Goofy added.

"I get the feeling it's not that he's worried about," Char whispered to herself, so quietly that she was sure none could hear her.

"Hm? Did you say something, Char?" Sora asked, leaning over to get a better look at her.

"Eh?" She raised her head and saw the others looking at her. _Dang! _She fervently willed herself to keep a straight face as she answered, "Oh, nothing. Just kinda talking to myself."

The others shrugged and went back to looking out the window. Char watched the surroundings change in a flash of light to a seemingly bottomless emerald green landscape and sighed.

_Riku… what the hell have you gotten me into?_

* * *

Whee, the first (real) action scene in TSA! (throws confetti)  
Char: Right...  
Me: And I love Char's line: "Sora, I expect what you don't know could fill several encyclopedias at best." Lawl. Also, there will be much more of Char's little "must act stupid... MUST ACT STUPID (writhes in agony)" facade later on. So... be prepared. (whips jacket across face like a cape)  
Char: For the last time, don't be like Misfit and think you're a vampire.  
Me: (pouts like Sora)


	10. Chapter X

In the words of Zoidberg from Futurama, "YAY! People are paying attention to me:D"

Yeah, that's about how I feel right now. xP Two reviews do mean a lot when a fic of yours is getting so little attention.

Yay, this is one of my favorite chapters (grin)  
Char: (yawn) Joy.

**_Disclaimer-_** If I owned Kingdom Hearts, Riku and Sora would've talked more on the dark beach at the end of KH2, and Ansem the Wise would've been nicer to Roxas, and Kairi would've kicked more ass with that Keyblade Riku gave her, and Xigbar would've been a superhero, and Namine would've been killed by Xemnas for treachery... Gah, the list goes on and on!

* * *

Char must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes it was only because something was shaking her by the shoulders. She blinked blearily, trying to clear her gummed senses, and looked down to see Donald, looking disgruntled.

"We're here," the duck growled, instantly taking his wing away now that she was obviously awake.

The redhead yawned widely and stretched. "And where is 'here', might I ask?"

"Who knows?" This was Goofy, who was currently staring out the window of the train. Char followed his gaze and nearly gasped aloud at the almost garish surroundings. Below the train tracks floated a sea of pale orange clouds, the trend of orange occasionally broken by a green blur that faintly resembled a tree.

She let her eyes look straight ahead; through the windows, she saw what looked like an "island", floating in the vast orange abyss. On that island, was a crooked tower.

At first Char wondered where the hell they were. Then she realized: this must be the "tower" DiZ had told her about – it made sense, due to the nighttime design of the train they were on. Though her mentor had never really been here, he had done his research back home. Back before…

Er, well, yes. No point in resurrecting that particular memory right now.

Shaking these thoughts out of her mind, a flicker of movement caught her eye. It was Sora, who was standing up and lifting his arms up in a stretch. "Wonder where we are now," he murmured.

Goofy shrugged. "We might as well go 'n check it out, right?"

Char nodded. "That's all we can do, for now."

Without another word she rose to her feet, ignoring the unpleasant way her head spun at getting up so fast, and started for the entrance of the now-stopped train. As the door opened, she sighed and cast an impatient look at the others behind her. "You coming, or what?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Donald muttered sarcastically, stepping haphazardly from top to bottom stair to follow the redhead. Goofy gave Sora a helpless look and followed.

Sighing, the Keybearer, checking to see that items and keychain were intact, exited the train as well. Almost as soon as his feet touched the ground he heard a whoosh of air behind him and turned to see that the train had vanished. He chuckled weakly. "There goes our ride…"

Char, who had been walking ahead with impatient strides, turned her head slightly to see what he was looking at; Sora thought he heard her groan before she went back on her way.

After picking up the items in the chests nearby, the brunette couldn't help but notice the strange figure with its face pressed to the tower door. It didn't look human, but it obviously wasn't a Heartless, either – the creature didn't have that feral air about it. Still, though, there was an unmistakable sense of danger, so Sora walked up, keychain in hand just in case. He motioned at the others to come too; Donald and Goofy stopped what they were doing at once, but with their newest companion it took a few insistent hand gestures before she decided what Sora wanted was urgent.

"What's going on?" Donald asked, narrowing his eyes belligerently at the figure in front of the door.

The one he was talking to laughed. "Well, if y'must know, I sent some of my lackeys inside, to see if the master of this tower's as big and tough as they say!"

Char rolled her eyes. "Really?"

"Yeah. See, word is, he's a real powerful sorcerer. But in the end, it doesn't matter how strong he is – once he's a Heartless, he'll do as I say."

Sora, Donald and Goofy started. "A Heartless?" Sora managed at last, the very picture of angry disbelief. The look on his face almost made Char laugh, really – the boy just couldn't pull off the angry look.

"That's right. They're those things that come out of the darkness in folks' hearts. With all those Heartless at her side, Maleficent's gonna conquer everything! I'm going around a whole bunch of worlds and gathering up an entire army of Heartless, just for her." Without turning around, the figure waved a hand in a gesture of dismissal at them. "Aw, why'm I talking to you pipsqueaks anyway? Go on, scram! I'm behind schedule as it is."

"You ought to find something nicer to do," Goofy pointed out, and Char mentally slapped herself. Oh, these dorks were _very_ naïve indeed…

"Says who?" the anonymous one challenged, turning around to face them as he did so. Donald and Goofy gaped at the sight of the large, dog-like creature, who currently had his red-and-blue-clad "hands" at his sides in fists.

"Pete?" Donald cried, his eyes comically huge.

"What're you two nimrods doing here, with _them?"_ Pete growled, pointing first at the duck and the dog and then at Sora and Char.

"You know this guy?" Sora asked, looking from one to another.

"Yeah, would you mind telling me where the hell you know this guy from?" Char added.

Goofy flinched at the use of the swear word, while Donald just shrugged. "He was always causing trouble in the castle, so the king banished him to another world." The duck lifted his shoulders in another shrug. "I wonder how he escaped in the first place…"

"Ohhh, I'll tell you how," Pete said, grinning. "Maleficent bailed me out, that's how! And now, now that I have Heartless deployed everywhere, all the worlds are gonna belong to yours truly!" He smirked. "'Cause, Maleficent's gonna help me conquer 'em."

_Is he that stupid? _Char wondered. _He just tells us he's got Heartless in all the worlds, like we don't have a Gummi ship to go take them out. Smart, Pete. Really smart, indeed._

"Maleficent, huh?" Sora asked, sounding as though he were holding back a particularly bad bout of laughter. Donald and Goofy started snickering as well, which only served to rouse Pete's temper.

"Hey! What's so funny?" he demanded.

"She's toast," the brunette managed through his laughter.

Oh, yes, the redhead remembered; from watching Sora's memories, she had gathered that they had already fought Maleficent, mostly due to Riku's influence – which, the silver-haired teen had informed her, was _not_ one of his proud moments. From the looks of things, the witch had been a particularly annoying foe, mostly due to her dragon form.

However, for the time being, all she could do was sigh and roll her eyes. "You guys kicked her butt, didn't you?"

A nod from a sniggering Donald was her unneeded confirmation.

"You!" Pete snarled, pointing at them. "So _you're_ the ones that did it!"

"Eh, well…" Sora looked away shiftily. "When people get in our way, y'know…" He looked back and lifted his palms up in a 'what can you do?' gesture.

Pete seemed to struggle with the force of his fury for a moment before yelling, "Heartless squad! Round up!"

"Oh yeah, I kinda forgot about that…" Goofy mumbled, getting out his shield even as the black creatures appeared from the ground. One of them materialized between Char's legs and the redhead snarled indignantly as she drew her blades, rolling to the side as she did so, and ripped them through the bug-like Heartless even as she was regaining her balance.

Already, Sora had summoned the Kingdom Key and knocked aside a small group that had chosen to rally around him. However, he was so busy he didn't notice the slightly larger Heartless forming up behind him.

"Sora!" Goofy called, before Char could so much as open her mouth. "Behind ya!" The brunette whirled around, leaped away from the enemy's strike, and defeated it with a thrust of his weapon.

The girl sighed to herself and, even as she was hacking through the Heartless' ranks, reminded herself that she couldn't exactly be Sora's "babysitter" all the time. At the same time, though, she couldn't help but wonder what exactly made Sora and Riku such allegedly close friends, when they were such opposites. Sora was, from what she'd seen, a bit of a goofball, clumsily enthusiastic about everything, like a puppy when it came to Kairi. Riku was… Riku.

Char was so deep in thought that only the flash of pain from one of the Heartless' claws brought her back to reality. Shaking her arm to free it of the small bit of blood that had been drawn, Char slashed at the Heartless with the sword in her other hand. It was knocked back into Donald, who cast Thunder, finishing it off.

Pete hissed irritably at the sight of the others having finished off his Heartless. "Just you wait, I'll get you back for this! No one messes with the mighty Pete!"

"So, _mighty_ Pete," Char mocked, even as Sora snickered and slung his Keyblade over his shoulder. "Who lives in this tower anyway?"

"Oh, you don't know? It's the wizard, Yen Sid." Recovering some of his arrogance, Pete laughed. "'Course, he's probably a Heartless by now!"

Donald gasped. "Master Yen Sid lives _here?"_ Without another word, he pushed past Pete – quite a feat, considering their size difference – and had gone into the tower.

"Yen Sid was the king's teacher," Goofy told Sora and Char.

"Wow, sounds pretty strong. Let's go check it out," the brunette said.

"Yes, let's," Char muttered under her breath, following them inside while trying to ignore her still-bleeding arm.

Apparently the hole torn through her dark coat made the blood visible to the others, because as they opened the tower doors to go inside – Pete ranting behind them all the way – Sora gasped. "Char, what…?"

The redhead narrowed her eyes. "What're you looking at, Key –" And then she followed his own sapphire gaze, which was focused on her wounded arm. She laughed, putting one hand over it and ignoring the sharp pang of pain that greeted the feel of leather on exposed flesh. "Oh, that? Just a scratch from one of those Heartless. Nothing, really – I've had way worse."

Goofy looked disbelievingly at her. "But it's bleedin' a lot!"

Char's eyes narrowed further until they were ice-blue slits. "Like I said. I've had much worse."

"I say she's fine," Donald interrupted. Obviously he'd been listening in; he was already standing fidgeting on the stairs to the green light that lay just beyond. "Now c'mon; we gotta go meet Yen Sid!"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Are you absolutely sure you don't need a potion or something?" Sora pressed. Char was about to snap back when she noticed something in his eyes she had not expected: genuine _concern. _Though her common sense reminded her that it was just because of her possible loss as a fighter that he was worried, she did remember the compassion shown toward others from his memories. Of course, now that tiny spark of sympathy – damn that emotion – flared up in her chest, reminiscent of when Riku had taken Ansem's form, as well as watching some of Sora's memories.

"I'm fine, seriously," she replied, her tone softer this time.

Sora raised one eyebrow, as though he thought she were still in denial, but, obviously not risking to test her change of mood, said nothing more on the subject. He turned and looked up at the green light at what was the visible top of the stairwell. "So… guess we're going up there?"

"Wizards do tend to keep themselves near the tops of their towers," Char muttered, and was startled to realize she was actually trying to keep up a conversation with the Keybearer. Well, she had to fix that _right._ _Now._ She shrugged. "It helps them with their mysterious aura." As she spoke she lifted her hands and imitated said 'mysterious aura' with a wiggling of her fingers.

Sora laughed, actually _laughed._ It was rather a pleasant sound, really, if one refused to acknowledge the fact that it sounded like any other typical teenage male's. But the brunette's seemed more innocent somehow, not derisive so much as purely amused. Char was almost surprised.

But almost as soon as his chuckle started it halted, like he was afraid that she'd smack him for laughing. The thought struck her like a blow from behind, reminding her that she was supposed to just look out for Sora, not become friends with him. The redhead let her eyes travel to just behind Sora, where Donald and Goofy were talking about something; Goofy said something that caused the duck to squawk indignantly and thwack him on the head with a wing.

For that matter, she wasn't going to get all chummy with the other idiots, either.

So she just raised and lowered one shoulder indifferently and started toward the foot of the stairs; she couldn't bring herself to check Sora's expression. "We should be going," she said without turning around. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Donald and Goofy turn at the sound of her voice, the latter still rubbing his head from the duck's onslaught. "Shouldn't we go meet Yen Sid?"

"Of course!" Donald cried, racing on past her and into the green light.

Goofy frowned. "Y'know, I bet there's Heartless on the stairs…"

"Well then, let's go," Sora said, walking past Char. He stopped right in front of the light and turned his head slightly to acknowledge the redhead; she nearly flinched at the look in his eyes, a mixture of hurt and anger. "Are you absolutely sure you're okay with traveling with us?"

Char rolled her eyes. "Duh." Without another word she went ahead and stepped into the wavering jade light.

It was like walking out into the sun after just waking up from a night's sleep, if only for a second. When her eyes had finally blinked away the glare spots from her vision, the first thing she saw was Donald, casting Thunder furiously at a group of shadow-Heartless that had surrounded him.

Quickly she had summoned her two blades and charged. Donald hissed irritably as the hacking swords knocked one of the bug-like creatures into him and hit it away with his staff. It fell backwards, where it promptly faded, its heart floating upward and disappearing. Even as Sora and Goofy appeared through the light portal and drew their own weapons at seeing the situation, Char had already finished off the others.

"I could've handled 'em myself," Donald grumbled, glaring at the redhead.

Char rolled her eyes and threw one of the recently-acquired Potions at him. "Oh, yes, you were handling it so very well. I expect that's why you were surrounded and casting like you were never going to do it again."

The duck continued to glare at her, even as he reached out, snatched the Potion from her hand, and drank it. Goofy sighed, as did Sora. "Look," the brunette said, "can we just stop bickering for a minute and go see Yen Sid?"

"Ah, in a hurry suddenly, are we?" Char muttered, again walking ahead; after a few moments she turned back around and gave them an impatient stare.

Goofy turned to Sora. "She's hidin' somethin', isn't she?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, she waits for us even though it looks like she doesn't want to…"

"Or it could just be because I want to get _on_ with this!" Honestly, the trio wasn't good at hushed whispering at all, Char thought, annoyed.

Donald crossed his arms and, bill up in the air, marched up to stand beside her. Goofy and Sora hastened to follow.

One eyebrow went up over an ice-blue eye as Char realized that they were prepared to actually follow her. _Don't flatter yourself,_ she told herself before the pride could take over. _It's only because of your fighting skills. Sora's the one they trust._

Damn, this was going to be hard.

She took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes at the Keybearer. "Isn't this… your journey?" Agh… stupid pride. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Sora blinked. "What?"

"Did I stutter, Key-boy?" Ignoring his pout at the nickname, she turned around fully and, mentally ordering her weapons to vanish, put her hands on her hips. "You were the one who defeated Ansem and closed the door to darkness or whatever." The last part was added hastily; she knew the story by heart from Riku, but wanted to – _had _to – make it seem like she just remembered it from what Sora had told her earlier. "So, as one of your guardians on this journey –" she restrained the mighty urge to use the word babysitter – "I think you should lead."

The brunette blinked again, looking surprised; Char guessed he had assumed she would take the lead without protest, which inadvertently ended up annoying her more. It didn't help that her pride was taking a major beating right about now, either.

"Um, okay, sure." Looking bemused, Sora stepped in front of her. She noticed he still had the Kingdom Key out, and had it slung over one shoulder.

_Okay, Riku,_ she couldn't help but think as they set off back up the stairs, and the irritation in her mental voice was enough to make her imagine he was walking right beside her. _I'm in this stupid situation good and deep now because of you. Because of your stupid friend here. So, care to tell me – dare I jinx this even more – how this can get any worse?_

Char's eyes unconsciously slid closed, and if she didn't know any better she could've sworn she heard a faint chuckle.

* * *

"Heartless, Heartless, Heartless!" Donald snarled, after they had fought off yet another group of the shadow ones as well as higher-ranked, armored Heartless. "Things haven't changed one bit!"

"Well, what'd ya expect?" asked Goofy, catching his shield since it had been still spinning in midair from his most recent attack. "Pete did say he was sendin' Heartless into this tower, remember?"

"Still, that doesn't change the fact that the worlds aren't at peace after all," Char murmured.

"Man… so all that work we did was for nothing?" Sora groaned, even as the Keyblade he held in one hand vanished.

Char shrugged. "I didn't say that. You saved the worlds once – you can do it again, right?"

The brunette offered her a tentative smile. "I guess."

His words were hopeful enough, but the redhead could tell that even Sora's optimism was feigned in this case.

For once, she didn't try to shoot him down.

Sighing, she moved to open the door to the next flight of stairs.

* * *

"How many more of these things do we have to go through?" growled the duck, still grumpy from the excessive amount of Heartless.

"Hopefully, only one," said Sora, following Char through the door. After a few moments of trying to calm Donald down, Goofy exited the room as well.

"Hey!" Donald squawked at noticing he was alone. "Wait for me!" And he managed to dive through the exit just as the door closed.

Donald threw the double doors wide open and scrambled inside. Char rolled her eyes. "Seriously, how obvious can he be?"

"What do you mean?" This was Goofy, tilting his head slightly to the side.

The redhead sighed and let her blades vanish. "Never mind."

One would think, she reflected as she stepped up to catch the already-closing door and let herself through, that three people who had been through what they had been through would be less… _naïve. _Perhaps it was an effect of being asleep in the pods for almost thirteen months – yes, that had to be it. Char knew she would be acting the same way if she had just woken up into a world of turmoil, with nothing but paths of darkness stretching out on both sides.

Or perhaps – this possibility felt strangest of all to admit – Sora and the others were merely trying to preserve their light. She knew all too well what happened to strong people who lost their hearts – in Sora's case, Roxas was living proof of that.

"Char?"

Squaring her shoulders, the redhead turned at the sound of her name; the speaker was Sora, waving his hand in front of her face again. She frowned slightly and took a step away. "Hm? Oh, yeah. Let's go." Without another word she whipped through the door that had been closing even as she had been absorbed in her thoughts.

Sora watched the dark black tail of the coat that disappeared through the door in her wake and put a hand to the sudden twinge in his head.

"Sora?" Goofy asked.

"It's nothing," the brunette muttered. "Let's go."

Upon entering the room, the first thing Sora saw was a long golden table, standing out blatantly against the dark blue of the rest of the room. At the end of the table sat an old, gray-bearded man, clad in blue robes and hat.

In other words, the perfect stereotype of a wizard.

Sora looked around and felt his jaw nearly drop, but to his relief it managed to stay where it was. The sight of Donald bowing at the waist could do that to some people… Goofy had lowered his head slightly to the wizard as well.

At least Char maintained her haughty stance. The sight of the temperamental redhead _curtsying_ would be more than the Keybearer could take.

"Master Yen Sid, it's an honor!" Donald said, his voice muffled with how low he was bowing.

Sora, not knowing what else to do and somewhat flustered at the sight of what his normally-arrogant friend was currently doing, waved. "Hi there!"

Instantly he felt a tug on his pant leg and was yanked down to look into Donald's glaring eyes. "Sora, show some respect!"

The wizard put out one hand for silence, and then turned to scrutinize the brunette. "So, you are Sora…" he murmured. His gaze went to Char, who flinched slightly at the force of his stare, but didn't back down. "And who might this be?"

To Sora's shock, the girl put one arm against her side and leaned over in a bow. "Charisa Nightblaze, Master, at your service. Most call me Char, though."

Yen Sid nodded, with a look on his face as though he were storing this in a mental filing cabinet for future reference. "I see." He directed his next words to all of them, and Sora straightened despite his surprise. "Have you met up with the King yet?"

"Yes, we did, Master," said Goofy. "But we didn't get a chance to talk to him."

"The King _has_ been quite busy of late…" These words made Sora tilt his head slightly to the side. He wondered what all the mouse king had been doing since he had fallen asleep who knew how long ago.

"Therefore," the wizard went on, "it would seem that the task of instructing you four falls upon my shoulders."

Char looked like she was about to protest being one of the people in need of "instruction", but Sora gave her a look that belied his silent desire for her silence. He wanted to hear what all Yen Sid had to say – both about the King and what would lie along the way on their journey.

"You have a perilous journey ahead of you. You must be prepared."

Sora's head jerked back to look at the sorcerer at his words. "But… I was looking forward to finding my friend Riku, so we could go back to the islands." _If they're even still in one piece,_ he added mentally.

"Yes. I know." A glimmer of sympathy showed in Yen Sid's eyes now. "However, Sora, you must remember: Everything in your journey is connected. Whether you will find your way back to the islands, whether you will return alone or with your friend…" Sora flinched as his fears were voiced aloud, and Goofy reached up to put a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. "And, whether or not the islands will still be there.

"And the key that connects them all is you, Sora."

Sora looked up from where he had been observing his shoes. "I'm… the key?"

"Oh, but no pressure," Char muttered, barely audible. Sora stifled a grin, but at the same time felt a twinge of nervousness at the thought of what lay ahead.

He held out one arm and concentrated; after a moment, the Kingdom Key materialized in his hand. Looking at the weapon, Sora was suddenly struck with the same feeling he had gotten way back in Traverse Town, when Leon and Yuffie had first told him what exactly this sword could do – excitement, the kind that made your heart pound in your chest, accompanied by an unpleasant tint of fear and the feeling that an intense weight rests on your shoulders.

In this case, déjà vu was an unwelcome feeling.

"Chosen wielder of the Keyblade," Yen Sid was saying, and Sora glanced back up at him. The wizard looked deadly serious now, even more so than before, if possible. "Remember that you are the key that will open the door to light."

Sora leveled his gaze to meet Yen Sid's and nodded determinedly. Donald and Goofy straightened and their hands shot up in a salute; Char just gave a single nod of acknowledgment.

With a wave of the hand, Yen Sid had summoned a thick book on the table in a burst of light. "This book contains valuable knowledge you will need for your journey." As he spoke, flicking a finger, he sent the book toward them and opened it. "Study it carefully. Afterward, we will speak of the enemies you will surely confront."

_Like a study session with Master all over again,_ Char thought. She stepped up and nodded again before starting to read. Donald and Goofy followed to stand on either side of her, with Donald craning his neck to get a better view; failing to do so, the duck settled back on his previously-straining feet and crossed his arms irritably.

Sora had walked over and, standing on tiptoe, leaned over her shoulder in order to read the book. Char could feel one of his brown locks tickling the side of her head, and she felt a flash of annoyance. Ignoring the sound of Goofy reading the book aloud to Donald, she edged away slightly; enough so she'd be able to still read, but just far enough away that the brunette's spiky hair didn't touch hers. She didn't dare turn her head to see the Keyblade master's reaction.

After a few moments of reading and holding her breath, Char let it out in a sigh and straightened. She could almost hear Sora's murmur of relief, and for some reason that bothered her. _Am I not _pleasant_ to be around or something?_

_Well, no kidding, Nightblaze,_ a voice inside her head quipped. _Look how you're acting around him. Riku said to look after him, not cow him into doing what you want him to._

_Oh, shut up._

"Hey, Yen Sid," she began slowly, and the wizard glanced over at her. "Why are the Heartless still running around?"

At her question Donald, who had been listening to Goofy read the book out loud to him, turned and walked over next to her. "Yeah, Master, we met lots of Heartless on the way up here." He growled softly as though the memory itself annoyed him to the point of anger.

Goofy and Sora had walked over even as the wizard was answering Char's question. The redhead folded her arms across her chest and tried very hard not to meet Sora's eyes. Half of her feared what she would see there, and half of her was restraining herself from trying to pummel the loser right then and there.

"Your past endeavors did prevent an immense effusion of Heartless from the Great Darkness," Yen Sid was saying.

Sora, Donald and Goofy cast a questioning look in Char; the girl rolled her eyes. "Basically, what you did was brave and heroic, yada yada yada, and you saved the worlds from the Heartless. Stuff you already know."

Yen Sid's brow twitched in amusement, but he kept talking. "However, the Heartless themselves are darkness made real – as long as there remains a single shard of darkness in a single heart, it will be difficult to eliminate them for good."

Sora and his two friends sighed and hung their heads in disappointment. Char just shrugged. To be honest, she had grown used to a world – or rather, worlds – with Heartless. It sounded strange, but she would find it hard to get used to living without them. After all, that was the reason she had bothered to learn the blade back home in the first place.

"Gawrsh, so if everybody's heart was filled with light, the Heartless'd go away, right?" asked Goofy.

The redhead scoffed. "Aren't we the optimist. Sorry, Goofy, but some of us live in reality. There will always be a little bit of darkness in people's hearts. It'll be difficult to snuff out no matter what we do."

Donald glared at her. "Aren't we the pessimist."

Char chose to ignore him.

"I'm afraid your friend is right," Yen Sid interjected before a fight could break out. "But for now, it is time to speak of the enemies you will encounter."

_Okay,_ Char thought. She knew all of this already – seriously, she had the full right to tune this out if she wanted to. But she knew she had to make it look like she'd never known this before now.

Annoying, was what it was – pretending to be ignorant so she could fit in with this bunch. Especially considering it was the exact opposite of how it was at home; she had had to be as clever as she could, not just to best the Heartless, but to help her former mentor in gathering research on the door to darkness.

Yen Sid cast one arm out to the side, and a simulation of Donald appeared, causing the aforementioned duck to let out a "wak!" of surprise.

"If one such as you, Donald, yields to the darkness in their heart," the wizard began, "they too will become a Heartless." The picture of the mage faded, to be replaced by one of the feral, bug-like Heartless they had fought on the stairs. "But you know this."

Sora and Goofy nodded, and Donald turned and followed suit after staring at the image of the Heartless for a moment.

"The Heartless are always lurking, ever seeking to capture new hearts," Yen Sid went on, his tone becoming firmer as he spoke. "Never let your guard down!" He calmed slightly. "Now, then…"

He flicked his wrist again, and another picture was conjured next to the one of the Heartless: one of the white creatures they had fought at the train station. Sora gasped and pointed. "We fought one of those before!"

"Yeah, on the way to the train, Master," added Goofy.

Yen Sid nodded to show he had heard their words. "At times, if someone with a strong heart and will – be they evil or good – becomes a Heartless, the empty shell they leave behind begins to act with a will of its own." The Heartless disappeared, leaving only the white enemy, swaying from side to side. "An empty vessel whose heart has been taken away… a spirit that goes on, even as its body fades from existence. For you see, Nobodies do not truly exist at all."

"Nobodies…" Sora murmured, putting a hand to his chin in thought. "They don't exist…"

"They may seem to have feelings," the wizard continued, "but this is a ruse. They only pretend to have hearts. You must not be deceived!"

The sound of a "poof" next to them made the four of them turn. Three more of the simulated white things had popped up. "Now then… the being you see before you is called a Dusk. They are the most common form of Nobody. But, there are others, larger Nobodies, with stronger and unique powers.

"Along your journey, you will meet an alarming number of Dusks. They will all attempt to do you harm." The pictures of the Dusks faded, and the others looked back to face the wise wizard. "Still," the old man went on, "they are nothing but empty shells, destined to return to darkness in the end. But…"

In the place of the Dusks appeared three taller, darker beings. This was the part of the lecture that Char had dreaded most, because talking about the Organization always made her antsy or angry, usually an uncomfortable mixture of both.

Sora, Donald and Goofy each took a step backward at the ominous look of the black, hooded figures before them, so that Char was the only one remaining right in front of the simulations.

"The beings you see before you now are different," said Yen Sid. "These powerful Nobodies have formed a group called Organization XIII."

Char cringed a little, and then immediately regretted showing such weakness.

"I knew it!" Donald squawked, pointing at her. "We should never have brought her along!"

Char rolled her eyes, folding her arms across her leather-covered chest. "How do you know for sure I'm with the Organization?"

"That coat," Sora said angrily, summoning his Keyblade. "You're a Nobody, aren't you?"

"That'd sure explain a lot," the duck mage muttered under his breath.

"I heard that, you know!" Char sighed. "Don't make me draw my weapons on you. Think about it – if I was with the Organization, if I was really trying to do you in, don't you think I would have done it by now?"

"Y'could just be waitin' to do it," Goofy pointed out.

"I do not believe this is the case." The three of them whirled to face Yen Sid. "When Char entered this room," the wizard went on, "I sensed a powerful aura of light coming from her. Nobodies would have a subtle air of darkness, would they not?"

"But…" Sora lowered the Kingdom Key.

"She does not intend to harm you. For the moment, anyway."

After a few moments, during which Char could feel her heart rate speed up slightly at the thought of having to fight these bozos – but it was _not_ because they were growing on her, hell no, if anything it would be because they'd be without a guide for the rest of their journey – Sora allowed his weapon to vanish from his hand.

"Sora!" Donald sounded shocked.

"If Yen Sid senses her light, then she obviously still has a heart, doesn't she?" Sora shrugged and glanced at the redhead. His sapphire eyes carried a slight hint of suspicion. "Even if it _does_ have its own darkness."

Char snorted.

"He's right, Donald," Goofy reminded his friend.

"Okay," the duck muttered grudgingly, and then hastily added, "But that still doesn't mean we have to trust you!"

"Oh, _no,"_ Char sighed sarcastically, putting one hand to her cheek in mock indignation. "You made me cry, Donald. I'm so sad. Look at my distraught eyes." She opened her eyes very wide for emphasis.

Sora looked as though he were restraining a laugh, not unlike earlier at the very bottom of the tower.

Yen Sid waited patiently, and then went on as though nothing had happened. "Organization XIII commands the lesser Nobodies. While Heartless act on instinct, Nobodies function in a higher manner. They can think and plan; and it seems they are working towards a goal. What that goal is, we do not know."

Sora, Donald and Goofy exchanged an uneasy glance at that.

"The King sensed this danger, and journeyed forth to fight it. He found the dark realm's Keyblade, and with it, closed the door. Now he is traveling from world to world, fighting off the Heartless and searching for the answer to the riddle of the Nobodies and Organization XIII."

The pictures of the Organization members dissolved as Sora spoke up. "Well then, I guess we'd better go find the King first!"

"One problem – we don't know where he's going to be," Char said.

"Well, we're not gonna know till we look," said Goofy, grinning.

"Yeah, and the King has to know where Riku is, because they were together in the realm of darkness when we closed the door."

Again, at the sound of her friend's name the redhead felt an unwelcome twinge in her upper abdomen. Guilt, perhaps?

"Before you go," Yen Sid said, "you will need suitable traveling clothes." He gestured to what Sora was wearing. "Those look a bit too small for you."

Then again, Char didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt for insulting the brunette's outfit. She couldn't suppress a smirk. Sora smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, you're right."

"Through there," Yen Sid pointed through a wide door nearby, "you'll find three good fairies. If you ask, they'll create for you appropriate garments."

"Right, thanks!"

"Gawrsh, Sora," Goofy said, "you sure are growing fast!"

"Um, I guess…" Sora tried to flex his arms for muscles, or lack thereof.

Char rolled her eyes. "You're not buff, man. Just face it."

Sora cast her a withering look, which Char returned with gusto.

Donald sighed and shook his head. "This journey's _definitely_ going to take a while."

* * *

Yup, Yen Sid doing his usual "blah blah blah" speech. And somewhat of a Char/Sora moment. Yay.

Next chapter: Sora gets his new clothes, and due to some interference from the fairies, Char shows her new outfit as well. (God, that sounded like a fashion designer o.O) I really should get some pictures of her on my Photobucket account... (is too lazy to get a DeviantArt)

But I _have_ drawn a little five-page comic of my characters' misadventures. Hopefully you'll be able to reach it here:  
http / s62 . photobucket . com / albums / h111 / safaricat / OCs ?start (equals sign) all Just take out all the spaces, and you'll get to it. Only for some odd reason the pages are out of order, so... yeah. Hopefully you'll be able to figure that out x-x;  
However, there ARE spoilers for two OCs later on. So if you care about that kind of thing (for whatever reason...), just leave it alone. (I'd love your feedback all the same, though :P)

**_ALSO!_** I'm coming dangerously close to the end of the material I've typed out so far. So expect the rate in updates to drop at around Chapter 16 or so.


	11. Chapter XI

And we're back again, with Chappie Eleven of TSA.  
Anxclof: ...you sound like a fucking TV announcer...  
Me: Shut up. Grah. Anyway, this one's one of my favorites, because Char gets massively humiliated by the fairies. (grin)  
Char: (rolls eyes)  
Me: So, yeah. More witty stuff at the end of the chapter. (sweatdrop) Sorry if I'm not too enthusiastic - I just worked my ass off at swimpractice and I'm a little tired.

**_Disclaimer-_** (insert witty disclaimer here)

* * *

When the four of them had entered the room, they saw the fairies at once. There were three, one clad in blue, one in red and the other garbed in green, clustered in a circle and chatting amiably amongst themselves.

"Me, you guys, Riku and the King," Sora murmured. "I don't care who this Organization is or what it's planning…"

_Oh, soon you will, Sora. Soon you will._

"With the five of us," Sora went on, and then glanced over at Char. "I mean, _six_ of us, there should be nothing to worry about, right?"

"Don't underestimate your opponents, Sora," the redhead said, crossing her arms in her standard indifferent stance.

"Don't you think he knows that already?" Donald glared at her yet again. "And I haven't seen you doing what we've been doing!"

"Oh, I beg to differ." The duck gave her a look that requested further explanation, but Char had already turned away.

"Hey, fairies!" she called, and Sora winced at the rough tone of her voice. The three of them turned, looking indignant at being referred to in a group like that.

"Well, I never!" the red one huffed.

"My dorky friend, here, needs new clothes for the journey ahead." Char shoved Sora hard in the back as she spoke, causing the brunette to nearly stumble as he was forced to stand in front of the fairies. "D'you think you could conjure up some or whatever?"

"Impudent," groused the blue fairy.

"But it _is_ Sora," the green-clad one pointed out timidly.

"And Donald and Goofy, too," Goofy added.

The red one, who seemed to be their leader, sighed in reluctant consent. "I suppose, then, dears." She glared in Char's direction. "But for now, this one will have to be punished."

And with a flick of the hand, she had whipped out her wand and cast something on Char before the girl could react.

There was a brief flash of light, and when it cleared the Keyblade wielder couldn't help but crack up laughing.

"It's… _pink?" _he choked out into his hand, near tears with his amusement. Donald was rolling around squawking in laughter as well; Goofy looked as though he were torn between sympathy and near hysteria.

Char's temper ignited at once, and she crossed her arms instinctively, only to be greeted with a flash of garishly pink leather. "Argh, dammit!" she swore, tugging angrily at the sleeve as though that could revert it back to black at once. The fairies exchanged a smug glance.

"Give me that!" The redhead snatched the green fairy's wand and pointed it at herself. "Change back, you stupid thing!" She waved the wand frantically, trying to cast the way the red fairy had. "Change… back!"

"It won't work, dear," the blue fairy said.

"Oh, _great."_ Char snarled and practically threw the wand back to the green-clad fairy. She barely caught it, looking alarmed at Char's temper.

"Char, calm down,"Sora said, wiping the tears out of his eyes. "It's just a coat." Hesitantly, he added, "You… _are_ wearing something underneath that, right?"

"Of course," Char huffed indignantly, letting her arms drop freely to her sides. She noted the faint blush growing on Sora's cheeks and had to remind herself: No matter how much this kid had been through – what would lead most teens on a rapid, spiraling ascent to maturity – he was still a teenager, and a male teenager at that.

"Okay, so, this stupid coat aside," Char muttered, "could you please help Sora? He needs better traveling clothes."

"Of course," said the red fairy, turning aside; but Char caught the triumphant look on her face.

"I'll do the designing," added the green one, heading up to stand with her comrades in front of Sora.

She flicked her wand, which merely turned Sora's clothes green.

"Ohhh, that will never do!" The blue fairy cast as well; Sora's clothes had now morphed from emerald green to a pale blue, not unlike the shade of Char's eyes.

"Now, now, dears," reprimanded the red one, and cast her own spell. For a brief moment Char thought his clothes were going to turn pink like hers, but she was disappointed: His jacket ended up only looking a reddish-pink.

"But don't you like _this_ better?" Poof; green.

"Hold on!" Poof; red.

"Are you certain?" Poof; green.

"Blue!" Predictably, blue.

Things continued to go on like this, with Donald and Goofy sniggering to themselves, until Sora had had enough. "Would you just decide?" he implored, holding his currently-green-sleeved arms out for emphasis.

The fairies gasped and murmured amongst themselves. "Sorry," the brunette added hastily, lest he suffer Char's fate.

"Alright then," the red fairy said at last. "Together now, dears. And no more squabbling!"

Three wands lifted as one, and the three spells combined to create an almost blinding flash of light. When it cleared, Sora was revealed to be wearing a mostly black ensemble, with gold lining along the collar, decorative silvery sleeve designs, and, to Char's relief, longer pants.

"Oh, perfect!" the green fairy tittered.

"He does look very dashing." Was it just Char, or did the blue fairy cast her a suggestive look as she spoke?

Sora straightened after getting a good look at himself, and the Kingdom Key appeared in one hand.

"Now," the red fairy said, "those aren't ordinary garments. They have very special powers." She cast yet again, and a dark golden orb formed in front of Sora. "Take the orb, dear."

Tentatively Sora reached out and took the orb in his hand, which promptly disappeared within his skin.

"And watch what happens…"

Suddenly, Sora seemed to lift in midair; he arched back, and a sound not unlike that of breaking glass was heard. The others made as if to help him, but when the light cleared, Donald and Goofy merely looked surprised.

Sora's black outfit had been replaced by a red one, and the areas that had been any other color were now black. "Whoa…" Sora's gaze was instantly drawn to the lavender Keyblade in his previously-free hand; the weapon had a wing-like hilt and a crescent moon-shaped charm at the end of its chain.

"Two Keyblades," Goofy murmured in awe.

"This journey's gonna be twice as difficult as your last," said the blue fairy, causing Sora to sigh and slump slightly.

"Your garments also have other powers." This was the red fairy. "But you'll have to discover what they are as you continue on your journey."

Sora straightened. "Okay, I'll do my best. And thanks a lot!"

"Oh, and there's something else for you, from Master Yen Sid."

Donald and Goofy looked excitedly at each other. "Oh boy!" the duck squawked.

For a brief moment, Char considered reprimanding his blatant mood again, but thought better of it. This was a powerful wizard's tower after all – the King's _teacher,_ for the love of Kingdom Hearts – so the Organization doubtless couldn't get past.

Right?

Shaking these thoughts out of her head, Char sighed. "Well, I would've had to get rid of this thing anyway." And with that she had unzipped the coat and tossed it off to the side.

Sora had instinctively shielded his eyes despite her previous statement that she was in fact wearing something beneath the coat, but now he hesitantly lowered his arm.

Char was wearing a dark brown shirt with golden lines zigzagging down the front on either side of where the jacket parted over a high-cut white top. On her short sleeves were two zigzagged patterns of red and orange, beneath two golden arches that connected from her white collar to over her shoulders. The green fingerless gloves were still intact, of course, and she wore long black pants with golden stripes winding around the knees and black shoes.

"Well, what're you staring at?" she asked irritably at the look on Sora's face. "I sure as hell wasn't going to wear that stupid pink coat on the rest of our journey, just as you weren't planning on using those short-shorts." She smirked at his pout. "Now," she said, turning back toward Donald and Goofy; the former looked slightly less suspicious now that she was no longer wearing the Organization coat, but still paranoid. She couldn't blame the duck; Roxas, after all, never wore the coat in his time in Twilight Town, but he was in the Organization nonetheless. Goofy just looked confused at both the humans' change in appearance. "We should go see what Yen Sid has for us."

"Oh, right!" Donald instantly dove through the door.

Sora sighed as he tapped the treasure chest nearby with the Kingdom Key, which gave him a Hi-Potion. "He's a little too overeager, isn't he?"

Goofy shrugged.

* * *

Yen Sid was waiting at the crescent moon-shaped window for them; he turned and gestured for them to join him, which they did.

As the four of them stopped in front of the window, Yen Sid lifted a finger. A reddish air vehicle with yellow stripes and wings soared upward, and stopped in front of the window to hover before them. Char felt the breath catch in her throat.

_A Gummi ship…_ She had to remember that she wasn't using portals of darkness to get around anymore.

"Alright!" Donald said, grinning. "It's the Gummi ship!"

"Yeah," Char said. "We can go between worlds now."

One of Sora's eyebrows raised. "And you know this how? You've never ridden one before, have you?"

The redhead rolled her eyes. "I didn't live in a freaking cave before I met you guys, you know."

"Heh… right…" The Keyblade master quailed a little at the look on her face.

Char relaxed and sighed.

"So," Sora said after a moment of awkward silence, turning to Donald and Goofy. "Are you guys ready to go?"

The two nodded, and the trio straightened up to face Yen Sid. Char did the same so as not to look _too_ rude.

"Now, now, just a moment."

The four of them sagged slightly.

"Due to your previous efforts, the worlds have gone back to their original states. That means the pathways between them have disappeared."

Sora groaned, though not so much out of anger as of worry for the worlds. "So we have to do all that _again…?"_

"How do we get around?" asked Donald.

"Do not fear," said the wizard. "If what the King suspected proves true, the worlds have prepared new pathways along which you may travel."

"Yeah," Goofy murmured thoughtfully. "Because how else would them Heartless get from world to world?"

Yen Sid nodded. "The pathways may be utilized by unlocking special gates. How these gates are opened, I'm afraid I do not know…

"However, the Keyblade will serve as your guide. When a beam of light radiates from the Keyblade, return to the Gummi ship."

Sora nodded. "Gotcha."

"And remember –" The wizard held up a finger for emphasis as much as for silence. "The worlds may at times seem far apart and out of reach, but nevertheless remain connected by invisible ties. As do our hearts."

"Our hearts are connected," mused Sora; Char guessed he was thinking of Kairi and Riku.

"But be warned: as you proceed, the Heartless and the Nobodies will be using their own paths. They will be attempting to link their dark pathways to the gates between the worlds. You may have to fight them off using the Gummi ship."

Char grinned. "No problem."

"But that's not fair!" Donald growled.

Yen Sid looked amused again, and then turned serious. "This is all the information I can give you. Go forth, Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Char." He looked to each of them as he spoke their name.

"Right; let's get going!" Sora said.

They all straightened again. "Master Yen Sid, we appreciate the help!" Goofy said, and he, Donald and Sora all saluted with one hand. Char chose to do a slightly more smart-alecky two-fingered salute and followed them back toward the stairs.

* * *

"Howdy, Sora!" one of the chipmunks squeaked.

"It's your favorite Gummi engineers here, ready for duty – Chip…"

"…And Dale!"

"Do these guys ever shut up?" Char sighed, leaning over from her seat to prop her cheek against her upraised fist.

"They're real good fliers, though," said Goofy, settling back in his own seat.

Donald was currently reading through the Gummi manual. "It doesn't look too different from last time," he said.

"So, this won't be a problem, right?" Sora put his hands behind his spiky head in a nonchalant gesture.

"Don't forget what Yen Sid said about the Heartless, though," Char reminded him.

"I know, I know…" Sora sighed and looked out at the map. He gave a start of disappointment. "Only one?"

"Wait…" Goofy murmured. "I think it's one we know!"

"It looks a lot like Hollow Bastion, eh?" Donald asked, leaping into his own seat beside Char. The redhead growled and edged away at the duck's charge.

For some reason, the fact they were heading for Hollow Bastion seemed to set Char even more on edge than usual. Sora turned his head to look at her and tilted his head to the side. "Char, you okay?"

"Hm?" It was like she snapped out of a trance. "Oh. Yeah. Fine."

_You don't _look_ fine to me,_ the brunette silently replied. "We're going to meet all sorts of friends there," he said, trying to cheer her up. "Leon, and Yuffie, and Merlin…"

"Oh yeah, I remember you didn't have any magic when we were fightin' all the Heartless, Donald!" the dog said to the mage.

Donald growled and crossed his arms. "Don't remind me."

"Well, maybe Merlin will help us out with a few spells," Sora said.

Char shrugged. "Maybe. I don't see how it'll help, though – the only magic I'd think we really need is healing."

In a flash, Donald was on his webbed feet in the chair, glaring daggers at her. "_What_ did you say?"

"Aw, crud," Sora muttered. "Goofy, take the wheel." The dog nodded and, with the manual open next to the control panel, began to slowly make his way toward Hollow Bastion.

"Seriously – did you even see yourself back there on those stairs?" Char was saying. "We don't have that many Potions, y'know. Healing magic helps more than that stupid Thunder or whatever, if you ask me."

Donald was so steamed he couldn't even muster a good retort. Sora felt the instinctive sense of danger that he'd built up over his last journey go on high alert, and quickly stepped between them before an actual physical fight could start. "Alright, guys, that's enough," he laughed nervously.

"I'll give you 'enough'," Char muttered through clenched teeth, still staring down the duck.

"We don't want any arguments breaking out before this journey's even started, remember?"  
After a few moments, the redhead and the mage turned away from each other with indignant 'hmph's; Sora was reminded of the day in the Deep Jungle when he and Donald had done the exact same thing to one another. He wondered if they were going to see Tarzan again this time around.

"Come on," he said, more softly. "We should be going."

Donald huffed and stormed back to the cockpit, but Sora couldn't help but notice the look in Char's eyes. Anger, of course, but beneath it lay something that was much less petty than her temper.

"Are you sure you're okay with going to Hollow Bastion right now?" he asked, feeling nervous for some reason. He always got like this with girls – even with Kairi, who he'd known since he was five. "Because, you know, you could stay inside the ship and wait while we –"

Char's head shot up, but she looked surprisingly calm. "I can give you two good reasons why you should let me go with you." As she spoke, she held up two fingers. Her hands clenched into fists, and one blade appeared in one hand, then the other. She hefted them to brace in a guarding position…

_…right in front of Sora's face…_

WHOA…

"Gotcha," he managed at last.

Char grinned, letting the weapons vanish and her arms fall to fold across her chest. "That's what I thought."

* * *

Heh. You tell Sora who's boss, Char!  
Char: With pleasure... (smirk)  
Sora: Ack, no, wait -  
Char: (pounces)  
Sora: (in background) GYAAAAH!  
Everyone Else: ...  
Me: And if anyone wants a pic of Char in her normal outfit, just tell me in a review, because God knows with over 500 hits on this I need more reviews. (sweatdrop)  
Anxclof: ...yeah...  
Falcon: Geez... I had no idea Char could be so...  
Anxclof: Predatory?  
Falcon: (nods faintly)  
Me: Next chapter's Hollow Bastion!


	12. Chapter XII

Woohoo, Chapter 12! You know what that means!  
Char: (sigh) One away from your lucky 13?  
Me: Yup! And I'm in a pretty good mood, considering I keep getting killed in .hack/Infection... (grumbles) Stupid Mia... making me go out by myself...  
Char: Yeah, Saf actually got to the boss before she ran out of items and died. It was kinda funny, actually.  
Me: I'M NOT GOOD ALONE, DAMMIT!  
Char: Anyway, enjoy this chapter, or I'll rip your spleen out.  
Me: 0.o I'm never letting _you_ do the chapter welcome again...

**_Disclaimer-_** Please.

* * *

In a dark, shadowed castle, just beneath the rampart, a certain large dog clad in red, blue and purple was looking around.

"Maleficent?" he called tentatively; and then louder. "Maleficent?" He gave up on calling his mistress – this had lasted all day and his throat was starting to hurt – and sighed. He entered the main room of what had been Maleficent's castle. "Maybe they really did finish her off…

"_Now_ what's gonna happen to our plan?" he wondered despondently, slumping down against a wall.

A sudden flapping of wings greeted his ears, which pricked up at the sound. He stood and saw a raven perched on the balcony ledge.

And not just _any_ raven…

* * *

Goofy parked the Gummi ship and called to Char and Sora, who were in the back, "We're here, guys!"

Char let out a growl of disappointment and dropped her cards. "And I'd almost beaten him, too…"

Sora shrugged, trying to sound modest. "Er, I guess I just have a knack for this…" To be honest, he didn't remember ever playing cards at the islands, and saving the worlds from Ansem and the Heartless hadn't exactly given him the time to learn.  
The redhead stood up in her chair, and Sora hastily followed. "C'mon," she said. "Let's go check on your friends."

The four of them exited the vessel, and almost as soon as Char had set foot on the ground she was overwhelmed with the feeling one usually got when thinking about home. She inhaled deeply, like an addict, trying to get enough of the scent before she had to leave for good.

The sight of this place… the smell… damn, it felt almost like nothing had changed a bit from when she'd been training here under DiZ. In fact, if it weren't for the occasional dilapidated building and construction signs, it would've felt exactly like home, which would have made Char feel even worse.

So she didn't know whether to be guilty for being grateful that it wasn't the same, or to just be grateful that she didn't have to suffer the humiliation of being overtaken by her homesickness.

"This _is _Hollow Bastion," Donald said doubtfully, his words coming out sounding like a question.

"Yeah, but it looks kinda different now…" This was Goofy, who was looking around.

They all ran to the nearby ledge and looked out.

The former castle of Maleficent had changed significantly since its mistress had fallen to the Keybearer and his comrades – the building was now nothing more than a wreck of winding brick and rubble. A few beams could be seen as still intact, but other than that, everything about it was different.

"Shouldn't we go check on Leon and the others…?" Char cut in before the sense of déjà vu could threaten to take over her.

"Hm?" Sora turned to look at her. "Oh! Yeah!" With that, he had started off down the street with the duck and the dog at his heels.

Rooted to the spot by her emotions – which she tried furiously to suppress _at once_ – Char let her gaze skim the area a little more. A flicker of movement drew her eyes to the roof of one of the nearby buildings; it was one of the armored Heartless, clanking along conspicuously. When it noticed her glare upon it, it hastily vanished in a translucent globe of black and violet.

Char realized the others were getting ahead of her and hurried ahead to meet them.

The four of them headed down the street; during the short five minutes, Char started to wonder whether Sora's idea _had_ been best, whether or not she should have stayed in the ship. Everything was so familiar to her that her heart was starting to ache.

And, with Char Nightblaze, that was definitely an unfamiliar feeling.

"Hey, Char, are you alright?"

Char blinked out of her reverie; she made a point of narrowing her eyes irritably at the dog who had spoken, yet the interruption wasn't entirely unwelcome. "Why?"

Before Goofy could reply, Sora lifted one hand and pointed. "Well…"

The redhead frowned. "What are you talking –" Unconsciously, one hand went up to her cheek, where Sora had signaled; to her embarrassment, she felt a disturbing wetness there.

She scraped one finger roughly across the offending eye in an attempt to get it free of tears. "I'm fine. Just thinking."

Sora nodded without questioning her further; Char guessed he was remembering how he'd cried for seemingly no reason in front of the Twilight Town gang.

He turned back onto the path, only to cry out and leap back as pale beams of light came up from the ground around them, as though scanning for something. Donald and Goofy let out sounds of confusion as well, but Char remembered the world's defense mechanism and stayed where she was.

"What _is_ this?" Sora cried.

"That's the town's defense mechanism!" came a feminine, upbeat voice from above. The four of them looked up and saw a certain dark-haired ninja waving energetically at them.

"Hey, Yuffie," Sora greeted.

Yuffie waved, but then, looking at something beyond them, cried, "Look out!"

They whirled around and saw the Dusk Nobodies appear, surrounding them in blurs of off-white. Among them were another, new kind of Nobody, one that looked oddly familiar to both Sora and Char. The creature had two blades, and brandished the two sheaths as weapons as well.

Sora snapped out of his mental search for the reason of this familiarity before Char did. The Kingdom Key appeared in his hand, and Donald and Goofy whipped out their weapons. "Take out the samurais first!" he shouted, running for one of them at once, not even bothering to figure out how he knew these Nobodies were called Samurai in the first place.

_Wow,_ Char thought, readying her own blades. _The kid actually has some sense after all._

One of the Samurais slashed her from behind, nearly knocking her facedown onto the concrete. She managed to catch herself with her elbow just in time, and felt a stabbing agony from her back and elbow; the oozing warmth of blood was tangible on her back as well.

"Oh, so you want to fight, eh?" the girl grunted, leaping to her feet and twisting to return the Nobody's strike. It dodged aside, however.

Char swore as she realized she was pinned with her back to the wall with two of the Samurais coming at her from both sides. She snarled, trying to be intimidating, lashing out with the sword held in her uninjured arm, but inwardly her heart was pounding. _Hard._

One of the Nobodies drew its blade back to deliver a blow, but suddenly it seemed to freeze; the next moment, Sora had sliced through it with his Keyblade. He turned his attention to the other Samurai and beat it off to the side with a flurry of parries and slashes. He turned his head slightly to look at her, still keeping one eye on his opponent. "Char, you okay?"

"Y-yeah," she replied instinctively, forgetting briefly about her previous tough-girl façade. She pushed herself to her feet and noticed Goofy was having trouble with one of the Dusks, but before she could take action Donald had zapped it into oblivion.

She tried to hide a grin. _Guess non-healing magic can help after all…_

But Char felt a twinge on her back that, she knew, meant another wound, and winced. Well, at least now her arm and back matched…

"You guys okay?" called Yuffie, looking worried from where she stood on the ledge.

"Oh, yeah, _just_ peachy," Char muttered, and instantly regretted drawing attention to herself. The ninja leaped down from the building to get a better look, managing to land on her feet with ease. Her dark eyes widened at seeing the redhead.

"Hey, you used to live here, didn't you?" She tilted her head to the side and tapped her chin with a forefinger. "But all that research didn't exactly help with your social life, did it…"

"You were a researcher here?" Sora gave Char a questioning look.

"Um, yeah… you could call it that." Char prayed to the gods of all the respective worlds that Yuffie didn't elaborate more on said 'research'.

Fortunately, the ninja just shrugged and turned to Sora, Donald and Goofy, a jovial look spreading across her face. "I see you guys are still in top form."

"What'd you expect?" asked Sora, grinning. "Looks like you're still doing okay."

"Well, what'd _you_ expect?"

"How are the others?" asked Donald.

"Great! Wanna go see 'em?"

This, Char thought, was the precise reason why she hadn't wanted to go back to Hollow Bastion. Aside from the heartache she got at coming home, there was the overwhelming probability that one of Sora's friends would recognize her from DiZ's studies.

And she did _not_ want the trio to discover who she really was at all.

"Hey, Yuffie," Sora began, after an enthusiastic nod to her previous question. "Have you seen the King and Riku?"

"Nope," the dark-haired girl replied.

The brunette sighed, and Char felt another little pang of guilt.

"But I had a feeling I'd see you guys again," Yuffie added.

Sora straightened and grinned, then put on a serious face and tone. "'We may never meet again, but we'll never forget each other.'"

Yuffie laughed. "Is that supposed to be Leon?"

Donald and Goofy chuckled at that.

"Everybody's working on stuff over at Merlin's house. C'mon!" Without waiting for a reply, the ninja ran off around the corner.

Donald turned to Char, narrowing his eyes at her. "A researcher, eh?"

The redhead shrugged. "What business is it of yours if I was one?"

"Well, it'd kinda be nice to know this stuff," Goofy said.

Char rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

_Oh, excellent comeback, Nightblaze. If that didn't burn them I don't know what will._

_Oh, shut _up. Trying to ignore that irritating voice in the back of her mind, the redhead shot a glance at Sora over her shoulder. "Shouldn't we be going to Merlin's?"

"Oh! Yeah!" Sora grinned, which made Char roll her eyes again.

"I reiterate – why someone with such a bad memory is the Keyblade master, I will _never _know."

Sora's grin faded into a pout.

The four of them set off to follow Yuffie, with Sora looking contemplative – well, as contemplative as he had ever gotten, anyway – and Char thanking every deity there was that her cover hadn't been blown. _That_, more than anything, would have annoyed her. The odd thing was, she did remember Yuffie, from those days when Char was bored in DiZ's study and they were allowed visitors.

Of course, the redhead reflected as the four of them rounded the corner, it's not like she ever had any true friends while she was there; DiZ made sure the seven of them were kept good and busy. Understandable, though. People _did_ tend to do strange things when they were bored…

Why was it that everything she thought inevitably seemed to lead to that fateful incident?

Char shook her head to clear it and realized they were standing in front of Merlin's house. Donald had already gone inside, as shown by the duck's absence and the door swinging slightly ajar, but Sora had his hand on the doorknob and was looking quizzically at her.

"You okay?" asked Goofy.

Char realized she was supposed to be keeping up the tough front, and merely stared blankly back. "I'm fine," she growled.

Sora blinked doubtfully. "You were kind of staring at the ground after we saw Yuffie, so I just thought…"

Char's head jerked up defiantly. "Well, for the record, you thought wrong." She practically shoved Sora aside and made as if to go through the door to Merlin's house…

…only to remember too late that the gap between the door and its frame was still only duck-sized from where Donald had gone through, and stumble and nearly fall.

Well, there went the dramatic effect.

Char haughtily straightened, refusing to chance a look at Sora and Goofy, but she thought she heard some sniggering on the former's part as she shoved the door back open. However, like at Yen Sid's tower, the laughter abruptly halted, as though Sora were realizing his penalty if Char caught him.

The redhead decided to let him go, just this once, and entered the room. She heard footsteps behind her that suggested the Keybearer and Goofy had followed.

The first thing Char saw was the computer screen, dark and conspicuous against the walls nearby, and felt another overwhelming sense of déjà vu. In front of the computer were three people she recognized almost at once, even though their backs were turned. One was wearing her usual red-and-pink dress, and was the only female; the man sitting at the computer was typing something that caused a bunch of strange characters Char couldn't read to appear onscreen. The man standing on the other side of his companions was broad-shouldered with brown hair, and it looked like he had his arms folded in thought.

Even though Char hadn't exactly been the most social person in the world while she was working here, she still recognized the two of them almost at once: Aerith, Cid and Squall. The redhead felt her face crease into a frown and her arms come up to fold across her chest as she remembered that Squall now called himself Leon, due to the Heartless invasion two years ago that he had been unable to stop.

Sora had slipped around Char to stand beside her without her noticing, and so it was all she could do to keep from jolting in surprise when she suddenly felt him brush slightly against her side. She gave him a disapproving look and moved away so that they weren't touching, causing an injured frown to appear upon the Keybearer's face; but Yuffie spoke before Sora could.

"Meet the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee!" the ninja said brightly, gesturing to the three people standing before the computer.

Char couldn't help but scoff. "Doesn't look like a very big restoration committee, if you ask me."

"At least they're trying," Donald muttered pointedly. Char figured he probably hadn't meant for her to hear, but she returned his glare all the same.

The conversation had caused the trio at the computer to turn and see what was going on. When Aerith's green eyes fell upon Sora, Donald and Goofy, she put her hands together before her in delight. "We missed you!"

"Well," Cid growled. "Ain't you in top shape."

Leon, however, stepped forward to greet them, the slightest twitch of a smile crossing his normally stoic face. Char was surprised; he hadn't usually shown so much emotion during the time she had known him. "I knew it," the older brunette chuckled.

"Knew what?" Sora asked, tilting his head of spiky hair to the side.

"A while back, everyone suddenly remembered you three, all at the same time." Leon crossed his arms again as he spoke.

"You… remembered?" Sora blinked, then an indignant pout took over his countenance. "Hey, does that mean you forgot about us?!"

"Thanks," Donald grumbled.

"So where were you guys all this time?" asked Yuffie, who had gone to lean against the wall while the others had greeted Sora.

"We were sleepin'," explained Goofy. Char had to admit that even to her – she, who knew the reason _why_ and _how_ the three of them had been "asleep" in the first place – the explanation sounded a little odd.

"Where?" asked Cid. "In cold storage?"

Sora scratched his head, while Donald and Goofy shrugged. "I don't know," the Keyblade master said at last. "We just woke up in this weird white room…"

"I hate to interrupt this _touching_ little reunion," Char interjected, causing all eyes to turn to her. She felt her cheeks warm a little at being the center of attention, but she kept going nonetheless, keeping no trace of scathing out of her voice. "But don't we have someone to ask about?"

"Oh, and we met her not long after we awoke," Sora said, looking a little chagrined at being interrupted. He jabbed a thumb in her direction as he spoke his next words. "This is Char."

"Did you all know she used to be a researcher here?" Yuffie said, her voice excited in the way of one who was telling a particularly juicy secret. Char mentally slapped her forehead for speaking up again.

"I've never met her," Cid growled, and Aerith shrugged as well.

Then again, the redhead thought, maybe it had been a good thing that researching for DiZ had kept her good and busy. And _isolated,_ too – there would be next to no chance of being recognized by any of Sora's Hollow Bastion friends. She inwardly breathed a sigh of relief; all this time she had hated the seclusion, like a caged wild bird whose master was attempting to domesticate it. But somehow, it had managed to come in handy.

"So, um…" Sora was evidently trying to get back on track. "We're searching for Riku and the King. Have you guys seen them anywhere?"

Leon, Aerith and Cid collectively shook their heads, and Sora sighed and hung his head.

"Sorry," Aerith said. "But let us know if there's anything we can do to help, okay?"

"Thanks," Sora nodded.

Abruptly Cid had gotten up out of the chair and was up in Sora's face, for lack of a better term. "Don't go thankin' us just yet," the man said in his hoarse voice. Sora blinked and nodded to show that he was listening.

"Hollow Bastion's got a problem," Leon said, looking a little bemused at Cid's emphasis, but serious all the same. "A big problem."

"A problem?" asked Sora, craning his neck to look around Cid at Leon. "Like Nobodies, and Heartless?"

"Yup!" chirped Yuffie.

Char snorted. "You sound pretty cheerful for someone whose home is about to get overrun by Heartless."

"She's always been that way," Goofy said, and the others nodded in agreement.

Leon, ignoring their conversation, stepped up so he was standing right in front of Sora. "Then let's cut to the chase." He looked from Sora, to the duck, to Goofy, and finally, hesitantly, to Char herself. "We were hoping that you three might give us a hand around here, but we're not above accepting you either, Char."

Char shrugged. "Eh, why not?"

"And it's not like the rest of us would say no either," Sora chipped in, grinning as he thumped one fist against his chest. Char rolled her eyes. _Boys._

Leon's serious look morphed into a small smile, and Char nearly fell over on the spot. What the hell had happened to the serious, stoic, silent Leon she had known? "I forgot who I'm dealing with," the brunette chuckled.

"Heeeeey," Donald said, crossing his arms indignantly, "whaddaya mean by _that?"_

Aerith smiled. "Just think of it as a sort of… Leon-compliment."

"He has a very weird way of praising people, then," Char muttered under her breath.

"Hey, Char, did you say something?" Sora asked, tilting his head back to better look at her.

The redhead sighed. "Nothing."

Leon had already made his way over to the door, and turned to better speak to them. "Follow me to the bailey – there's something you need to see."

Char couldn't help but feel a twinge of nervousness as he left. Would this "something" have anything to do with how different her home looked? No matter how homesick she felt, no matter how much she wanted to run to the Postern and completely abandon Sora and the others, she knew she had to stick around long enough to find out.

The four of them made as if to head to the door, but before they could a puff of smoke had announced someone else's arrival. Donald, who had been standing right where the smoke materialized, let out a startled "wak!" and leaped back.

The smoke cleared to reveal a certain blue-robed, bearded wizard – not Yen Sid, but someone Char recognized almost at once, having seen him around talking to DiZ more times than she could count. "Merlin?" she asked before she could stop herself.

"Ah, yes." The wizard adjusted his glasses across his nose and squinted. His eyes widened. "Charisa Nightblaze – is that you?"

Sora looked from the redhead to the wizard in surprise. "You guys know each other?"

"Of course." Char rolled her eyes. "He was around my master all the time." She looked back to Merlin and gave a small bow of respect, like the one given to Yen Sid. "It's an honor to see you again, sir."

Merlin chuckled. "Oh, no, no, no, Charisa, I will have none of that bowing business."

"Sorry," Char muttered, a small grin on her features as she rose. "Old habits and all that good crap, you know."

"But still with a mouth like a pirate!" The old wizard gave her a look of mock disapproval.

"Tch, you got used to it after a while, didn't you?" Char felt the sudden burning of eyes into her back, and half-turned to face them with a frown. "And what're you all looking at?"

"Sorry," Sora murmured. "It's just… we didn't know you knew Merlin so well…"

"Well, I do. Got a problem with it?"

Donald just glared at her in a way that spoke for itself.

"Hey, Merlin!" Yuffie greeted. "Sora and the gang said they're gonna help out!"

"I never said explicitly that I would help," Char contradicted. "I just said there was no reason why I shouldn't."

"Aw, come on," Sora said. "You _said_, and I quote, 'wherever we go, you're going too'…"

Char opened her mouth to muster up a good retort, but ended up just sighing and crossing her arms. "Touché."

"Ah, yes," Merlin said, his eyes lighting up as though he had just remembered something. "Did you give them the cards, dear?"

"Oh, right." Aerith shifted around in her pockets for a moment before taking out a set of laminated pink-and-purple squares. She handed one to Sora, one to Donald and one to Goofy.

Sora looked down at his and gasped in delight. "'Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee Honorary Member'!"

Aerith looked apologetically at the redhead. "We didn't know you'd be coming, so we only had ones made for Sora, Donald and Goofy…"

"It doesn't matter," Char cut in. "I know what I'm a part of – whether I have a little card or not doesn't change that."

Aerith smiled and nodded in acknowledgment before looking back at the others. "They're presents for you. Leon thought you might like to have them."

"They're kinda cool, huh?" Goofy said, raising his up to the light to better see it.

"Hey, thanks, Leo –" Sora's sentence trailed off as he saw the still-open door, and he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh, heh, right. We're supposed to meet Leon at the bailey."

"Right!" Donald said, and the four of them made for the door. However, Merlin stopped them in their tracks.

"How have the four of you kept up with your magic?" asked the wizard.

"Uh… well…" Donald looked away guiltily.

"Sir, I'm not exactly the magic-user here," Char said. She remembered with a flush of embarrassment how she'd tried to use magic from what the books in DiZ's study had told her to do, and had ended up nearly incinerating her fellow apprentice Ienzo. "I think it'd be better if you re-taught these three. I've seen them in battle – they seem to have forgotten their magic while they were sleeping."

"Don't remind me," the duck grumbled.

Merlin sighed and looked disapprovingly at the trio, who quailed a little under his gaze. "I suppose I'll have to lend you a few of my spells, then." He fished around in the pockets of his robes for a few moments, during which Char narrowed her eyes and began tapping her foot impatiently; then his hand came back from one of his front pockets to reveal a dark crimson orb. The wizard tapped it with his index finger, and it split into thirds. He then gave Char a questioning look. "Are you sure you don't want to try using magic this time?"

Char gave a harsh little bark of a laugh. "If you want these three to die a painful death of bad magic aim, go ahead and be my guest."

Goofy gulped audibly at the deadpanned – though feigned – eagerness in her voice, while Donald stared defiantly and raised his staff, as though daring Char to try. Merlin just said, "You certainly haven't changed a bit."

Char blinked at the coldness of his voice and felt an entirely unwelcome feeling stirring in her gut again. Despite the sorcerer's words, she felt that she had changed a lot since her apprenticeship here – grown up, stronger, not as naïve. It felt like a whole different world compared to her new life, no pun intended. Swallowing the lump that had been threatening to rise in her throat, she answered rather roughly. "Look, Merlin, you still get my meaning."

The wizard just raised his eyebrows as though he didn't quite believe her, but he reached out the hand holding the three small orbs to the others all the same. Donald took his, which promptly disappeared within his white-feathered form, while giving Char a not-so-surreptitious glare; she returned it with one of her own.

"Aw, Donald, don't be like that," Goofy said, taking his own orb while giving Merlin a grateful glance. "I'm sure Char was only jokin'."

"Well, either way, we still have to get to the bailey, right?" This was Sora, and the other three jumped slightly; he hadn't spoken too much since Merlin had appeared.

Donald and Goofy nodded and started for the door, even as the wizard gave them a friendly wave and vanished in another puff of smoke. Char closed her eyes to summon her twin blades just in case they met even more Heartless outside, but even as she was concentrating she felt a hand close around her arm, clad in cotton while the fingers were bare. The ice-blue eyes flew open and Char's head jerked to face Sora, the owner of the hand that had interrupted her concentration. "What?" she asked rather harshly.

But then she felt herself inhale sharply when she noticed something that would be rather off-putting, even to girls more… socially adept than she was.

Sora was standing there looking at her, with her wrist in a death grip to prevent her from moving, looking straight into her eyes.

Instantly she was struck with how eerily similar his dark blue eyes were to Roxas', even though the haphazard bangs that hung above his eyes were dark brown instead of honey blond. Again she was reminded the reason why she was on this journey in the first place, of her and DiZ's impending revenge on the Organization. Sora spoke softly, a single word – a verb that Char had never even considered doing in a long while.

"Relax."

Char imagined her tough-girl mask cracked a bit then.

The hand on her arm released her wrist and moved up to caress her shoulder for the briefest of moments; then Sora gave her a small grin and headed for the door.

The redhead blinked, rooted to the spot, bemused. Okay, even from Riku's stories about the brunette, that seemed a little odd for the naïve, seemingly-oblivious Keybearer to do, much less to her, someone he had just met.

_You're thinking of _yourself, _Char._

Char hung her head at the words that rang inside her head, knowing that what it spoke was the bare, ugly truth.

Raising her head and lifting a fist to brush her bangs out of her eyes, she concentrated again to summon her weapons, then yelled, "Wait up, you losers!" and dashed for the door.

* * *

Ah, Char being homesick... It's fun to torture characters. XD  
Char: Tch.  
Me: The whole homesick thing, though, is actually something from my life; when I first moved here, I felt the exact same way about my old house.  
Char: But now you love it here.  
Me: Of course! (huggles friends)  
Char: So, yeah. This was more of a filler than anything, though...  
Me: OH WELL!  
Char: Next chapter has a bit of action, and angst, too. So whoop-de-fuckin'-doo for the rest of you.  
Me: O.o Like I said before... no more announcements for you. 


	13. Chapter XIII

Two posts in one weekend - cherish it while it lasts. There's only four chappies left of already-written material after this.

Still pissed off at Mia on .hack... (grumbles)

So, yeah. And Anxclof makes a cameo in this chapter. Yay.

LMAO I JUST REALIZED THIS IS CHAPTER XIII xDDDD Oh, irony...

**_Disclaimer-_** PLEASE don't make me repeat myself...

**

* * *

**

The thunder crashed overhead, closely followed by a jagged white bolt of lightning, stark against the dark black sky, which showed just behind the pale green skyscraper. The lone figure moving through the overcast city hardly seemed to notice the wetness of the rain pounding against her body, the rain that plastered her long brown hair to the sides of her neck and back; she lifted her eyes to the sky almost in dim recognition of the weather.

Her ears suddenly seemed to prick. Something appeared in her hand in a flash of golden light – light that was somehow dark at the same time – and the weapon whipped down to slice into the torso of the creature that had just sneaked up behind her. The shadow Heartless, already posed to turn around and return from where it had come, hissed in displeasure and dissolved in a surge of black smoke.

The girl lowered her Keyblade and stared straight ahead with indifferent, dark green eyes. She knew part of the reason the Heartless had been about to leave her was because it had realized she didn't have what it wanted.

Somehow, the knowledge didn't bother her as much as it used to.

_Meh, whatever. _She held her glove-clad arm out to the side and allowed the pale gold Keyblade to disappear, but kept the Keychain – complete with a lightning bolt-shaped charm at the end – close at hand, just in case. With any luck, her business in the creatively-named World That Never Was would be over soon.

She just wished she knew why it was so empty right now… (1)

* * *

When Char caught up to the others, they had already nearly climbed the stairwell that led up to the clearing in front of the bailey. At first she felt a wave of confusion due to the fact that Goofy was nowhere in sight, which was promptly magnified when she saw Sora in his red clothing.

Since there were no Heartless around, she felt it was pretty safe to just walk up and tap Donald on the shoulder; though she regretted it instantly when the duck squawked in surprise, whirled around, and raised his staff to zap her in the shoulder with his newly-acquired Fira attack.

Char swore rather loudly at the pain. It was magic fire, and so didn't hurt as much as the regular kind and didn't leave a huge mark, but nevertheless it still stung quite a bit. She rubbed her shoulder and glared fiercely at the mage.

Sora turned as well to see what exactly his friend was doing, and his eyes widened at seeing the already-fading scorch mark that had created a hole in the dark brown fabric of her jacket. "What happened?" He looked as though he were about to add something teasing about how she'd already gotten hurt on the way here, but wisely restrained himself.

"This _idiot_ over here zapped me before I could do anything!" Char snapped back, jerking her head toward Donald as she spoke. The Keybearer recoiled a little, but otherwise met her gaze rather steadfastly for someone under Char's icy glare.

"Well, I can't exactly take any chances when you sneak up behind me like that."

"I'm _sorry._ Does my tread sound like a Heartless appearing to you? I think not."

Donald sniggered. "I wouldn't be too sure…"

Sora sighed and lowered the hand that held the lavender Keyblade. "Here we go again…"

"Where's Goofy, anyway?" Char asked, deciding to abandon the subject of Donald's paranoia for now. She'd be a hypocrite if she said that she wouldn't have done the same thing in his place, anyway. She could always chastise the duck properly later.

Sora's eyes lit up. "Ah, yeah! You see –"

But before he could continue, a flash of light rent the air, and Char instinctively raised an arm to shield her eyes. When the light faded, there stood Sora in his normal clothes, the lavender Keyblade reduced to just the Keychain – crescent moon-shaped charm and all. What confused her most was that Goofy came ambling over from near them, when just a few moments ago she hadn't been able to find him at all.

The redhead blinked in bewilderment, looking from the dog to the Keybearer and back again. "Um – okay – what the hell just –"

Realizing she probably looked like the biggest idiot in all the worlds right now – if the smirk of smug amusement on Donald's face didn't testify to that – Char promptly shut her mouth.

"When we left," Sora said, "I decided I wanted to try out that new power the fairies gave me back at Yen Sid's place."

"Well, _yeah,_ I gathered that," Char snorted, regaining her haughty posture almost at once as she folded her arms. "But…" She let her voice trail off and pointed questioningly at Goofy.

"Seems that whenever Sora goes into his fancy red outfit," the dog said, grinning like nothing had happened, "he gets my power with it! Pretty cool, huh?"

"Damned confusing, is what it is," Char grumbled under her breath, raising one hand so that her fingers were pinching the bridge of her nose. "Wouldn't it get kind of annoying, being absorbed every time Sora decides he needs dual-wielding?"

"It wouldn't be _all_ the time," Donald cut in, giving her a "duh this is obvious" look.

"Whatever," Char growled, deciding the subject needed to be changed immediately. Donald, realizing he was not going to best Char today, looked grumpy at that. "Don't we have a bailey to get to? We don't have time to be messing around talking about where Goofy goes when Sora goes into his little… red… state thing."

"Oh, yeah, that!" Sora chirped. "I've decided to call it 'Valor Form' – you know, because Goofy's brave and all of that."

"Whatever, man. Do what you want."

Sora just looked amused as Char turned and headed up the stairs – but not before an armored Heartless had appeared between her legs again. She snarled indignantly and summoned her blades to slash it away. "Why does this _always_ happen?!"

Sora raised a hand to his mouth to cover his snigger, while Donald just chuckled openly and went in to zap it with Fira. Goofy had the good grace to look sympathetic.

* * *

Leon turned at the sound of footsteps, and smiled in welcome when he saw Sora, Donald, and Goofy. His smile faded a little at the sight of Char, who just glared back at him.

Apparently, something had set the redhead on edge yet again.

Surprising. He, Squall Leonhart, had pretty much just met this girl, and he could already see she was going to be somewhat of a hindrance to Sora. (2)

Well, it didn't really matter. Sora had saved the worlds once, and he could do it again. Leon was confident enough in the younger brunette that he thought the one-year absence didn't really matter for the Keybearer.

The eldest of them all turned back to the ledge overlooking the greater part of Hollow Bastion – overlooking the once-magnificent castle. "Look at that," he said, gesturing at the view. Sora walked over to stand beside Leon, as did Goofy; Donald was forced to pull himself halfway up onto the ledge for a better view. Char chose to stand a ways behind them, but not so far away that she couldn't see.

Sora and his two friends gasped at the sight of the great castle crumbling away before their eyes, but Char rolled her eyes. "We noticed that when we landed, thanks very much. We already know the castle's in ruin."

Leon narrowed his eyes slightly at her arrogant tone. "And I suppose you also already know that we're planning to restore Hollow Bastion to what it used to be."

Char shrugged. "Well, it was kind of obvious."

Deciding to leave the matter alone for now, Leon directed his next words to Sora. "There's a lot to do, but we – that is, the Restoration Committee – are trying to handle it all."

"No problem, then!" Sora said, smiling confidently up at his friend and giving him a thumbs-up.

Leon couldn't help but give his own little half-smile – the Keybearer's emotions were contagious that way. However, the sight of his world in its current state wiped the older man's pleasure away again. "And there's also… that…"

He pointed discreetly again, and this time they all had to crane their necks to see; Donald actually nearly fell off the ledge, but Goofy managed to steady him in time. Two Dusks were slithering along toward the castle, far below.

Sora looked back up at Leon. "Aw, those guys aren't so tough. We can handle 'em."

"Remember what I told you before?" Char interrupted abruptly. "Don't underestimate your enemies. Overconfidence breeds carelessness." (3)

"You know, you've technically been journeying for less time than we have," Donald pointed out, giving her the venomous look he had already reserved just for the redhead.

"You're right – and if I'd had a say in the matter it would definitely have been under different circumstances."

"_If _you'd had a say?" Sora asked, looking somewhat suspiciously at her.

At this Char instantly went quiet, though the sour look never left her features.

Leon ignored them. "So, do you guys have any idea what's going on?"

"Well," Goofy began, "there's Pete, who's been bringin' more and more Heartless to each world."

"But he's not smart enough to tie his own shoes," Sora continued. "It's the Nobodies you need to worry about."

"And don't forget Organization XIII," added Goofy.

"You called?"

The trio jumped in surprise – Donald nearly fell off the ledge again, but caught himself just in time – at the sudden deep, ominous voice that had pierced the air.

Char, however, seemed to go on high alert almost at once. The twin blades appeared in her hands, and, looking around furiously to see where the voice had come from, looked angry enough to spit fire at the next thing that dared get in her way.

_It's just like when Yen Sid told us about the Organization,_ Goofy noted.

Sora looked at them all. "Come on!" he said, firm determination etched onto his face. Donald and Goofy nodded, drew their respective weapons, and followed him down the path; Leon stayed where he was in case the Organization chose to pop up in the bailey.

Once the four of them had all descended the broken stairs to the more open space below, Char swung her head from side to side, looking for the speaker; Sora had never seen her so angry. "Show yourselves!" she demanded.

The deep voice chuckled. "Well, well, Charisa. It looks like you're doing well. And the rest of you, too."

"Shut up!" Char snarled.

The voice just chuckled again; this time, it addressed Sora, whose confusion at the Organization's interaction with Char turned to attention at the voice. "This calls for a celebration, does it not?"

There was a pause as though the owner of the voice had just snapped his fingers; giving the four of them a moment to glance quickly at each other. Then a group of Nobodies – Dusks and Samurais alike – appeared, surrounding them.

There came a yell from above – Leon's battle cry. "We have to help him!" Sora cried, even as the Kingdom Key appeared in his hand and he sliced at one of the Dusks. However, it just slithered out of range.

"Then what do _you_ suggest we do, O Brave Leader?" Char grunted, spreading her arms out to their full lengths on each side so the swords could slash through the Samurais on either side of her. Obviously, she wasn't planning on making the same mistake she had before. "We're surrounded by enemies. What should we do?"

Sora looked confused for a brief moment; then a look of realization lit up his features. He turned to Goofy. "Goofy, give me your shield!"

Without hesitation, trusting the brunette, the dog dodged to the side of one of the Dusks and threw the shield, not unlike a boomerang, at Sora. Donald saw that this left his friend without a weapon and immediately moved to cover him.

Sora switched his Keyblade to his other hand so he could hold the shield better. Somehow knowing what he was doing, he raised it high up in the air, blocking the Nobodies' attacks with his Keyblade, and tossed the shield haphazardly through the air with an underhanded throw.

The shield whipped through the air, knocking all the Nobodies aside with a burst of gray smoke, aided by the power of the Keybearer. As the blue-and-green shield whirled full circle, it came to rest in Goofy's hand once again. Char watched Sora's display of strategy out of the corner of her eye, secretly surprised. It must've been the Roxas in him coming out, she decided.

Sora's grin of triumph didn't last long, as more Nobodies only took their place. He groaned. "Are these guys just gonna keep coming…?"

"Sora!" Char yelled, nodding discreetly toward the now-open broken stairway. Sora's eyes followed where she'd gestured, and nodded quickly in reply. Without another word, the two of them began to leap up the gray "stairs", parrying aside the Nobodies that appeared in their way as they went.

When they reached the top, Char, seeing that they had both sustained injuries from when the Nobodies had pinned them to the walls of the lower bailey, groaned irritably. "Damn it, we could really use a Cura right about now…"

"Yeah, Donald had it right before we went to sleep. And I _still_ can't remember how we came to be there in the first place!"

Char felt the inner cringe of guilt again and made an effort to cover it up at once. "That _is_ frustrating," she agreed, and it was truly how she felt, "but you can't dwell on it right now." Without hesitation she charged toward the mass of Nobodies surrounding Leon.

Before she could reach him, a pale orange glow appeared in the small gap in the heaving mass of Dusks, and they all vanished, defeated. Leon stood there, panting, holding his Gunblade out in front of him like a shield. "About time," he grunted.

"Yeah, yeah," Char growled in response. "You're welcome." She let out a growl of pain as one of the Samurais' scabbards struck her in the side of the ribs, knocking her against the wall. Her anger turned to fear as it closed in. If this was going to be a repeat of before, then she was definitely going to scream.

But, like before, the Nobody froze in place for a brief moment before Sora sliced through it. "How do you _do_ that?" Char asked breathlessly, chest heaving as she got to her feet.

Sora shrugged, equally out of breath from the exhilaration of the fight. "Uh… instinct?"

_It's Roxas, is what it is,_ Char thought, but kept it to herself. "Right," she grunted, refusing to say a straight "thank you". "Well, they're almost gone now, at any rate."

Sora tossed a Potion at her, and she gulped it down gratefully; she didn't even notice the somewhat bitter taste of a long-untouched Potion, because the pain from her wounds was fading.

A final squelching noise came from behind them as Leon cleaved the last Dusk into two and it faded back to the darkness from which it had appeared.

"Leon, you're hurt!" Sora cried, staring at a rip in the dark fabric of the elder's sleeve.

"Don't worry about it, I'll have Aerith take care of it when I get back," Leon replied gruffly. "Just get to Donald and Goofy!"

"I'd say he's got the right idea," Char muttered, grabbing Sora's wrist the way he had grabbed hers. She noticed almost at once the warmth of him, but shook it off before the blush could tint her cheeks. "Let's go."

Sora's eyes flicked briefly down to the green-clad hand holding his wrist, as though he were afraid she would try to crush it between her fingers. For some reason, it stung a little that he was afraid of her.

The confrontation lasted a brief moment before Char let go and led the way down the broken stairs. Below, Donald was just blasting the final Samurai into oblivion.

"Alright, we beat your stupid cronies," Char called out, the dark look of icy fire taking her face and eyes again. "Now _show yourselves!"_

Again, the voice ignored her, which ignited her temper even further, if possible. It addressed Sora again:

"Ah, the Keyblade… a truly marvelous weapon." Sora's gaze lowered to the silver Kingdom Key in his left hand, then rose back up to where the voice was coming from. "Were it only in more… capable hands…"

Derisive laughter followed these words. Char froze. _Of all the Organization members, he has to pick the ones that will haunt me the most…_

Sora glared furiously at the stone wall in front of them, where he judged the voice was coming from. "Get out here so we can finish this!"

The voice chuckled. "As you wish…"

There was an odd whooshing noise from above, drawing the four's attention to the top of the wall. Six figures had appeared; all of them were wearing the same black coat, just like in Yen Sid's simulations, and all six had their hoods up.

"Organization XIII!" Goofy cried, drawing his shield.

"Now we can settle this," Sora said, getting into his battle stance.

The hooded figure that was standing slightly in front of his companions sighed. "Tsk, tsk," he murmured, revealing that he was the owner of the deep voice. "And here I thought we could be friends…"

"How the hell could I _ever_ be friends with you, Xemnas?" Char snarled. She looked as though she were fully ready to spring up onto the wall and take out the entire group if she tried.

"It may not be wise to reveal our relationship just yet, dear Charisa," the figure standing on the right side of Xemnas said, his voice sounding like he was smirking. "You know what Master said…"

"You shut up too!" Char spat, the grip on her weapons growing white-knuckled.

"Temper, temper, now," said the one on the left, raising an arm and waggling a gloved finger mockingly. All six of them laughed again and vanished in bursts of dark light.

"Stop!" Donald shouted, already making his way up the stairs to try and find a way to the top of the wall.

Char sighed wearily. "Don't bother. They can warp – they're probably worlds away by now."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that." The voice of the figure that had been to the left of Xemnas rang through the air, causing them all to whirl around.

"What's the big idea?" Donald growled, waving his staff threateningly.

"Oopsy daisy!" the man said sarcastically. "It seems I've totally overshot my warping destination." He began to pace around them, tapping his chin with his finger in mock thought. "Now how, oh _how_ can I get back?"

"You just want to stay here and taunt us," Char said angrily.

"Move!" Sora commanded.

"Now, do you really think that's polite, shutting me down like that?" the black-clad man asked.

"I _said_ get out of the way!"

"And if not, then we're gonna make you move," added Donald, glaring fiercely at the man. Char almost laughed at the sight of a three-foot-tall duck glaring daggers at a six-foot man, but restrained herself due to the circumstances.

"See, that would work, _if_ I were just any old dude." The man put extra emphasis on the word "if", and Char flinched inwardly. No… even in becoming a Nobody, he hadn't changed a bit.

"Except," he went on, "that I'm with the Organization. Nothing 'any old' about me." He turned his head to Char, making her almost positive that he was directing a derisive, condescending smirk at her. _Just like old times, eh? _"Isn't that right, dearest Char?"

"Don't call me that!" Char spat, her temper flaring up again.

"But it's who you are." The man looked almost imploringly at her.

"I'm not who was I was back then, _Braig!"_ Char retorted, holding one blade out in front of her in a threatening stance. "Or have you taken to the idiotic trend of renaming yourself like our other little friends?"

Sora, Donald and Goofy exchanged confused glances. _Braig?_ Did Char really actually know some of these mysterious black-hooded men?

But Sora put a finger to his lips, signaling for the duck and the dog to keep quiet. This was Char's confrontation and they really had no business interfering.

The man – Braig? – laughed tauntingly. "Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. You're going to have to wait to find out, though, aren't you?" Crossing his arms, he added, "Why don't I remind you how tough the crowd you're dealing with really is?"

Putting his arms out to the sides, two lavender-tinted, crossbow-like weapons appeared in each hand. Char looked slightly intimidated at first, but it passed at once. She lowered the blade in front of her and placed both swords out to her sides in her battle stance. "Bring it on, then!"

In response, though, the other just laughed again and made his weapons vanish. "See? You really haven't changed a bit."

"You're _awfully_ tough for a guy who stood on the sidelines while his Nobody flunkies did the fighting!" Sora interjected, stepping forward to stand beside Char. She gave him a brief, confused look, and he returned it with a sheepish grin that clearly said he wanted to help.

Turning back to glare at the cloaked man, the brunette raised his Keyblade the way Char had raised her sword. "I bet you can't even fight."

"Oh dear." The man "tsk"ed. "I think you got the wrong impression."

"You gonna cry?" Sora taunted.

"Seems I'm gonna have to remind you too. What a shame."

"Remind me?" Sora blinked, lowering his Keyblade slightly.

"Don't let him get to you, Sora," Donald cried from behind them.

Seeming to come out of a trance, the boy got back into his battle stance and glared even more fiercely at the Organization member.

In response, though, the man just laughed again – more raucous and condescending this time, which only served to infuriate Char more. "And just what are _you_ laughing at?" she snarled.

Ignoring her, Braig pointed at Sora, still laughing slightly. "That's _right_ – he used to give me that exact same look!"

"I guess you think you can psyche me out by saying really random stuff," Sora retorted.

"Gee, I just don't know…" Braig spread his arms to the side in what Char supposed was bewilderment.

_These guys don't have hearts,_ Sora reminded himself. _He's probably just pretending he knew someone like me so he can catch me off-guard._ He narrowed his eyes even more so that they were dark blue slits. _Well, it's not gonna work on me._

Donald and Goofy stepped up on either side of Char and Sora, clearly intending to help them battle the man. But the Organization member just waved and stepped backward into the dark portal that had just appeared behind him. "Be good, now!" he called, and smirked at Char – a smirk that she could feel enveloping her. "And you, Char – be careful what you decide to stick your little nose into. You just might get as good as you give."

With that, he stepped backward and vanished.

"Nuts," Donald grumbled. "He got away."

"That was weird," said Sora, tilting his head to the side. _"Who_ gave him the same look?"

Char felt something catch in her chest at Sora's words and raised her head to stare out at the ruined castle far above, wanting to look at anything but her companions for fear that they would see what she knew in her eyes.

Unfortunately, Goofy noticed. "Hey, Char," the dog said, stepping up behind her. "You okay?"

Damn him for being so perceptive, Char thought. "Uh, yeah, I'm fine," she mumbled, turning away from the castle and choosing to focus on her shoes.

"Are you sure?" Sora asked, walking up to her. Clearly he was feeling bolder toward her after what she had done during the battle with the Nobodies. "You seemed pretty… well… _angry_ when the Organization showed up, and then when that guy appeared…"

"I said I'm fine," the redhead growled, jerking her head up to look directly at the brunette. Apparently her glare was too much for him, because Sora blinked, clearly choosing to back off for now.

There were footsteps behind them, and the gang turned to see Leon. "You guys alright?" the older man asked.

"We're fine," Donald said, giving him a thumbs-up.

Sora reached into his pocket and took out the laminated purple card that Aerith had given them; Char had almost forgotten about it in the heat of the battle, and then her anger toward the Organization.

The Keybearer read aloud from it, almost to reassure himself: "The Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee Honorary Member: Sor – huh?"

For as Sora had begun to say his name, the card had started to glow brightly, and not just from the light of the sun. The brunette stared down at his Keyblade for a moment, then raised it up to the sky. A thin beam of white light shot out from it, creating a keyhole-shaped rip in the sky; Char could see dark clouds moving within the rip.

"What's this?" asked Leon, looking up at the sky.

"Gawrsh, ya think…?" asked Goofy.

"Ohhh…" Sora murmured, lowering his Keyblade. _"Now_ I get it…"

"He said 'whenever a beam of light radiates from the Keyblade'…" Char let her voice trail off. She turned to the brunette. "Sora, we have to go. Other worlds are calling."

"Right." Sora nodded and grinned at her. She was surprised to find herself smiling back, but forced it away almost at once.

"Oh boy!" Donald squawked in excitement.

Sora directed his grin to Leon. "Sorry to run, Leon, but we've gotta go!"

Leon nodded and folded his arms across his chest. "Organization XIII… They look tough. Be careful out there."

Sora and the others nodded. "See you soon," Sora said, waving. He turned to the others. "C'mon, guys."

As they made their way up the bailey steps, Char heard Goofy mutter under his breath, "So… where'd we park the Gummi ship again?"

* * *

The four of them found the Gummi ship right where they'd left it – sitting just behind one of the buildings in the marketplace. Sora stifled a yawn as they entered. "Man, I'm tired…"

"Well, I'd think what all we've done today would do that," Donald replied, sitting on his copilot chair so he could look out the window.

"And it's gettin' late, too," Goofy added, his own gaze focused on the late sunset that painted the sky outside.

Char absently took the pilot seat next to Donald, too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice she was sitting next to the mage. Did the Organization _have_ to show up, right when she was just hoping that this journey would go well? It pissed her off; it really did. And Sora and the others still didn't know the reason behind her problems with the Nobodies.

Hopefully, things would stay that way.

She felt something tap her on the shoulder and turned her head slightly to see Sora. "Are you really okay?" he asked, tilting his own head to the side in a way that caused his cinnamon-brown spikes to tremble.

Char sighed and shook her head in amusement. "You really don't trust me yet, do you?"

Sora's features turned to flustered guilt. "What – ? Oh, no, no, it's not like that –" he began, shaking his head and waving his hands from side to side.

Char laughed; he really did manage to cheer her up this time around. "Look, Sora, I appreciate the concern." Sora smiled in relief that she hadn't tried to impale him for talking to her. "But really," she went on more firmly, "everything's fine. I just let him get to me when I shouldn't have, that's all."

"So…" This was Goofy, who had walked up to stand on the other side of her.

Char narrowed her eyes at him. "So… what?"

"Are you ever gonna tell us about how those Organization guys know ya?" the dog asked.

Char sighed. "All in good time; all in good time."

"Why can't we know now?" Donald cut in, giving her another suspicious look.

"You wouldn't understand if I told you. It's a long, embarrassing, annoying story."

Donald scoffed disbelievingly and turned back to look outside, folding his arms grumpily.

Deciding she needed something to take her mind off of today, Char stood abruptly, startling both Sora and Goofy. She looked fiercely at the Keybearer. "Sora. You, me. The back of the ship. _Now."_

Sora blinked at her forceful tone, as well as how she was currently grabbing the collar of his jacket – to accentuate her order, he supposed. Either way, it was working just fine. "Er, o-okay, sure," he stammered.

If he was obeying her, it was really only to make sure her face was no longer mere inches from his.

Char smirked and pushed him away, causing him to stumble. "Good." Drawing her blades, she swept out of the cockpit, toward the more spacious area in the back of the vessel.

Donald and Goofy exchanged bemused glances, as though asking each other what the hell had just happened.

Sora sighed. "I guess I should go meet her."

"Be careful, Sora," Donald said instinctively.

Sora shrugged. "She hasn't tried to kill us yet, has she?"

"Yet," the duck snorted.

Goofy just gave the brunette a helpless look and a shrug.

* * *

When Sora entered the room – a combination of living room, kitchen and dining room, if the tables, stove and chandelier didn't testify – Char was indeed there. She was sitting cross-legged on the tiled floor, absently staring at the purple-and-blue hilt of the blade she held in her left hand.

Not knowing what he should do, Sora cleared his throat awkwardly. The redhead jerked in surprise, lowering her sword at once and turning to glare at him. "About time," she grunted. She stood and paced the room so she was standing across from him.

"I couldn't help but notice during our fight with the Nobodies," she begun brusquely, "that your fighting skills seem to have gotten a little rusty while you were asleep."

Sora looked indignant. "You don't even know –"

Char put up the index finger of her free hand for silence. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I just thought it would help if we practiced a bit while Heartless aren't breathing down our necks." She said all this almost at once, as though trying to get it over with.

Sora blinked. "Uh, okay. What brought this on?"

"I just told you, didn't I?" she retorted. The other of her two blades – the one with the purple-and-red hilt – appeared in her previously-free hand. She pointed the sword at him. "Now, summon your weapon."

"But… but I don't want to…" Sora had no idea what he was going to say. _I don't want to hurt you? I don't want to fight you?_

But the way he left it hanging, he realized, must sound incredibly bratty.

Char rolled her eyes. "Key-boy, it's not a matter of desire. It's a matter of kicking ass and doing it right."

Sora drew in a deep breath. He knew she was right. The Star Seeker – the lavender Keyblade normally reserved for his Valor Form – appeared in his hand.

Char looked briefly confused at the change from the Kingdom Key, then swung her blades out to the side. "Right. Attack me."

"As simple as that?" Sora raised an eyebrow.

Char just shrugged.

The brunette stared from his Keyblade to the redhead for a brief moment. _What the heck,_ he decided, and, readying his weapon to hold it in both hands, charged at her.

The result was almost instantaneous. Char whipped to the side, and in the same moment that Sora stumbled, trying to get his balance, lashed out with her sword. He barely managed to leap back out of the way in time.

"Good," she said. "A little predictable, but at least you know when to get the hell away when your enemy's coming at you." She grinned slightly. "Now, try again."

The training went on for what felt like forever to Sora. No matter what attack he tried, Char seemed to know what was coming. Whenever he asked how she could dodge so well, she simply replied that she had learned her style from the best. The sound of steel clashing against steel echoed throughout the large room. Sora was sure Donald and Goofy could hear what was going on, and was surprised they hadn't come in to see what exactly was happening in here.

At last the door opened slightly, and a loud squawk rang through the air. "Dinner's ready!"

"Hm?" Sure enough, Char could smell the delicious aroma of spaghetti sauce wafting through the air. (4) She felt her stomach rumble in anticipation, and realized that she hadn't eaten anything today. Unless she counted the sandwich she'd managed to eat just before she'd gone out to meet Sora in the mansion, but otherwise…

In the brief moment she'd spent dwelling on food, she felt something strike hard against her belly, knocking her to the floor. The swords flew out of her hands and vanished upon contact with the floor. Panting, trying to get her breath back from flat on her back, Char looked up to see Sora breathing hard, holding the Star Seeker to the side of her neck. He was grinning even through his exhaustion, in the triumph of someone who has fought hard and managed to win.

Char looked from the pale purple glint of the Keyblade to Sora's dark blue eyes. "Nice," was all she could say.

Sora's grin widened, and he made his weapon vanish so that the redhead could get up. She did so, then smirked. "Just make sure that next time you can disarm your opponent while they _aren't_ distracted."

The brunette's countenance faded into a pout.

"Well, either way, I'm hungry," Char said. "Let's go eat!"

* * *

The spaghetti was delicious, Char was surprised to find. Goofy, for all his idiotic talk, was a very good cook – he'd gotten the sauce to perfect temperature and everything. She'd had to restrain the urge to fling a spoonful of the sauce at Donald a few times, though, mostly because the duck wouldn't stop pestering her.

The moon was just above the horizon outside, shining a conspicuous silver against the pale gray of the marketplace walls. Sora glanced at his companions. "So, where are we gonna sleep tonight?"

Donald and Goofy put a finger to their chins in thought, then shrugged after a moment.

Char spoke up at once. "I want to sleep in the back of the ship."

"And why is that?" asked Donald.

She rolled her eyes. "So I don't accidentally roll onto a lever in my sleep, of course."

Actually the real reason was so that she wouldn't be near any of these dorks, but she couldn't exactly say that out loud.

The trio blinked.

"…That was a joke."

"Right…" Sora murmured.

Thankfully, Donald had found a closet full of blankets in the cockpit – it was a wonder how he'd gotten to them, really, because the blankets were in the top section of the closet, and the mage wasn't nearly tall enough. Either he'd found a stool or had had Goofy's help.

Char snagged a dark green blanket almost at once, because she wanted to get some privacy before she had to go to sleep. She stalked out of the cockpit, headed for the back room where she and Sora had done their training.

Once Sora was sure Char was out of earshot, he sighed and leaned, sagging, against the wall.

"What is it, Sora?" Donald asked, stepping up and peering at the brunette over the pale blue blanket he was cradling in his arms.

Sora put a hand to his head, running his hands through his already-messy hair. "If Char's going to be like that _every_ day, then I think we're gonna regret accepting her onto the team."

"Tell me about it," the duck agreed almost at once, making his antagonism toward the redhead even more obvious.

"Aw, she's not that bad, guys," Goofy cut in cheerfully. He blinked at the incredulous looks on his friends' faces.

"Goofy, are you blind?" Donald asked disbelievingly. "She's angry, temperamental, vulgar, a _huge_ setback in battle –"

"Er, well," Sora interrupted tentatively, "I'm not so sure about that last part. I mean, she fought those Nobodies as fiercely as we did, didn't she? And we were training in the back room earlier –"

_"Training?"_ Donald repeated, his eyes widening. "No wonder you looked like Leon had beaten you up with his Gunblade when you got out of there!"

Sora shrugged. "Well, the only reason I even beat her at all was because she got distracted at the prospect of dinner. I dunno… it's… just an idea." He trailed off awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck.

Donald sighed and headed toward his sleeping area.

* * *

Char tossed her brown jacket and dark shoes off to the side and settled on the tiled floor, refreshingly cool after the heat of Hollow Bastion. Of course, she would have kinks in her shoulders from the hard surface when she woke up tomorrow, but who cared? At least she had gotten to see her home again.

Even _if_ it wasn't quite itself just yet.

The redhead leaned against the wall, gathering the blanket around herself, and stared out the windows that covered the opposite wall. She was homesick, and she knew it more than anyone. She was somewhat amazed that she had admitted it to herself this early on, and told herself that this was making progress.

…Wasn't it?

Char drew up her knees and rested her chin on them, wrapping her bare arms around her legs.

What _had_ Riku and Master gotten her into?

She could hear Sora and his friends' voices outside, and wondered what they were talking about. Of course, now wasn't exactly the best time to open the door and make herself known – it would scare the hell out of them.

Why was she scaring them this early on?

_It's your own fault,_ the voice from before reminded her. Char growled inwardly at its introspection.

_Shut up._

Char had found in the past that if the slightest amount of guilt for anything she was doing to Sora, Roxas or even Riku popped up, she could blot it out by thinking about something more important.

The old times as DiZ's apprentice wouldn't do at all, because it would only resurrect the memory that had, really, been the cause of this mess in the first place. And it would make the aching, homesick feeling pounding inside her even worse.

She buried her nose further into the blanket between her knees as she realized that, right now, _nothing_ was more important than this journey.

Char hardly ever cried. Crying, she had learned long ago, would get her nowhere in life and nowhere closer to gaining her just revenge against the Organization. She had barely cried at all since Shadow, her pet Heartless, had been "killed" by a gang of its fellows. She hadn't even cried when she saw the incident with her fellow apprentices – she had been too busy being panicked and scared and running to DiZ to cry.

But now she really did feel like crying.

Char noted dimly that Sora, Donald and Goofy's voices had receded to quiet whispers outside the door, and suddenly felt terribly lonely.

Deciding to give in just this once, she made herself get up from the floor, still with the blanket around her, and gathered up her jacket and shoes. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door, blinking slightly at the light that assailed her from the cockpit.

Sora, Donald and Goofy's blankets were gathered up around each other, and the three had their heads together talking about something. But at Char's arrival, they all pulled apart and stared at her: Donald with hostility, Goofy with bemusement, and Sora with an unreadable expression.

Without a word the redhead settled down near them, with just enough space between them to preserve her modesty. She flicked them a belligerent glare, as though daring them to tell her to leave, as she lay her head down on the floor – which, she noticed, was somewhat softer than the tile in the back room.

After a few moments, she heard the trio go back to talking again. She sighed, softly so that no one could hear, and closed her eyes.

* * *

Aw, Char, don't cry D:

Alright, the reason for the numbering was so I could explain a few things without sidetracking you with my rants.

(1) The reason no one was in the World That Never Was is because the Organization is currently lurking in Hollow Bastion, waiting to scare the shit out of everyone. XD They deserve their own Halloween costume, I swear...

(2) Some of you may be wondering, "You already said Char lived here almost her whole life. So how do Leon and the others not know her?" Long story short, Ansem kept Char and the other apprentices fairly busy with work. They pretty much hardly ever went out, except to do a project or something. And they wonder why Char is so restless the way she is...

(3) I got this quote off of Tales of Symphonia, for the Gamecube. Go order it off Amazon - it's one of the best RPGs I've ever seen.

(4) Yes, Donald and Goofy cooked spaghetti. Just because spaghetti owns like that.

This is actually one of my favorite chapters, because you see a little development on the Char/Sora relationship that heads toward a mentor/apprentice direction, Char gets a chance to yell at Braig/Xigbar, and the fight scene is one of my better ones. :D


	14. Chapter XIV

Alright, so, I figured it was time for an update. XD What with Thanksgiving coming and all, I also have a little "Easter Egg" at the end, for what is the first of hopefully many TSA specials.  
Char: Joy.  
Me: In this chappie, we get started on the Disney worlds! And it's one of my favorites, _Mulan.  
_Char: Thank GOD I don't have to crossdress...  
Me: Yeah, that little issue'll be resolved next chappie. This one's mainly a filler, anyway...

**_Disclaimer-_** YEAH! ...no.

* * *

Char awoke to being shaken by the shoulders. Rubbing the back of her head with a yawn, she looked up and saw Donald giving her a hostile look. _Déjà vu, _she thought dryly, remembering when they'd gotten off the train to Yen Sid's tower.

"About time," the mage growled. "We've left Hollow Bastion."

Char narrowed her eyes. "Thanks."

The duck's glare wavered slightly at her terse response, as though he'd been expecting a long retort.

"What're Sora and Goofy doing?" the redhead went on, inwardly smirking that she'd caught him off-guard.

"They're piloting." Donald jerked a thumb over his shoulder as he spoke, and Char saw that Sora was steering the ship and grinning in delight as the pale green clouds of the World Between Worlds rushed past.

Char made a mental note to pilot it herself sometime, when she wasn't feeling so sleepy. She smirked at the idea.

"Hey, what's so funny?" asked the duck, turning belligerent again at once.

"Oh, nothing," Char replied airily. She picked up her jacket, which she'd been using as a pillow, and donned it, making sure to throw the blanket at Donald as she did so. The mage barely caught it, looking disgruntled.

Sora turned his head slightly. "Oh, hey, Char. You awake?"

"Watch out!" Goofy cried, seizing the steering wheel and making the Gummi ship swerve sharply away from the Heartless ship that had just tried to attack.

"We thought we'd head toward _this_ world first." Donald pointed a feathered finger at the screen.

Tying the laces to her shoes, Char went to her knees to get a better look. Two spheres were hovering, oddly snow globe-like, one southwest of Hollow Bastion and the other southeast. The former contained a violet-walled castle, and the latter somewhat resembled a fighting dojo. Both had Keyholes hovering in front of them. The one Donald was pointing to was the dojo.

If Char's memories served her correctly, then the world they were heading to next was the Land of Dragons. She remembered that place well from her research – she had chosen to do that world for a project about the most unique living style of worlds. And it was all just because it involved medieval swords and fire. The little project had, in fact, been what had spurred her desire to learn the sword. That, and the overabundance of Heartless in the town.

She realized she was grinning openly and stopped at once, because Donald was giving her another bemused look.

"Sorry, it's just…" In an instant, Char decided to tell the three of them this tiny little tidbit from her past. It wasn't like they could guess what her main research had been about through this, anyway. "Back when I was living in Hollow Bastion, I had to do a project on that world. It's called the Land of Dragons – a pretty unique place, really." She shrugged.

Dimly, she noted how the three of them instantly sat up straighter at the mention of her being at Hollow Bastion, and Sora and Goofy, distracted with piloting the ship as they were, had turned their heads slightly in order to listen better. Perhaps it satisfied some of their curiosity about her past, she supposed.

The redhead shrugged again. "But yeah, it's a pretty cool place, from what I've read." She allowed her nose to wrinkle in disgust at her next words. "Horribly sexist lifestyle, though."

Sora turned a little in his chair to directly look at her better and tilted his head confusedly to the side.

Char felt the breath catch in her throat at how similar he looked to Roxas at that moment, but forced back the feeling at once. "Well, you'll see."

Donald raised an eyebrow, but thankfully said nothing.

Goofy suddenly let out a sound of recognition and pointed out at the sky around them, where the beginnings of the world were just starting to appear.

Sora craned his neck to see and grinned. "Hm… Maybe we should land in the forest – it'll be less noticeable."

"Unless we all crash-land in the middle of a glade," Char cut in.

Sora sighed without looking at her. "I didn't ask for your opinion, y'know."

"And did that make a difference either way?"

Finding no retort to this, Sora just rolled his eyes and forced the Gummi ship into a sharp turn, heading directly for a large mass of green below. "Hang on, guys," he called. "This is gonna be rough."

This news was a little too late for Donald and Goofy, however, who had fallen backward into the blanket closet and who were now getting dizzily back to their feet.

Char shrugged. "Eh, think of it this way." She smirked, leaning over Sora's shoulder to whisper in his ear. "_I_ could be driving."

The brunette shuddered. "You know, I don't think I even want to know."

---

Thankfully, Sora seemed to be a much better Gummi pilot than Char had been, and so managed to land the vessel without too much trouble.

Unless you counted broken and snarled branches twining around the ship as trouble.

But in the end, these branches really only served for cutting the gang's clothing and, in some cases, feathers; so it wasn't that big of an issue.

Sora stepped off the ladder leading up to the Gummi ship's entrance, and looked around. Aside from the obvious fact that they were in a heavily-forested glade, a dirt path led out of the area, winding off into the early light of the morning.

In other words, he couldn't see where it went.

The Keybearer shivered slightly in the damp, early morning air, and reached into his pocket for the Star Seeker's Keychain. Over his previous journey, he'd gained a particular dislike for darkness and not knowing what to do next, and had hoped that this journey wouldn't herald the same problems. But now, it seemed like it would be an empty wish.

Next off the ship, were Donald and Goofy. The mage growled as he saw their surroundings, apparently feeling the same discomfort as Sora. Goofy just looked around, with a look on his face like he was mentally locking this place away for future reference.

Char came last, her blades already drawn. Sora noted the tightness with which she gripped the hilts of her weapons, the way her icy eyes darted about, and mentally breathed a sigh of relief. The redhead was naturally suspicious; he didn't think he would ever have to worry about Char falling into a trap specifically designed for naïveté.

Looking at them like this, Sora felt rather like a general assessing his troops before battle. He smiled to himself at that. General Sora. Hm… it had a nice ring to it.

He snapped out of his reverie and, making sure he still had the Star Seeker at close hand, headed down the dirt path…

…only to feel something draw him up short.

Looking around, Sora found that Char had seized him by the hood of his jacket in order to keep him back. He sighed. "What?"

"You're just going to go walking in there, without the slightest clue of what to do next?" Char's voice had an even sharper edge than usual. "I'm sorry, but even for me, that's just a _bit_ over the line of reckless."

Sora returned her glare. "Look, it'll be fine. We've gone into way worse situations than this."

Donald and Goofy nodded; they too were remembering the many long battles of the End of the World.

Char's ice-blue eyes narrowed. For a moment, ice fought sapphire in an unspoken debate; then she snorted and let go of his hood. "Fine. But I still don't trust that damnable path."

Sora smiled. He summoned the Star Seeker so he could sling the Keyblade over his shoulder. "Ah, no problem."

The redhead growled and muttered something unintelligible under her breath.

The brunette turned back around, allowing his brow to furrow in annoyance once he was sure his friends couldn't see, and started forward.

---

"Don't tell me," Char murmured as a gray tendril in the sky suddenly caught her eye.

"Hm?" Goofy looked curiously at her.

The redhead pointed up at what had caught her attention. "Smoke."

Sora and Donald, walking on either side of the other two, stopped in their tracks to look as well. Sora's eyes widened, and he gave the others a serious look. "Come on."

The three of them nodded and followed the brunette even further down the twisting path. Char felt a twinge of irritation. _How far does this damn thing go anyway?_

And then they burst into the clearing, and she saw the source of the smoke. A crudely-build fire, twigs and all, sat in the center of the glade, casting a copper tinge against the rock wall opposite it. The person, masculine in appearance, that was standing across from the rock looked hesitant, apprehensive, like he was being told something he didn't want to know. The shadow cast against the wall was vaguely dragon-shaped, with a long thin body and red eyes.

Instantly Sora and Donald leaped forward, weapons in hand. "Heartless!" Donald shouted, brandishing his staff like a spear in front of him.

"Don't worry, we got it!" Sora added, charging toward the rock.

"Gawrsh, guys, maybe we should look before we leap," Goofy said, but his words fell upon deaf ears.

Char sighed, putting the fingers of one hand to her temple. "They're just a bit too reckless, aren't they?"

Meanwhile, the man had cried out in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, stumbling backward in his surprise. Something red flashed out behind the boulder in front of the wall and landed in the person's arms.

Sora and Donald skidded to a halt, and Goofy and Char came up to stand on either side of them. Goofy squinted at the red creature. "Is that Mushu?"

"That's right," came a sudden voice, and the little red dragon popped up over the man's shoulder. "I _know_ you heard of me. I'm little, lethal and legendary!" He coughed slightly. "Now y'all scram, before I get my dragon dander up."

"Hey, Mushu," Sora greeted, lowering his lavender Keyblade; Char noticed that all the ferocity from before had vanished. "We missed you!"

"Y'all better _hope_ I miss you," the "dragon" snarled back in return, "or else, you're… you're…" His eyes lit up with sudden understanding. "Sora! Donald! Goofy!" He fixed a critical eye on Char. "Though, uh, I don't remember this chick over here. You pick her up somewhere?"

Char rolled her eyes. "I'll have you know, I did _not_ get picked up anywhere, you little pipsqueak."

Mushu's temper flared up again at once. "Hey! Who you callin' pipsqueak, you little –"

The man holding the dragon coughed into his hand. "Uh, Mushu, do you know them?"

Mushu nodded. "Oh, yeah, we used to kick all kinds of bad guy butt together," he explained. "Yeah, I helped these guys outta a lot of tight spots. 'Cause I'm a mighty dragon! Right?" As he spoke he leaped off of the man's shoulder and came up to lean against Sora's leg.

Char blinked. She recalled that Sora had had "summons" of sorts, that he had used when he needed an extra helping hand in battle; but she hadn't realized that this "dragon" would be one of them.

The man turned around to face them, and the foursome finally got a good look at him. He had long dark hair tied up in a bun on the back of his head, and he was clad in green and black armor. Char couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. _An actual _soldier._ Thank you, Lord. Now maybe actually I can get a bit of relief from these morons…_

Sora laughed. "Something like that." He looked at the anonymous soldier. "And… you are?"

The soldier's eyes lit up. "Oh, I'm Mulan –" He cut himself off as Mushu gave him a frantic look. "Uh, um, I mean…"

"Ping!" Mushu cut in, holding up a finger for silence.

Char raised an eyebrow. "Mulan Ping?"

"Just… Ping," Ping said, voice deepening abruptly in a way that, Char knew, wasn't just from hormones. "I am Ping, son of Fa Zhou."

"You know Mushu?" asked Sora.

"He's one of my family guardians."

"Gawrsh, we didn't know we were borrowin' something as important as a family guardian," said Goofy, looking somewhat guilty.

"Yeah, that's right," Mushu said brightly, slithering up to stand on Ping's shoulder again; the aforementioned person looked uncomfortable. "And that puts you three up to eyeballs in debt to Ping here. Well, uh, now it's payback time! Y'see, Ping here's –"

"Three?" Char interjected, causing the dragon to give her a glare. "I'm sorry, but doesn't that make me not part of the 'debt'?" She did air quotes with her fingers on the word "debt".

"Remember your vow," Sora said, looking at her meaningfully.

"Well, _yeah_, but –"

"But, what?" Donald asked, crossing his arms.

Char sighed, making her annoyance and frustration at the way she'd worded the request at the mansion well-known. "Just… never mind."

"_Any_way," Mushu continued, sounding miffed at being interrupted, "Ping here was just on his way to join the Imperial army."

"So, you're planning on becoming a soldier?" Char asked. Inwardly she was dreading what was coming next. This was where the world's stupidly sexist rules all came into play.

Ping nodded, looking somewhat relieved that someone seemed to believe his – or rather, _her_ – rules. "Will you come with us? It'll be easier to fit in if I'm with guys, like you."

Char raised an eyebrow at the general reference of Ping's final words.

"Don't worry about offending her," Donald said when Ping's eyes widened in recognition of Char's indignation. The duck jerked a thumb at the redhead as he spoke his next words. "She acts like a guy all the time anyway, so it won't really matter."

Char's eyes narrowed into ice-blue slits. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"What d'you mean, 'fit in'?" Sora cut in, tilting his head to the side.

"Oh, uh, um… don't worry about that," said Mushu hastily.

Goofy had kept quiet up till now, but now he spoke, causing the others to turn their attention to him. He pointed to Ping almost accusingly. "You're pretendin' to be a boy, aren't ya?"

"What?" Sora cried, leaping back in shock. He looked at Ping, and Char had to hold back her laughter at the comical look of surprise on his face, and how high-pitched his voice had become. "You're a… _girl?"_

Ping looked sheepishly at them, fiddling with a strap on her armor. "You didn't notice?"

"Not me," Sora squeaked, shaking his head fervently.

"Me neither," Donald added, looking just as surprised.

Ping smiled at Mushu, still perched on her shoulder. "I think it's working, don't you?"

"I dunno," Char muttered. "Those two would fall for just about anything."

"Hey! We're right _here,_ y'know!" Sora said indignantly, placing his hands on his hips.

Char glared right back at him. "Uh, yeah. I know."

"Why _are_ you dressed like that, anyway?" asked Donald. He appeared to have gotten over his initial shock and was now looking curiously at Ping.

"Women aren't allowed to join the Imperial army," Ping explained. Her voice faltered as she added, "I have to… I have to bring honor back to my family."

Char smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand as she realized what, in this case, "following Sora wherever he went" meant.

"Oh, _really?"_ Sora gave Char a suggestive look.

The redhead glared at him, so hard that he actually took a step backward. "Look, bozo, here's how it is." She put her hands on her hips and leaned in for emphasis. "I'm not going to dress up and play 'war', got it? If I go with you to the training camps, it'll either be as myself, or not at all."

Sora blinked; even Ping and Mushu looked somewhat bemused at Char's firm tone. "Uh, yeah, sure."

Char leaned back and smirked. "Okay. Glad we understand each other." She looked at Ping. "Now, where are these 'training camps' anyway?"

---

To Char's chagrin, the five – or rather, six – of them had to go _all the way back up the hill_, the way they had just come from, in order to wind their way even more around the path, to reach the camps. Oh, she had always gotten enough exercise back home – fighting aside Heartless everywhere you went tended to do that – and so was used to walking like this.

But this was just _ridiculous._

Donald and Goofy were talking about something back home; Char caught the words "King Mickey" and "Disney Castle" and decided she shouldn't interject. She wasn't exactly certain they would extend the same privilege to her whenever she was thinking about Hollow Bastion, but she figured she may as well give them this small mercy. Mushu was muttering into Ping's – or rather, Mulan, since the girl had introduced herself earlier – ear, pep talk, perhaps. Char decided that that, too, was a conversation she didn't want to be a part of.

Unfortunately, that left Sora as her only possible conversation partner. She felt a weird sort of nervousness bloom in her chest at that.

But, she quickly realized, deducing it in her brusque way that beat down the nerves at once, it wasn't like trudging on in silence, being bored out of her skull was any better.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious, she slipped out of the position she had taken at the rear. Very, very reluctantly, she murmured the words that would make her blades vanish. She hadn't seen any Heartless on their way so far – she was sure they would come eventually, though.

_Meh,_ she thought almost grudgingly. _Maybe letting my guard down once wouldn't hurt._

She flinched at the words, knowing she was lying to herself.

Sora's voice broke through the air. "Are you –" Seeming to realize how loud and blatantly forced his words sounded, he swallowed and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay, moron."

Sora blinked. "Just asking."

"Well… don't."

Char cursed her lack of forethought as the brunette sighed and turned away. She felt a slight twinge of guilt at that.

Well, it wasn't like it mattered much now. She could see the tents of the training camp, glittering obviously in the early morning sun, not too far ahead of them.

"We're here," Mulan called.

"Remember girl – _man-_ly!" Mushu said, lifting his arms in what was supposed to be a flex of his muscles. Donald sniggered, causing the red dragon to glare at him.

The other three moved toward the camp, and Char made to do the same, mentally steadying herself for the inevitable, "why are you trying to join the army if you're _female"_ rant she was going to get from the army's general.

But a hand pressing against her shoulder stopped her in her tracks. It wasn't that the Keybearer was gripping her shoulder blade hard, but that his grip was firm, signaling that he had something to say to her. Something that he needed to say _right now._

Char vowed that his eyes were not going to slip her up this time, and pivoted her body so she was still facing him. "What?" she asked irritably, uncomfortably aware of his half-gloved hand on her.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Char realized she could detect something she didn't want to put a name to flitting in Sora's dark blue eyes, something akin to suspicion. The brunette seemed to fidget for a moment before blurting out:

"Who's Xehanort?"

Char froze.

Noticing the stiffening of her shoulder beneath his hand, Sora instantly tried to cover himself. "I mean, I just heard you yelling out the name in your sleep last night. It was kind of hard to miss. You were saying stuff like 'Don't do it, Xehanort' and 'it's not worth it, Xehanort'." He lifted his free palm up in a helpless shrug.

The redhead's heart, previously hammering against her ribs, calmed slightly. She tried to tell herself everything was fine – at least she hadn't yelled out the reason why she had been so afraid for Xehanort.

Hadn't Ienzo once told her she talked in her sleep, anyway? She inwardly berated herself for not remembering that little fact when she'd decided she needed companionship last night.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she gave her own little passive shrug. "It's nothing, really. Just something stupid back when I was a researcher." She jerked her shoulder out from under Sora's hand – which, after a confused look in Char's direction, Sora ended up placing awkwardly at his side. "Now," she went on, "aren't our companions waiting for us?" She made sure to make it clear that she didn't want to use the word "friend".

Sora's eyes lit up. "Oh! Yeah!" With that, he scampered on ahead.

Char stood there for another moment. She sighed deeply, lifted a hand to push her long bangs back out of her eyes, tightened the hand into a fist.

She had nearly been found out, just because of an idiotic quirk in her personality that she'd forgotten ages ago.

How long was she going to have to keep this up?

* * *

Sorry, you all know I couldn't resist the "General Sora" thing. xP I can totally imagine him with the various world-specific partners you get as his army, pacing in a circle and pointing with his Keyblade at a diagram that he paid Char to make.  
Char: Damn it, now we have to do the Thanksgiving thing.  
Me: OH YEAH! (smirks) Tell everyone what you're thankful for, guys.  
Char: Well... you, I guess, because then I wouldn't _exist, _and contrary to popular belief, I like life.  
Anxclof: Of COURSE you do.  
Char: (glares) Oh yeah, and food. Especially good, rare meat.  
Me: Yeah, she's just_ slightly_ predatory that way...  
Anxclof: I'm thankful that Saf hasn't gone and killed me off... yet.  
Me: (smirk)  
Anxclof: And my friends, Axel and... (blush) Roxas...  
Roxas: ...  
Me: Aw, how cute! How about you other two OCs that haven't been mentioned yet?  
Falcon: (eyeroll) Would it kill you to address us by our names?  
Copperhead: Yeah, seriously. Well, I'll go first (wink) I'm thankful for food, life, animals, autumn, snow, clouds... (rattles off a huge list of stuff) ...Falcon, hot girls, and my fanmob. Though, really, all three of those are one and the same.  
Falcon: ...(blush) Uh... I'm thankful for my friends, and just being here, alive, in a world as messed up as the one we live in.  
Me: Wow... I didn't figure your values ran that deep, Fal...  
Falcon: Well... they _do.  
_Me: As for me, I'm thankful for my creativity, life, my grades, my parents, my friends, not being a mindless cookie cutter whorish drone, my computer, my PS2, and my cat.  
Char: Damn, that's a lot.  
Me: Yeah, I know! XD 


	15. Chapter XV

Okay, so in honor of Thanksgiving break almost being over, I decided to make another update! Also, this is kind of in celebration of me getting more reviews. :)  
Char: You're such a freak. You get TWENTY and you're happy as... as... something happy.  
Me: (snigger) WOW.  
Char: What? I'm not good with those expressions!  
Me: Well, if you consider how it's been neglected...  
Char: Eh, true.  
Me: Anyways, this is the chapter where Char proves what a man she can be xD  
Char: Tch.

**_Disclaimer-_** I'll own Kingdom Hearts when Roxas and Sora decide it's safe to live in my house. ...Which will never happen... (tearsniffle)

* * *

Char and Sora stepped into the camp. Sora poked her in the shoulder and pointed toward the line of men standing in front of them. "C'mon, I bet that's the signup line."

"Signup?" Char muttered.

"Oh, like _you_ could think of another name for it."

"Sora, people don't _sign up_ to throw themselves into battle and subject themselves to the harsh conditions of war."

"Then what do they do?" Sora grinned smugly when Char had no reply. "Now let's just go."

The redhead nodded, taking a deep breath to prepare herself for what would happen when she stepped into the line. Donald and Goofy were already moving to take their places; Mulan was heading rather awkwardly toward the line, and Char stifled a snigger at the other woman's obvious attempt to walk like a man.

Char and Sora stepped behind the last armor-clad man in line. The brunette had just taken his place when he suddenly felt a strong force shove him aside – a force that was garbed in leather.

"'Bout time we got some grub," the red-armored man who had just pushed Sora aside grumbled.

Char glared at the short, stout man. "Hey! What the hell's _your_ problem?"

"Get to the back of the line!" Donald yelled, stopping in his tracks.

"No cutting," Sora shouted, leaping up. The short man turned to Sora and, without preamble, drew back his fist to punch the Keybearer down again.

Char had leaped in front of him, though, and was glaring daggers at the other. The stout one laughed, lowering his fist and cowering in mock fear. "Oh, no, I'm _so _scared of a _girl."_

"Yeah! A girl that can kick your ass!" Char snarled back, fully ready to draw her swords if she had to.

Donald glared at the man, muttered something about doing it himself, and threw himself at him.

Another man, wearing yellow this time, stepped up. "Hey, look, a place in line!"

"I wonder what they're serving for lunch today," his larger, blue-clad companion murmured, rubbing his stomach in anticipation.

"Knuckle sandwiches," the short one snarled, wriggling out from underneath Donald and lunging toward Sora. The duck brandished his fists and leaped after him.

"That _does_ it!" Sora yelled.

"Fine by me," snarled Char, charging into the fray to punch the red-armored man.

Mulan and Goofy looked on, eyes wide, trying to convince their companions that this wasn't worth it. Finally Mulan cried, "Please!"

The five of them froze – the red man pulling on Char's hair, Sora's foot in the yellow man's stomach, and Donald's fist pulled back for another blow.

"'Please'?" The yellow-armored one snorted.

"What a girl," laughed the red one.

Char glared at him. _"What_ did you just say?"

"I mean, uh, knock it off," Mulan quickly amended, voice deepening abruptly.

"Knock what off?"

"You punched me!" Sora cried, his voice high-pitched with indignation.

"And stop touching my hair!" This was Char, who managed to pull herself away after a few attempts.

"What, you wanna make something of it?"

"Cutting in line!" Donald snarled.

"What a shrimp," the yellow-clad man sniggered.

"Hey!" Mushu shouted, causing Mulan to jump slightly in surprise; clearly she'd forgotten about the "dragon" in the fuss. "Who you callin' shrimp, panda lips? I'm a bona fide guardian _dragon!"_

Mulan quickly shoved him back into her pack, praying fervently that he wouldn't blow her cover.

"Look," she said in what she hoped was a commanding voice, "let's just get back in line, okay?"

"Whose side are you on?" cried Sora, rubbing his sore shoulder. "I just almost got slugged!"

"Want some more?" growled the red one, raising a fist threateningly.

"Soldiers!" This was a sudden new voice that rose above the chatter. "Get back in line!"

Out of one of the tents stepped a new man, one who was clad in red and black armor. He came forward, giving them all an expectant look.

"The captain!" hissed the yellow one.

Sora, Donald and Goofy instantly straightened and took their places in line; Donald peered around all the people to get a better look at the captain, but quickly returned to attention when he passed him.

Char remained standing where she was, wiping a finger across the blood trailing from the wound on her cheek. The general stopped in his tracks next to her, and spoke without looking over. "What is this?"

Char didn't give him the dignity of a response, just gave him a sidelong glance and raised an eyebrow.

"Do you think you're going to degrade my troops, you impudent woman?" A few moments of tense silence ticked by.

Losing his temper, the captain whirled, one fist clenched at his side and the other curled around the hilt of his sword. "Answer me!" he snarled.

Char shrugged; but before she could formulate a snarky response, Sora let out a cry. In swirls of dark light, a circle of Heartless had formed around them.

"What _are_ they?" Mulan asked fearfully, drawing her sword and stepping back near Sora.

"Heartless," the brunette replied, summoning the Star Seeker. Donald and Goofy quickly rushed over, and they all got into their battle positions.

"Ping, I hope you're ready," Char murmured, drawing her own blades.

Ignoring the red and yellow-armored men, who had decided to join the battle even though their fists could do nothing, Char leaped forward and slashed out with one of her swords. To her surprise – and suspicion – the Heartless faded from existence almost immediately. _Hm… this world's supposed to be stronger than Hollow Bastion. So why are these Heartless so weak?_

Nearby, Sora was covering Mulan, who was looking around in confusion and fear. "Come _on,_ Ping," he grunted, each word followed by a slice with his Keyblade.

"But there are so many of them," Mulan cried.

"Just fight!" Char shouted. "Just… slash in random directions, but don't hit anybody!" The last part was added rather hastily on her part, as one of the Heartless had just gotten dangerously close to impaling her side.

Mulan nodded determinedly and raised her blade.

The battle ended abruptly when Char realized that the small mass of black had disappeared, and turned to see that Goofy had just caught his shield. She felt a tiny prick of disappointment that she hadn't been the one to deal the final blow, but pushed it aside. She still had to win over the captain.

Said captain was currently pacing in front of them. "Hm… you four seem to be tough fighters," he mused.

Char smirked in triumph. "Four, he said. Huh."

"Don't get me wrong; you're still a woman," the captain answered, moving to stand in front of the five of them. He addressed his next words to Sora, Donald and Goofy. "You three are strong, capable men. You may join my troops."

"Oh, so it doesn't matter how strong and capable a woman is; she's still a woman, and therefore _inferior."_ Char folded her arms across her chest. "Yeah. That's fair."

The captain glared at her. "It's the rule. Women cannot join the army."

Mulan cringed a little at the last words.

"But I can still come along, right?" Char pointed out. "The rules only say that women can't _join_ the army. Is there a law that says I can't accompany you?"

_Because personally, I have no clue what the hell I'm supposed to do while I wait for Mulan and the others to finish their business,_ she added mentally.

The captain hesitated, then sighed. "I suppose you're right. Yes, you will not be an army man, but you can still come along, just as long as you do your share of fighting."

Char shrugged. "No problem."

Mulan cleared her throat. "Uh, sir, what about me?"

At this the captain sighed. "You should return home."

Mulan's eyes widened. "But, Captain…"

"That'll dishonor her – er, _his_ family," Sora interjected hastily.

"You would rather dishonor my troops?" The captain didn't seem to have noticed Sora's slip-up, Char noted with a small burst of relief; she didn't know what she and the others were going to do to clear this world of Heartless if they didn't have a guide.

"Please give Ping a chance," Sora said, looking pleadingly at the captain. "He's really strong – he just needs a chance to prove himself."

The captain hesitated, and Char saw a flicker of uncertainty pass across his eyes. Then he sighed again. "I suppose a simple assignment can't hurt." He looked at Sora, Donald and Goofy, who shot to attention. "Our orders are to ambush Shan-Yu's army on their way here – they should be coming through the mountain pass."

"Who –" Donald's question was instantly muffled by a glove-clad hand – not Char's, but Sora's.

"Understood, sir," Mulan said, looking relieved.

The captain nodded brusquely. "For future reference, I'm Captain Shang. These men are Yao, Ling and Chien-Po." Shang gestured briefly to the red-armored, yellow-armored and blue-armored men, respectively. "They'll accompany you up the pass."

Char couldn't hold back an irritable groan, putting one hand to the side of her head to run through her bangs. "We have to work with _these_ numbskulls…?"

"Ya want me to pull your hair again?" Yao asked, glaring at her.

Ice-blue eyes stared hotly into dark black. "Try that again and you'll be coming away with a stump for an arm."

"Okay, okay, guys," Goofy said quickly, stepping between the girl and the stout man. "We still need t'get up the pass, remember?"

"Pfft, whatever," Char grumbled.

Shang sighed. "Either way, you seven –" His gaze shifted to Char, and he corrected himself. "I mean, _eight,_ have a mission to accomplish. Now get to work."

"Yes, sir!" the males all said, giving a salute; Char just nodded.

As they all walked off, Sora let out the breath he'd been holding in relief. "That was way too close."

"If _some_one hadn't almost blown our cover…" Donald looked pointedly at the redhead.

Char sniffed. "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."

Mulan sighed. "Guys, stop. Hopefully we're going to get through this all without –"

"Hey!" The belligerent growl came from Yao.

Char glared. "What?"

"What do you mean by _'cover'?"_ Ling asked, crossing his arms.

"Uh, nothing," Sora said, grinning somewhat nervously. "But, erm, I do have a question." He hesitated. "Who's Shan-Yu?"

At this, the three older men gasped.

"You don't know?" asked Ling, his condescending tone replaced by shock.

"We're kind of… not from around here," Char murmured, staring at the thinning foliage as they walked along.

"He's the leader of the Hun army – he's been trying to take over China for a while now," Chien-Po, who alone seemed to be calm, explained. "There's actually a rumor going around that he's going to try and kill the emperor."

Everyone's jaw dropped, and the blue-armored man blinked. "What?"

"Chien-Po, ya can't just go around keeping stuff like that from us army men," Yao growled.

Char glared at him.

"And 'woman'," Mulan reminded the stout man.

Yao snorted. "Whatever."

"Hey, I almost kicked your ass earlier. Give me a little credit – you saw I can fight when I have to!" the redhead growled.

Sora sighed. "And there they go again…"

"Guys, we still have a mission…" Goofy reminded tentatively.

"Right…" Char sighed. "Sorry, just let my temper get away from me for a minute there…"

Yao grunted and looked away.

"This ought to be fun," Donald muttered sarcastically.

Sora looked incredulously at him. "You'd better be kidding."

* * *

As the eight of them headed up the pass, several Heartless kept impeding their path. This time around, there were some floating Heartless that faintly resembled the "zombies" Char had sometimes seen Braig doodling in his notebook. (1) Odd, bat-like ones were in the way as well; and these were even more aggravating because they always swooped down from behind the group.

Since Yao, Ling and Chien-Po had virtually no weapons to work with, Sora and his companions always had to cover them so they wouldn't get hurt. As Goofy finished off a shadow-Heartless, he groaned in obvious exhaustion and leaned against a boulder.

"Yeah, this _is_ tiring," Sora murmured, wiping his forehead even though it was getting gradually colder. "When are we going to reach the top?"

"We'll get there when we get there," Char grumbled with her teeth clenched. She felt even more wound-up than she had at the summit, partly because this was taking too long, and partly because it was getting gradually colder. She hadn't realized her jacket fabric was so damnably _thin…_

Mulan, amazingly, had kept up very well; her determination to prove herself to Shang – which, in Char's opinion, was just a bit more than a desire to get into the army – had kept the young woman-in-disguise going this far.

Now Mulan spoke. "Oh, come on, guys. We haven't encountered any Huns so far, and we're almost at the top." She pointed to the smoke coming from not too far away.

"Now, how are we supposed to let the others know we've secured the path?" asked Char, putting a thoughtful hand up to her chin.

Donald growled. "I can use _fire,_ you know…"

Sora blinked at the mage. "What's your point?"

There was a moment of awkward silence, broken only by the duck's sudden squawk of indignation. Raising his staff, a stream of flame was shot up into the air, surprisingly far above the mountaintop. The only thing that indicated Donald's effort was his scrunched-up face, as though he were concentrating hard to summon the fire.

"Oh, heh, right…" Sora rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"I suppose… now we wait?" Char sighed.

"Now we wait," agreed Mulan, sitting down with a grunt.

Great, the redhead couldn't help but think – a couple of hours stuck here, with the belligerent soldiers, the gluttons, the goofball Keybearer, an angry mage, and a soldier wannabe. This was going to be _fun._

"So…" Sora began.

A swift glare from Char cut off his question.

* * *

The brunette snarled irritably under her breath as, yet again, she swiped her rain-soaked bangs out of her eyes. _What happened to 'stay in this world for as little time as possible'?_ she thought dryly. She'd had to spend the night here, under the shelter of one of the awnings in the Dark City's marketplace, because her clothes had gotten too waterlogged for her to go on. (2) Thankfully, her clothes had dried this morning, and she'd been able to continue toward her destination.

Right now she was standing at the gate of the Castle That Never Was, letting the memories sweep over her in a tidal wave that, hard as it was to believe, felt even more powerful than the perpetual storm. The girl closed her emerald eyes, just letting the wind sweep against the back of her jacket and lift her cape slightly into the air. When was the last time she'd ever sat and just remembered the good old days?

"Back again, are we?" The sudden voice, heavy with sarcasm and bitterness, jolted the girl out of her reverie, and she instantly whirled around, her Keyblade appearing in her hand.

"Relax," the person said. As he spoke, he stepped out of the shadows in a swish of dark leather, holding his hands up for emphasis. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Oh, _please,_ Axel," the brunette spat, readying her sword into her battle position. "Wasn't it you who said, 'You can't turn on the Organization! They'll kill you!'?" Her voice turned high-pitched and mocking on the last part.

Axel sighed in feigned self-pity, folding his arms across his chest. "Oh, no, Anxclof. I'm so hurt."

Anxclof lowered her weapon and narrowed her eyes. "You know what? You should be."

"If you're looking for Roxas," the spiky-haired redhead said, smirking when he noticed how Anxclof perked up at Roxas' name, "he's long gone. He left not long after you did."

The brunette's dark green eyes widened. "What?" She turned away slightly, the Keyblade vanishing from her hand; the now-free hand clenched into a fist. "I didn't think he'd actually go through with it…"

"Yeah, well, he did," Axel muttered, and this time more than just a tinge of bitterness was audible in his voice.

Anxclof turned back to the redhead, her angry expression faltering. "Did… did you see him before he left?"

"Yeah," was all she got in reply; she noted how Axel shifted so that his legs were crossed and he was leaning against the wall with his eyes down – a pose typical of one who is uncomfortable with the current situation.

"Did he say anything about me?" Now the anger had been replaced by a look of hope, a look reminiscent of a girl who is worried about the boy she has a crush on.

Axel chuckled.

Anxclof glared over at him, a flush of red lighting her cheeks. "And just what is so damn funny?!"

"Oh, nothing," Axel replied loftily.

"If you've got something to say, come out and say it."

"Hm, nothing." The redhead smirked. "Just that, you seem awfully concerned for someone who doesn't have a heart."

Anxclof's breath caught audibly; clearly she wasn't prepared for that. After a moment, she finally managed to answer. "I guess… I'm worried for the same reason you are. Roxas is my friend too, y'know."

"Touché," Axel muttered. "But yeah, Roxas is gone. He left a long time ago."

"And I didn't even get to apologize…" the brunette murmured.

"Oh-ho-_ho!"_ the other Nobody crowed, leaning back against the wall again with a smug grin. "The plot thickens! Apologies?"

"Stop being such a stupid drama queen, Axel," Anxclof snapped, but the tinge of red had returned to her face. "It was nothing, okay? I just… I told Roxas I was leaving a little earlier than he was, that I wanted to do this by myself. And, well…"

"He didn't like the idea at all, did he?"

Anxclof heaved a sigh. "How'd you know?"

Axel shrugged. "Lucky guess."

"A Nobody's intuition, I suppose?"

"Heh. That's one way to put it."

"So…" The smirk faded from Anxclof's face, replaced by her former look of anxiety. "Well… I guess the reason I came here in the first place is –"

"Can we get on with this?" Axel interrupted, lifting one arm and pulling back the sleeve of his coat, as if checking a watch. "I have somewhere to be."

One of Anxclof's eyebrows disappeared into tousled dark brown bangs. "Like hell you do. Anyway, I just have one question," she went on. Her voice faltered slightly as she spoke, and she stepped so that she and Axel were practically chest to chest, tilting her head up to meet his gaze.

"What happened to Roxas after he left? Do you know?"

For a long, bleak moment, the redhead's pale green eyes stared vacantly into hers, an unnamable emotion lurking behind the orbs.

Anxclof's black-and-gold-clad hands clenched into fists. "Damn you, answer me!"

"He's gone," Axel growled, his words out almost as soon as Anxclof had finished.

"Well, _yeah,_ we've already established that," the brunette snarled.

"I mean, he's _gone." _The other Nobody put a particular, bitter emphasis on the last word. He turned away, so quickly that Anxclof nearly fell forward with the force of it, and stared up at the cloud-covered sky.

"Roxas already merged with Sora," he went on, without looking at her. "He's gone to us unless Sora gets killed by a random Heartless. And of course the Organization doesn't care, because _they don't want Sora dead!" _He whirled back around, his green eyes blazing. "Don't you get it? We can't bring Roxas back."

Anxclof's own emerald eyes were wide. "So…" The reality of Axel's words finally seemed to sink in, and she had to put one palm against the wall to keep her knees from buckling. "Oh, my…" Her words trailed off, and she could only shake her head.

"So, yeah, basically you came here for nothing," Axel spat out. Suddenly seeming exhausted from the force of his anger, he took a few deep breaths to calm himself. Both pairs of green eyes were now focused on the ground.

Anxclof spoke first. "Damn it… I came too late," she murmured, putting her free hand to her forehead in resignation.

"Yeah," Axel muttered. "You did."

The silence rolled thick and tense between them, broken only by a loud thunderclap and a wicked white line against the clouds.

Anxclof threw up her hands, letting them fall hard against her pants. "Well, that was pointless."

Axel couldn't help but laugh. "We've just lost a friend, and all you can say is that it was pointless? Geez. No wonder Roxas was pissed at you when you left."

The brunette rounded on him. "Oh, like _you_ could've done better, pyro-boy? Look, because we didn't do anything to stop him, Roxas is _gone. _Over. Dead. Merged with his Other." Her voice shook, and she looked like she was ready to summon her Keyblade at any moment.

"Wow, we've been here this long, and you've managed to glean that much from me." Axel shrugged in a bitterly nonchalant gesture. "What a smart little Nobody."

For a moment, there was no sound but Anxclof's angry, hitched breathing; even the storm seemed to have come to a brief halt.

Then she snarled and put out a hand; after a moment a dark portal coalesced nearby. "I'm leaving," she spat. "And, unlike you, I'm actually going to _do_ something about him. I'm going to bring him back. _I _will be the one to save Roxas. Got it _memorized?"_

Without another word, she had tossed her hair back and headed through the portal, which promptly vanished upon the contact with its creator.

Axel chuckled; the chuckle turned into a loud laugh, a sound that rose above the downpour. "Oh, dear little Anxy," he muttered at last, his voice still high-pitched with amusement. "If only you knew that I was already working on that…"

* * *

(1) Sorry, but I can't stop laughing at the mental image of Xigbar drawing zombies all over his notes when he's supposed to be listening.

(2) Well, WHAT? I had to think of SOME excuse for Anxclof to still be there the next day!

So, woot. I love writing witty banter between Axel and my characters... writing him comes naturally to me, for some reason.

What will Anxclof do to get Roxas back? Is Axel going to sit back and wait for the opportune moment like he does in the game? What's going to happen at the village? Why am I asking YOU all these questions and ripping off of SpongeBob with that?  
Char: (eyeroll) Jesus.  
Me: Let's find out later! (huggles Sora) I LOVE YOU BABY!  
Sora: o.O


	16. Chapter XVI

(hums to herself)  
Char: (-thinking- Geez, I'll bite.) And just what are YOU so happy about?  
Me: We don't have swimpractice tomorrow!  
Char: So what...?  
Me: So that means I don't have to get up way early, silly!  
Char: First of all, call me "silly" again and I'll smear your entrails all over the wall. Second of all, you get up way early anyway.  
Me: But it's funner when I spend my morning doing nothing... D:  
Char: She really WILL spend tomorrow doing basically nothing, because she finally beat .hack/Infection and killed the Parasite Dragon.  
Me: Which was an ENORMOUS ripoff, btw.  
Char: Oh yeah, is this the chapter where I lecture those little kids about war?  
Me: Yup! (glares at OC haters) NOW is she a Sue?  
Char: -.- Don't even get her started.

**_Disclaimer-_** Pfft, oh yes. And Skeith lives in my attic.  
Skeith: (from inside) GET ME THE HELL OUTTA HERE!  
Everyone: o.O

* * *

At long last, the sounds of men's voices and multiple footfalls reached the group. Almost at once, Char jolted up from where she had been absently examining a lone piece of grass. _"Finally!"_

The others got up as well, and gave a hearty salute to Captain Shang. The man nodded in return. "Did you have any trouble?"

"A couple of Heartless here and there, but otherwise everything was great," Sora said, before Char could open her mouth and voice her complaints.

Shang nodded again, this time in approval, a gesture that caused a tiny tinge of red to cover Mulan's cheeks. Donald and Goofy covered their mouths to hide their sniggers at that.

"There's a village not too far from here, just over the side of the slope," Shang went on, ignoring Mulan. "We'll make camp there and plan our next move."

"What about Ping?" asked Donald.

At this, the captain gave Mulan a sideways glance. After a moment, he spoke. "I'll let you join my troops… But I'm still not convinced you have what it takes to be a good soldier."

Char growled under her breath. "What does it take, hm?"

She flinched slightly as the captain turned his dark gaze on her, but otherwise stared defiantly back at him. "I mean, come on. He made his way up the mountain just _fine_ without you babysitting him –"

"Uh, Char, let's just go," Sora muttered, putting a hand over her mouth before she could continue – quite a bold move for the Keybearer. The redhead's eyes glared down at the hand over her mouth, as though she were considering biting it; then she let out a muffled snarl and shoved it away.

Shang just sighed. "Just… don't get into any trouble at the village. There are plenty of men who will do almost anything when they're drunk…"

Char snorted, folding her arms across her chest. "I'd like to see them try."

Meanwhile, Mulan, Donald and Goofy were staring up the mountain, where a visible frost covered the landscape ahead. "It looks like a long walk," Donald murmured.

"C'mon, be a man," Yao growled, clapping the duck on the back so hard that the mage nearly fell over.

Chien-Po coughed lightly. "Yao, in case you haven't noticed, Donald is a _duck…" _(1)

Shang's mouth twitched in amusement, but his countenance generally remained neutral. "Move!" he called to the soldiers behind him, and without further ado took the lead.

Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po headed to the front of the group in order to bother the captain – under the guise of "asking about battle tactics", of course – while Sora and his companions chose to remain at the rear.

"Man, do we _really_ have to go to the snowier part of the mountain?" Char complained, drawing her arms tight around herself in an attempt to keep warm. "I'm about to freeze as it is!"

"Well, the village is right at the summit," Mulan told her. "So it shouldn't be too long before we get there."

"Tell that to my fingers…" Sora sighed.

Char stared in disbelief at the Keybearer.

The brunette grinned. "What? You have to learn to suppress these things when you're a soldier, y'know?"

"Of course," the girl groused, hunching her shoulders and staring straight ahead with narrowed blue eyes. "Because you guys are _such_ soldiers."

"Aw, don't be that way," Goofy said, cheerful as always. "Pretty soon, we'll all be sittin' around the fire at the village and havin' fun!"

"Right," Donald muttered, who for once seemed to agree with Char. "I'm sure."

A smirk tugged the corners of Char's lips. "So, the great Wizard of Disney Castle concedes the point. Hm. A one-time-only thing, I'm sure."

She blinked at the looks on their faces. "What?"

"How'd you know Donald was the wizard of Disney Castle?" asked Goofy.

Char mentally berated herself for her slip of the tongue. _Crap. Crap, crap, _crap… Trying to keep her composure, she shrugged. "I overheard you guys talking when we were on our way to the encampment."

The others nodded in understanding, and the redhead let out the breath she'd been holding, mentally praising every deity in existence that Donald and Goofy had been talking about home this morning.

Only Sora looked a bit dubious, raising an eyebrow. Char had to hand it to the boy – he was more perceptive than he looked.

Which still wasn't much.

She groaned when a gust of wind buffeted them all, making her jacket fly back behind her, and tightened her arms around herself. "Damn it… that fire's starting to sound pretty good right about now…"

* * *

The trek went on in mostly silence after that. Unless one counted Sora cooing in fascination over the snow – since Destiny Islands was too tropical for the true essence of winter – and Char smacking him over the head for being so loud, with Mulan laughing at the whole thing, the journey was fairly uneventful.

Now the large group of soldiers and women alike stood at the gate of the village Shang had spoken of. Char chanced a look up at the sky and started when she saw how low the sun was, visible even behind the gray clouds. She hadn't realized the journey up and down the mountain would take so long…

The captain spoke, causing all eyes to turn to him. "Make yourselves comfortable, everyone. We'll be staying the night here. You all know the rules: be friendly with the villagers, and whatever happens, do _not_ let anything happen to them."

"Sir!" the soldiers shouted, standing at attention.

Shang nodded and headed toward his own tent nearby, which, Char noted, was a bit larger than the others.

"Finally," Donald muttered, shivering visibly.

While Char had almost never seen snow herself – if the pictures in the textbooks counted, which she doubted – she had never really associated the crystalline substance with fun and games. For a person who had never been around snow before, knew nothing about it except for the cheesy rumors, snow was a thing of wonder and beauty. For those who knew all about it, snow was nothing but a cold, harsh substance that covered the ground when it was really, really cold. (2)

Three guesses which one Char was.

So she wasn't really surprised that the snow and cold made things so uncomfortable out here. However, that didn't mean she had to like it.

She clutched the painfully thin fabric of her jacket around herself, and looked at Mulan, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. "Uh, do you know exactly where we're supposed to go?"

"Just pick a random tent," came a sudden voice. It was Ling, the yellow-armored soldier, who had thrown the comment over his shoulder while talking to one of the villagers. "It doesn't really matter; the captain's already picked his, anyway."

Char blinked in surprise. "Erm, thanks, I guess."

It suddenly occurred to her how much some of the soldiers might enjoy seeing her wet and freezing from the snow, and not necessarily because of the pallor it added to her cheeks. The redhead suppressed a shudder of revulsion at the thought.

Sora nodded with a smile of relief. "Okay, thanks!"

Before the words had even left the brunette's mouth, Donald had already lunged for the nearest tent possible, with Goofy hot on his heels. Mulan laughed a little nervously. "Um… I guess those two haven't learned to suppress themselves very well, have they?"

"Like I said: _such _little soldiers." Char managed a derisive chuckle, even though the slightest movement sharpened the ache of the cold.

"Finally," Mushu's boisterous voice complained from the shelter of Mulan's pack. "Man, I was startin' to think we'd never get down that stupid mountain."

"It's alright, Mushu," Sora laughed. "I think they've got some blankets in the tent."

"They'd _better_ have some blankets in the tent…" Char muttered, heading inside on half-frozen legs.

To her relief, heap upon heap of thick woolen blankets lay in piles inside; Char supposed that the army figured they had to keep their soldiers warm. She took a step inside and hissed at the crunching noise her shoe made. "Couldn't they have tried to make a better bottom for the tent? I'm not sleeping with that crunching noise every time I have to shift," she complained.

Donald, who was already half-concealed in a collection of blankets and looking very much like a duck-sized turban, gave her a glare that told her to get over it.

"Um…" Mulan shifted uneasily, suddenly awkward.

Sora looked up from where he was collecting his own sheets. "What is it, Mulan?"

"I have to… go somewhere," she murmured.

Char nodded understandingly before any of the guys could cut in and ask what exactly it was. "Be careful out there."

The other woman gave her a grateful look and left the tent. As the flaps were closing behind her, Mushu popped out of her pack in a burst of red and began demanding what exactly she was doing.

Sora laughed softly. "Heh. Mushu hasn't changed a bit."

Char narrowed her eyes. "I'd hate to see what you had to put up with back _then…" _Even though she already knew, it didn't hurt to lay on a little more of the unknowing, ignorant façade.

Sora shrugged, but it was Goofy who replied. "He joined us a little ways along our last journey. He helped us out a lot."

"Hm," was all Char said in reply. She caught a look of disappointment in Sora's dark blue eyes, and guessed that he'd been looking forward to talking to her a bit more. _Well, he'll just have to get over it,_ she thought roughly.

A scent wafted through the slightly-ajar flaps of the tent, a mouth-watering smell that made Char remember the strenuousness of the journey here. "If you'll excuse me," she muttered, getting to her feet and picking up a blanket, "I'm going to go get something to eat."

She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, inwardly sighing in relief at the warm sense of security that seeped through her, and made as if to leave.

"Hey, wait!"

Char growled under her breath and whirled to face Sora, who was coming up to stand next to her. He himself had a blue blanket wrapped awkwardly around his body. "Sora, do you feel like you have to babysit me or something? Because, news flash, you don't have to."

Sora blinked. "I was just saying I'm hungry, too." He put his hands on his hips and mock-glared at her. "What, Your Highness? Don't I have the privilege to eat and be in your presence?"

At the faked anger on the brunette's countenance, Char felt something tug deep within her. She realized that right now, he reminded her of herself, asking her master something that she _knew_ she didn't have permission to do.

So she relented. "Ah… yes, I suppose you do."

Sora grinned, lifting his hands to adjust the blanket around his shoulders. "Awesome." He glanced over at Donald and Goofy. "Do you guys want us to bring something back for you?"

"Please," Donald grumbled, sinking deeper into the mass of blankets around him. "I'm staying here where it's warm!"

"Aw, Donald, but they've got a fire out there," Goofy pointed out.

"No, that's fine," Sora said, and left the tent before anyone could object.

Char lingered for a bit longer, and her eyes caught the duck's. "What?" she growled, and hastily took her own leave.

Almost as soon as she had gotten outside, the redhead had to put a hand to her mouth to fight back the hunger she could feel rising in the back of her throat. Sora was already there, sitting cross-legged with the hot, steaming bowl of noodles in front of him. Currently he was staring thoughtfully at the pair of chopsticks in his hand. "Now how am I supposed to hold these things?" he murmured.

Char rolled her eyes and changed the subject. "Where'd you get that?"

Sora jerked a little at her sudden appearance, and looked up to meet her gaze. "Over there; Chien-Po's serving them." He pointed with one chopstick at the large, blue-clad man. Chien-Po was surrounded by a group of soldiers and villagers alike, all with empty bowls in their hand and him serving them pasta from a large bowl. Sora laughed under his breath. "I'm surprised he hasn't decided to eat all of it by now."

The redhead nodded brusquely in acknowledgment, despite the tiny part of her that wanted to scream her thanks to the skies for actual food. She realized that she hadn't even eaten breakfast, and couldn't help but mentally berate herself. Char had always been the type of person to be the first one to meals, though she spent much of the time telling herself not to be a glutton.

_I'm such a hypocrite,_ she thought guiltily, slipping to the back of the line. _I tell myself not to do things, and yet I do them anyway. _

_Like listen to Riku. _She chuckled softly. _That's definitely one mistake I'll never be making again. _(3)

While Char was wrapped up in pleasant thoughts of what she would do to Riku once she got her hands on him, something heavy crashed into the side of her leg, nearly knocking her over. She shot to attention at once and glared around for the culprit, fighting the urge to snarl "Who the hell just did that?" and teach whoever confessed a lesson. Not seeing who it was at first, she had to resort to looking down.

A young boy, looking no older than the age of five at the very most, lay on the ground on his back, staring up at her with wide, curious dark eyes. Char narrowed her eyes, and quickly the child scrambled up, the curiosity in his gaze replaced by fear. Nearby, another little boy backed away slowly, looking equally guilty.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" she growled, not caring that most of the villagers and soldiers had turned to stare at her.

"Sorry," the first boy squeaked; but due to his youth it came out sounding more like "sowwy". "Me 'n Yan were just…"

"Just _what?"_ Char repeated, leaning down to meet the boy's frightened eyes. "What could be so important that you can't even look where you're going?"

"W-we were just playing war, miss," the other boy – Yan, Char assumed – said, coming up to stand boldly beside his friend.

One eyebrow went up over an icy blue eye. "Playing war?"

"Yup," Yan chirped, totally disregarding the anger that was etched clearly into every line of Char's face. "We're gonna join the army like our daddies!"

"And make our families proud," the other added, grinning childishly. The fear had vanished from his features, to be replaced by the shining excitement of a child who is talking about his accomplishments of the day.

A sigh escaped Char, billowing out into the cold air in a misty cloud. The redhead squatted down to look at the boys properly. "Boys, do you know what war is?"

Yan scratched his head for a moment, then shrugged. After a moment, his friend shrugged his own bony shoulders.

"It's… not a game." Char had to remember to pick her words carefully; these were just children – they probably didn't yet have the mental capacity to understand the harshness of death and war. "It's not something you can play and then write off as something fun. Yes, you'll bring honor to your family; yes, you'll be heroes. But at what cost?"

She noted that the grins had disappeared from the children's faces.

"You need to keep in mind that you could _die_ out there. If you don't even make it through training, then where's your pride then? It won't matter. You'll be gone; you'll be in everyone's memories, but… still gone." She had to swallow to keep back the emotions that were rising in the back of her throat in solid form. "But if you live, you'll be heroes. You'll make it out, but will your comrades? That's what you have to keep in mind. _That's_ why war can't ever be a simple game."

After a moment, Char took a deep breath, suddenly exhausted from the force of her little speech. With a little twinge of discomfort, she realized the entire village had gone silent, and chanced a look up. Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po were looking at her as though she had grown an extra head, but Shang was nodding thoughtfully from where he was talking to an older man. As for Sora, his eyes were wide, as though he had just seen her for the first time and didn't know what to make of it. She also noticed he had dropped the chopsticks into the snow. (4)

The redhead looked back at the boys. Their eyes were shining. "Uh… what?"

"That…" Yan began, his own eyes dark moons. "That was _so cool!" _he managed at last.

Char rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Um, well… not really…"

"What's your name?" the other asked. "I'm Ryou," he went on, before Char could say anything.

"Uh… Char." She suddenly remembered her composure, and got to her feet. "I'm Char."

Chien-Po's voice suddenly broke through her surprise. "Come on and get some noodles."

"Oh, yeah… right." Char tossed her hair back over her shoulder, shivering slightly. She headed up to the blue-clad man and took a bowl from one of the women as she went. Char felt the twinge of discomfort again as she felt everyone's eyes on her, but managed to keep her dignity without whirling around and shouting _"What?!"._

She took about half a bowl of noodles, murmured "thank you" to Chien-Po, and walked back to Sora. As she sat down beside him, she realized that everyone had gone back to what they were doing.

Char chanced a look at Sora and felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. "Uh… sorry about that."

"You feel really strongly about that kind of thing, don't you?" the brunette asked, picking up his chopsticks and wiping them off on his pants.

The redhead lowered her head, suddenly unable to meet his eyes, and took a bit of noodles in her own chopsticks. "Yeah, kinda."

"I didn't know you were good with kids," he went on, his voice taking on a teasing manner.

"I'm not," Char growled through a mouthful of pasta, focused on eating as much as possible. She made a mental note to thank the chef properly later. This was just _so,_ so good…

Something poked her in the side of the ribs, and she managed to turn away from the meal for a moment. Somewhat to her dismay, it was Ryou. "Who's that?" he asked in his young voice, pointing conspicuously at Sora.

"I'm Sora," the brunette said, before Char could speak.

"Hi, Sora," Ryou said, waving in an exaggerated way that made Char hold back a giggle. "Hey, doesn't that mean 'sky'?"

"My mom told me it does, yeah," Sora answered. His voice faltered slightly as he mentioned his mother.

_He really misses his home,_ Char thought, taking another bite of noodles. She couldn't help the sympathy that squeezed her heart at the thought.

Ryou nodded. "My mommy says I'm really smart for knowing that already."

"And why shouldn't you be?" Sora joked.

The little boy's face lit up, and he giggled. "Hey, Char?" he asked the redhead, his voice stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar name.

_Great._ She looked over at him. "What is it?"

Ryou leaned over and cupped his mouth with one hand, like he was about to tell her a secret. His whisper came out exaggeratedly loud. "Is Sora your boyfriend?"

Both teens started and blushed a little at that; Char practically choked on her mouthful of food and exchanged a frantic glance with Sora. (5)

"Uh, no," she mumbled at last, focusing on her bowl of pasta again. "We just met a couple of days ago, so…"

"Yeah," Sora muttered, rubbing a knuckle across the bridge of his nose sheepishly.

Ryou nodded again. "Oh. It's nice that you guys are friends."

"Ryou!" came a sudden, feminine voice. Char looked toward the source and saw a middle-aged woman with gloved hands on her hips, looking expectantly at the child. Assuming she was his mother, Char saw the similarities – they had the same dark eyes and long hands.

"Oh, my mommy's calling me," the boy said, grinning at both of them. "I'll see ya later, Char!"

"Bye!" Sora called, even as Ryou was scampering over to his mother.

Char watched the woman run her fingers through the little boy's hair as they went into their own house. A few moments of silence passed before she let out the breath she had been holding, and turned back to Sora. "Well. That was… awkward."

"Yeah…" Sora muttered.

The two of them ate in silence after that. Char fought back the heat of embarrassment that was threatening to engulf her; she wanted to sink through the snow and die at what Ryou had said. Perhaps it was because the idea of her and Sora _together_ was so repulsive that her appetite had diminished a little. Yes, she reasoned; that was a possible theory.

_But things can change,_ taunted the voice at the back of her mind. Char frowned at that and focused on finishing off her bowl of noodles.

At the same time, though, she couldn't help but feel a burst of pride. She wasn't exactly the kind of person people idolized, and for a good reason – she was vicious, temperamental, vulgar, and a little paranoid. And she knew it.

But the look on the boys' faces – filled with the glow of shock and admiration – wouldn't get out of her head. She sighed under her breath and slurped up the last bit of noodles.

Standing up was a little awkward because of the cold, but to Char's relief she managed without stumbling. "I'm going to get some pasta for Donald and Goofy," she muttered.

Sora just nodded. "Uh…" He gestured helplessly at his empty bowl.

Char saw the unspoken request in his eyes, and sighed again. "Come on."

Together they headed over to Chien-Po, who was collecting the dishes as well, much to the chagrin of Yao and Ling.

"Man, you don't have to be doing that," Yao was saying, as Sora and Char approached.

"Yeah, those are _girl_ chores," added Ling, saying the word "girl" as though it were some sort of disease.

Char growled under her breath and opened her mouth to speak, but Sora put his arm out to stop her. "Don't," he murmured.

Taking her own empty bowl and used chopsticks, he turned back to the others. "Hey guys," he said, grinning. "Could you get these for us?"

The trio turned to look at the brunette and the redhead.

"Sure," Chien-Po agreed, taking their bowls and chopsticks.

Char smacked her forehead as Yao and Ling began berating their fellow soldier once again. "I swear, some people…"

"Hey, Char," Ling called, just as she and Sora were about to head back to the tent.

Char inclined her head.

"That was a pretty good speech you gave there," the yellow-clad man went on.

"Very true," Chien-Po added.

"It was kinda deep, I guess," Yao muttered.

The redhead blinked. "Uh, thanks."

Seeing that his friend felt too embarrassed to speak, Sora stepped in again. "Can we get a couple of bowls for Donald and Goofy?"

Chien-Po perked up. "Sure. There's only a little bit of pasta left, but I think you'll have enough for your friends."

At that moment, Mulan came staggering back into camp, her arms around herself and rubbing her shoulders with the cold.

"Hey Mu – Ping," Sora quickly amended, raising a hand in greeting. "Where were you? You missed dinner!"

"Sora," Char muttered dangerously.

Mulan flashed them a smile. "It's nothing," she said, voice deepened in her imitation of a man.

"Ping, where _were_ you?" Ling demanded. "You just missed Char giving the best performance ever!"

Mulan gave Char a questioning look.

Char rubbed the back of her neck. "Er, really, it was nothing."

Mulan shrugged, and turned back to the other soldiers to get her own dinner. Chien-Po quickly scooped together a couple of bowls of pasta and handed them to Sora.

The brunette and the redhead trudged back to the tent; Char noticed with an irritated frown that the snow had gotten deeper.

"Geez," she grumbled, lifting her foot clear and shaking it free of the offending white powder.

Before she could say much more, Sora had lifted the tent flap out of the way. "We got food for you guys," he said, smiling.

Donald quickly sprang up and took his; Goofy came more sedately, as though reluctant to leave the warmth of the blankets.

The rest of the night passed fairly uneventfully; Mulan came in after a bit and gathered up her own blankets. Char and Sora refused to look at each other. Even when they were all telling funny stories about their pasts, the two of them basically talked to everyone _but_ each other. This earned a raised eyebrow from Donald and bemused looks from Goofy and Mulan.

The moon rode high in the sky by the time the five of them finally blew out the lantern Mulan had brought in for light. They had already received a couple of angry requests to go to bed from superior soldiers, so the way the group saw it, it was high time they got to sleep.

However, insomnia had chosen to take hold of Char in its dark fingers. The redhead stared up at the top of the tent, somehow unable to close her eyes and actually sleep. She huffed softly under her breath and turned onto her side, curling her fingers tighter around her blankets.

Surprisingly, after the first ten minutes she had realized that her inability to get to sleep tonight had nothing to do with Ryou's off-hand remark, about her and Sora dating. She held back a chuckle at that. Ryou was just a child; how was he supposed to understand how two people of the opposite gender could just be friends, with no repercussions? The boy probably still thought girls had cooties.

And yet… The other thing Ryou had said still haunted her.

_Oh. It's good that you guys are friends._

…Friends? Char mused quietly. She wouldn't exactly call it that, but she'd take it.

Could she really call someone she'd only been with for two days her friend? Char couldn't exactly use the "I don't know you" excuse; due to watching his memories with DiZ and Riku, she knew more than she really wanted to about Sora. She knew his mistakes, his inner demons, his exploits with the Keyblade and his friends.

But… it wasn't exactly like she'd been chumming it up with the brunette while he was still asleep. Sometimes she'd go watch him in his pod room, sure, and even complain about something DiZ or Riku had done to annoy her. Sometimes Namine would be there, and the two girls would just stand there in silence, unwilling to break this rare serene moment. (6)

But Sora hadn't exactly had the ability to talk back at the time, to laugh things off and listen like he did now that he was awake.

Char allowed one eyelid to slip shut and the other eye to narrow. Insomnia was not an unfamiliar feeling, but she hated the way it felt now. Once again, she vowed to strangle Riku and demand what exactly he'd been thinking the next time she saw him.

_Snap._

The closed eye shot open, and Char sat up, glancing warily outside the tent. Unconsciously her hands splayed out to her sides, fully ready to summon her blades if she had to.

The tent flap had been kept open slightly – why, she didn't know; it wasn't exactly like they didn't get enough air in here. Through the small opening, the redhead caught a glimpse of a tall shadow, moving conspicuously against the white snow and trees.

Char froze. If she didn't know any better, it seemed like the person was heading toward their tent.

She chanced a look over at the others. To her chagrin, they were still asleep, with Donald twitching slightly and mumbling something about someone named Daisy. Char frowned and sighed, the puff of air blowing a piece of her long bangs out of her eyes.

Keeping one eye on the others, Char slowly got to her feet. She silently cursed the snow that threatened to crunch loudly with every move she made, and made a mental note to berate whoever had set up these tents in the morning.

Her grip tightened around one of the swords she felt appear in her hands. _If_ there even was a morning.

_Stop it,_ the voice inside her head commanded. _You're just being paranoid. It's probably just someone going out to relieve themselves._

_It never hurts to make sure!_ Char snarled back.

Without any further hesitation, she reached up and whipped the flaps aside.

Upon realizing that nothing had come charging out of the darkness at her, Char relaxed her blades out of their guarding stance and looked around. In the moonlight, she could see no one.

Damn.

She growled irritably and let her swords disappear. Part of the reason she was so annoyed was because there was no one in sight, and yet she was _sure_ she had seen someone out there.

Someone that, she knew, wasn't just one of the soldiers going to relieve himself.

This person had had a feminine-sounding tread – Char could tell the difference easily; men tended to stomp and clomp about like they thought no one in the world could detect them – and the shadow had clearly shown some sort of blade. A long one, with a strangely-shaped end.

It occurred to Char that perhaps this could be a Keyblade, but she brushed it off at once. She knew from research that there were more Keybearers besides Sora, but that just didn't seem plausible.

So the redhead turned and walked back into the tent, settled the blankets around herself once more, and finally fell into the sweet coma of sleep.

Meanwhile, the female brunette huffed in disappointment and allowed her Keyblade to vanish.

She had not been successful this night, it seemed.

Her lips curled back into a smirk, and her green eyes glittered.

But there were always other days. (7)

* * *

(1) Lawl. Oh, Chien-Po, you observant pig...

(2) Which basically sums up my feelings about snow.

(3) OH YEAH! You show that dark emo boy who's boss, Char! xD

(4) LMAO AWKWAAAAARD

(5) Awkward x576587684...

(6) Even though they're total opposites, I sort of like playing with the idea of a Char/Namine friendship. They ARE the only females around there, after all, and the last of the sane have to stick together.

(7) -COUGH-ANXCLOF-COUGH- Sorry, windpipe.

So, yeah. I would've posted this sooner, except my dad put the compy on password protect... I'm pushing the curfew as it is.  
Char: How sad is that? She's so repressed and cowed that she has to be in bed by 10:30 on a Friday night.  
Me: Oh, stfu.  
Char: Make me.  
Me: THAT can be arranged... (whips out Furbies)  
Char: o.O AGH! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!  
Furby: Furby loves you!  
Char: (long, drawn-out scream)


	17. Chapter XVII

Yay, this is one of my favorite chappies :3  
Char: Even though it gets insanely depressing?  
Me: Eh... well... I kinda cried when I wrote that part... and it didn't help that I was listening to **If Everyone Cared** by Nickelback...  
Char: There ya go, then.  
Me: Buuuut Anxclof makes the first of many cameos in the Disney worlds in this one!  
Char: Tch, big deal.

**_Disclaimer-_** In the wise words of the Wizard of Oz, "not no way, not no how". xD

* * *

"Hey! Hey Char! Wake up!"

Char groaned and put her jacket over her head, the way a sleepy teenager would muffle their parents via their pillow; not even caring that this exposed her bare face to the poorly-covered snow.

"Wake up!" the tiny voice shouted again, and the weight pounded against her back again.

"Dammit," Char grumbled under her breath, careful not to let her tormentor hear the curse word. More loudly, she called, "Ryou, get off me; I'm up. You'll break my back if you do that anymore."

She winced at the squeal of delight that greeted her words, but to her relief the weight on her back lifted. She managed to push herself up, running a hand experimentally through her hair.

Suddenly her eyes widened as the events of last night sank into her head. Damn, she never _had_ found out who had been lurking outside the tent, had she? Char berated herself for being so stupid, for dismissing it as nothing when she didn't catch it. People saw what they wanted to see, she told herself.

Ryou was sitting cross-legged on the ground with his hands on his ankles, shifting restlessly from side to side. "'Mornin', Char!" he chirped.

Char couldn't hold back a grin as she gathered up her jacket. "Good morning to you too, Ryou."

"I've been in here for… fifteen minutes!" Ryou attempted to hold up his hand to show the minute count, and frowned at his limited amount of fingers.

"Yeah, it was kinda funny," Sora's voice chuckled from behind Char.

The redhead turned and saw the brunette shouldering on his own jacket. She could've wailed in relief at the clear look in his dark blue eyes, with no trace of remaining embarrassment from the night before.

Char assumed he was expecting her to smack him for that remark, but she was still a little too sleep-gummed to do so. So she just shrugged. "I'd like to see you be laughing when you've got a five-year-old jumping on you as your alarm clock."

"Actually, I'm seven," the little boy corrected in his small voice. He leaped to his feet and held up one hand, and two fingers on the other. "See?" (1)

Char laughed, feeling that she sounded a little too loud. She never _had_ been good with kids. (2)

"Where are Mu – Ping, Donald and Goofy?" she asked in an attempt to change the subject. For some reason she'd been expecting the three others to still be asleep.

_You should have more confidence in them,_ the voice urged, and Char decided right then and there that her conscience must be bipolar.

"They're outside," Sora explained. Under his breath, he added, "Mushu wants to tell us something, but I told him to wait until all of us could hear it."

Char blinked in surprise. "Uh, thanks."

The brunette responded with a quick grin before directing his gaze at Ryou. The boy shot to attention as Sora looked at him.

"Ryou… we have to go out for a little bit. You know…" Sora winked. "Soldier stuff."

"Oh!" Ryou gasped and held a finger to his lips. "Your secret's safe with me, Sora, sir."

Char laughed. "Right."

She was about to turn around and follow the Keybearer outside, but a sudden tug on the hem of her jacket made her look around. It was Ryou. _Great, what _now?

However, her initial aggravation was choked back by the pang that shot through her at the look on the little boy's face.

"You're comin' back, right?" he asked, still clutching onto her jacket.

Char sighed, resisting the urge to tear her jacket away from his hands. "Why wouldn't we be?"

Ryou tapped the side of her head with a finger on his free hand, but he had to strain upward in order to reach her. "You said last night that soldiers can die in battle…"

_Damn, he's right._

"It's fine," Char insisted. "Trust me."

Ryou put his fists stubbornly on his hips. "Promise?"

Char cast a helpless glance at Sora. The brunette just shrugged in response, looking like he was holding back a bout of laughter.

Turning back, the redhead puffed out a sigh. "Alright, fine. I _promise_ I'll come back."

Ryou grinned and clapped his hands.

"Now, isn't your mom worried?" asked Sora.

The little boy made a sudden noise of realization and dashed out of the small opening in the tent flap.

Char groaned and ran her fingers through her bangs, causing them to move briefly off of her forehead before falling back into place.

Sora laughed sheepishly. "Kind of annoying, huh?"

"This, my friend, is why I am _never_ having kids," Char grumbled as she followed him out of the tent.

True to Sora's word, Mushu was standing before them in the snow, his tiny arms wrapped around his shoulders and one foot tapping the ground impatiently. Mulan caught sight of them and waved, only to get a smack in the ankle from the little red dragon.

_Too un-soldier-ish,_ Char assumed with a chuckle as she took her place next to Donald.

"Alright, now that the gang's all here," Mushu said, craning his neck to see everyone, "I finally found my girl's chance!"

Donald tilted his head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"Well," the red dragon began, pacing around in the snow and creating little pinpricks of tracks, "I just saw this real shady guy skulking outside the camp. And I'm sure it's Shan-Yu!"

Char's eyes widened. Even though she was pretty sure last night's visitor had been female, it was entirely possible that it could've been the opposite.

Had Shan-Yu come to kill them last night?

Apparently, the others were equally shocked.

"Shan-Yu?" Mulan gasped.

"Ain't that the guy we're supposed to be fightin' against?" asked Goofy.

"We have to go tell the captain," Sora said, already making as though to walk over to Shang.

_"Wait!"_ Mushu yelled, and while it wasn't very loud, it was obviously the top of the dragon's lungs. This caused everyone to stop and listen. "Everybody use their heads a sec. Now, why are we here?"

There was a moment of silence; Donald and Mulan exchanged glances, and the latter just shrugged helplessly.

It occurred to Char that she really didn't have any idea why Mulan was going through with this dangerous venture in the first place – the black-haired woman had mentioned bringing honor to her family, but that was it.

It was Sora who finally spoke. "To make the captain see Mulan – er, Ping's talent? And bring honor to her family. Right?"

"Exactly," Mushu said. Pacing through the snow like this, he thoroughly reminded Char of her master during a lecture. "So, let's go find Shan-Yu by ourselves. Then, if we're lucky, we can fry him up good!" He made his point by pounding one tiny fist into his other palm.

"Key word being, 'if we're lucky'," Char muttered.

"Ah, you need to look more on the sunny side of life," Mushu said, grinning at the redhead. "This'll make Captain Muscle-head notice my girl!"

Mulan looked for a moment like she was thinking of protesting the nickname "Captain Muscle-head", but in the end she didn't say anything.

"Alright," Sora said, smiling determinedly. "Where is he, Mushu?"

_"Now_ we're cookin'!" Mushu chirped. "Shan-Yu's in a cave right outside this village."

"Good," Donald sighed in relief. "No more climbing."

"Hopefully," Char muttered.

The group headed toward the cave, Mushu leading the way in an odd line of humans and animals.

"Well, this isn't conspicuous," Char said under her breath.

Sora chuckled softly. "Yeah, but at least we'll get to cream Shan-Yu and get Mulan some points with Shang."

Char looked at the brunette, whose dark blue eyes were sparkling at the prospect of a fight. She hesitated. The words that wanted to come out were "why do you care?", but somehow she just couldn't get them past the tip of her tongue.

She turned her gaze back ahead of her and saw the cave mouth loom up to meet her; she stumbled in her attempt to not fall inside.

Mushu looked as though he was restraining the urge to burst out laughing at the redhead, but he just pointed at the cave. "I saw him go in here."

"It looks kinda scary in there…" Mulan swallowed nervously at the yawning blackness that lay beyond the cave entrance.

"Please," Char snorted. "It's probably just you."

Mulan flashed her a quick smile. "You're right. Let's go."

As the group headed toward the cave, Char suddenly halted in her tracks. Something was nagging at the back of her mind.

_You're comin' back, right?_

_Promise?_

"What's goin' on, Char?" asked Goofy, who had nearly run into her back when she'd stopped.

The redhead blinked, reality suddenly rushing back in all its icy clarity. "Oh, um…" She hesitated, searching for the right words. _This is so stupid, but… I probably should make sure._

"Shouldn't one of us maybe stay out here and keep watch?"

Mushu growled impatiently, shifting from foot to foot. "Girl, does it matter? Once we take care of Shan-Yu, nobody will need to keep watch anymore."

"I'm just saying, though – being cautious won't hurt…"

Char's voice trailed off as everyone looked a little incredulously at her. Prickles of discomfort were starting to make their way up her shoulders. "Uh… what?"

"You're just being paranoid," said Donald.

"Yeah, everything'll be fine," added Sora, winking at her. She considered hitting him on the side of the head for such a friendly gesture, but thought better of it.

_Maybe I _am_ just being paranoid…_

The redhead took a deep breath to fight back the nausea threatening to take solid form in the back of her throat. "I guess so."

"That's the spirit," Sora said happily, playfully smacking the back of her shoulder.

And then she _had_ to slap him, because the whole shoulder thing reminded her of a bunch of arrogant little boys.

* * *

The inside of the cave was dark and dank, and stalactites and stalagmites impeded their path; sometimes the rock formations were joined together in the middle, which didn't help.

Sora stopped to open the chest nearby, obtaining a Hi-Potion as he did so, and chanced a look behind him. Donald and Goofy were talking, and Mushu, yet again, was giving Mulan one of his "pep talks". As usual, Char was the odd one out.

The brunette frowned slightly as he continued on his way. Char had been out of it ever since they'd entered the cave, her eyes darting about nervously. While normally he'd approve of her sharp eyes and the way she was looking out for everything, this time it unnerved him. What had happened to make her feel so anxious about this trip inside the cave?

Perhaps it had something to do with the way she had randomly left the tent in the middle of the night.

Sora had awoken then – because of another dream of Riku scorning him and condemning him for Riku's own crimes, the brunette remembered with a twinge of shame. (3) He'd noticed Char was still awake, and that she'd gone out to look for something; he had just pretended to be asleep until she had returned and gone to sleep as well.

_Maybe she's still worried about it,_ Sora assumed. _That _has_ to be the reason._

The Keybearer was certain he had it pinned. But he'd been wrong before.

The gang finally reached the back of the cave, which was a large clearing that looked like a shrine of sorts. Grotesque dolls lined the wall on shelves that, to Sora's disappointment, looked to be long abandoned.

Mulan sighed. "Dead end."

"But…" Mushu leaped down from the woman's shoulders and looked around frantically. "I know I saw him! Man, he was here; I swear on… on…" He hesitated, trying to think of something that was sacred enough to be sworn upon.

"Come on; let's just go," Mulan sighed, turning as if to leave.

Donald grumbled in agreement and followed.

"Donald, wait for me!" Goofy called, hastily running after them.

Sora chanced a look at Char, and winced visibly at the look in her icy eyes. It was a mixture of smugness and yet nervousness at the same time, and the expression on her face was thoroughly reminiscent of one who is trying not to vomit.

"We should go," she said quietly.

Sora hesitated, then blurted out, "What's wrong?"

Char was silent for a moment, which in all honesty frightened him even more than if she'd shouted in reply.

Then she spoke, and her words frustrated Sora all the more because she was clearly trying to change the subject.

"Well… we should probably leave now." She grinned a little weakly. "Shang will be on our asses wondering where we were."

Sora blinked, then smiled back. "Yeah, you're right."

The two of them turned and headed toward the exit.

* * *

Anxclof watched the group turn back, and her grip unconsciously tightened on her Keyblade. She couldn't take her eyes off Sora. Even though she _knew_ in the place where her heart should be that he wasn't really the boy she had cherished, that didn't stop the pang of longing she felt.

These feelings usually puzzled Anxclof to no end. She had never been a philosophical Nobody – hell, the Superior had had enough philosophy for everyone; and she believed in spending her time taking action, not just thinking about it. But thinking about why she felt these things, when Nobodies allegedly had no hearts, got the brunette deep into her contemplation.

A swaying of motion out of the corner of her eye turned her attention back to the Keybearer and his friends. She shifted from her spot in a hidden nook of the tunnel; her muscles tightened in preparation to pounce.

And yet… Sora's blue eyes reminded her so much of…

_Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut _up.

* * *

Char caught the swish of black-and-white, and got just enough time to pull Sora out of the way before the golden shaft of the Keyblade slammed into the ground.

"Well, aren't we clever," the owner of the Keyblade snarled, stepping out of the shadows. Donald, Goofy and Mulan looked on, wide-eyed.

Char's eyes widened as she recognized who it was. The arrogant green eyes, long brown hair… the redhead recognized the outfit as well. It was none other than Anxclof.

_Probably come to get her friend back,_ Char reasoned. She felt a rush of sympathy for the Nobody; Nobodies usually inherited the feelings they had known from their past lives, and clearly Anxclof was no exception.

The thin blades appeared in Char's hands almost unbidden.

But sympathy wasn't a cause for surrender. Damn it, Char would keep Riku's promise if it was the last thing she did, because she _never_ broke her promises.

"I thought I heard you sneaking around last night," she growled, putting one sword out in order to keep Sora out of the way.

"Sneaking around? Sora, what is she talking about?" Mulan looked helplessly at the Keybearer.

"I heard something too," Sora murmured. His eyes were huge, as though he couldn't possibly imagine someone he didn't even know trying to kill him. "Who _are_ you?"

Anxclof's eyes flicked over to the brunette. Char watched as the emerald orbs changed from anger to almost… longing.

"Roxas," she whispered. "You really are gone, aren't you?"

"Huh?" Sora frowned. "It's Sora."

"Damn it, I _know!"_ the female Keybearer spat, her temper instantly roused by Sora's ignorance. She turned back to Char and swung her Keyblade out to the side. "So, it _was _you, wasn't it?"

"And if it was?" Char retorted, despite the fact that her pulse had spiked tangibly at the name "Roxas". She hardly noticed that the two of them had started to circle each other, like riled-up tomcats, ready to strike at any moment.

Anxclof opened her mouth for a reply, but a zap of static against her elbow-length gloves made her snarl in pain. She looked down, to see a scowling Donald holding up his staff.

"I don't know who you are or what you want with Sora," the duck growled angrily. "But we're not gonna let you kill him!"

"You're badly outnumbered," Mulan added, sounding awkward in her attempt to be tough. Goofy had his shield out as well and looked ready to throw it at any given moment.

Anxclof's eyes scanned the area, as though weighing her chances. Then she laughed – a loud, sardonic caricature that made the stalactites rattle. "Don't make me laugh."

"I believe we just did," Char snarled, and charged.

After that, it was an all-out clash of blades. Sparks flew in the cave as steel struck repeatedly against steel. Char's brown jacket swung in a dark blur, in stark contrast to Anxclof's mostly-white coat.

In the meantime, Sora and Mulan were dashing about around the two female teens, getting a few slashes in here and there; but not wanting to risk getting hacked in half in the others' ire. Donald and Goofy, their weapons really being ones of distance, were sitting back doing the best they could.

At last, though, even Anxclof realized she was outnumbered and, in comparison to Char, outclassed. She smirked. _Guess my sword skills are out of practice._

She allowed her Keyblade to disappear and backed away from the group. Even she knew when to let things go.

Char's chest heaved in fatigue, and her eyes were still wild from the fight. The hands that clutched the hilts of her blades stained her gloves red with blood. As for Sora and Mulan, they were badly cut in some places along their faces and shoulders. While Donald and Goofy were unscathed, they were looking on in shock.

"Hmph," Anxclof muttered, raising a fist to wipe the blood away from where it was running down her forehead. She smirked more widely. "Oh no, it seems I've been defeated." Without turning around, she put out a hand and summoned a dark portal behind her. "Guess I'll come back another day."

"If you're lucky, there won't _be_ another day," Donald shouted.

"Lucky. Heh. There's one way to look at it." Anxclof waved nonchalantly. "Be good for me, 'kay?"

She chanced a look at Sora and felt the pang again. "Roxas," she whispered. "Don't think you can hide within him forever."

Sora wasn't aware, but something deep inside him stirred at her words.

Without another word, she stepped back into the portal, which promptly swallowed her up.

There were a few moments of awkward silence. Then Mushu, in that almost annoying way he had, piped up from Mulan's pocket, causing everyone to jerk in surprise. In Anxclof's sudden attack, they'd forgotten all about the little red "guardian".

"Well, _that_ was what I call kickin' some tail, girl!" He clapped Mulan on the shoulder.

Mulan looked down at Mushu. "But… it wasn't even really me." She glanced guiltily over at Char, who met her eyes evenly and wiped some blood away from a wound on her shoulder.

"And Shan-Yu…" Goofy pointed out.

"Man, that hun is old news," Mushu scoffed. "We're gonna tell the Captain how one of Shanny's big, bad assassins popped up in here, and how Ping here effortlessly took him out!"

"I hope he believes that…" Char sighed, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.

Sora could have wailed with relief. The fight had restored his friend to normal; her icy eyes were bright and clear with clarity again. (4)

Then he blinked. Since when had he started thinking of this bloodthirsty, temperamental girl as his friend?

At any rate, they filed out of the cave, with Char and Sora at the group's head.

"Hey," came Char's voice beside him, quiet and unaccusing. Sora nearly fell over in his shock: she was actually speaking to him like a normal person.

Char caught the surprise, but didn't say anything about it. "I just wanted to say… You looked good in that fight."

Sora looked at her with wide sapphire eyes. "Really?"

"Yeah, I mean it," Char said. She was rubbing the back of her neck now; whether it was in sheepishness or the urge to get this over with, Sora couldn't tell. She flashed him one of her fanged grins. "I guess that little training session paid off, eh?"

Sora groaned, thinking back to the "session" of last night. Truthfully, he thought of it as nothing more than a madcap dash on his part to avoid getting stabbed. But if he voiced that aloud, he probably _would_ end up getting impaled. "Don't remind me."

Char chuckled. "You'll thank me someday."

"You sound like my dad."

The redhead laughed again, but the laughter trailed off when they exited the cave. She halted in her tracks, so abruptly that everyone else nearly crashed into her back.

"Char, what…?" Mulan's voice trailed off as she saw what Char had been looking at, and the confused expression on her face was replaced by horror.

The village that had served as temporary camp was in ruins.

Buildings were still aflame, as though the destroyer had just hastily left. The blackened wall that had served as the village's entrance was falling apart, the ashes dark against the snow. Most of the people left were dead; some of them were still bleeding, moaning and crawling about.

It was one of the living that had caught Char's eye and held it.

The child couldn't have been any older than six or seven years; however, he was small enough to be five. Blood seeped in a gaping wound on his chest, from which the sword had never quite been removed. Mulan held back a gasp as she recognized the jagged blade design of the Hun leader.

Char spoke at last, but the single name, obviously meant to be a shout, came out strangled and choked in shock and horror. "R… Ryou!"

At the sound of his name, the boy turned his head, and moaned, as though even that small action caused him an immeasurable amount of pain. "Char?"

As though the word had stimulated her, the redhead ran over on unsteady legs. Sora nearly ran behind her for support, then realized that there was nothing he could do. He felt an unmistakable pull on his heartstrings at the horrid sight before him.

"Ryou…" Char put one bloodied hand over her mouth and fell to her knees. "Oh, gods. Oh, no, I'm so sorry…" Her voice broke on the last part.

"Why?" The little boy tilted his head and coughed, causing more blood to spill. "You… kept your promise…"

"What _promise?" _Char whispered. Her free hand clenched into a fistful of snow, which melted in a powdery surge of agony against the drying blood. "You're _dying._ There's nothing I can do about it!" Her voice rose to a shout.

Ryou shook his head fiercely, even though the action obviously caused him even more pain. "You… came back… alive."

With one last, shuddering breath, his eyes closed.

Mulan slowly walked over and put her ear to the boy's crimson chest. Char didn't even look up, but she knew that the other woman had shaken her head.

Sora, Donald and Goofy could only look on in shock, unable to do anything.

Silence reigned, but for the sound of a single woman keening near the back of the village. Char raised her head slightly and caught a glimpse of the middle-aged woman she had seen come get Ryou back last night. The older woman's eyes were glazed and dark with tears, and she hardly seemed to care about her own injuries.

The redhead's icy eyes seemed to harden, and she got to her feet on limbs made of stone and walked over.

At the tap on her shoulder, the woman looked up. The grief in her face was obvious, even for Char.

"You're… Char, aren't you?" she asked, attempting to smile, only for her face to crumple into sobs again. "You… met my son…"

"Who killed him?" Char asked abruptly.

The other woman's eyes widened.

"Who killed your son?" the redhead repeated.

At that, Ryou's mother looked down and put one hand over her face. "Sh-Shan-Yu himself. H-he… went and stabbed him, as an example… for those of us who would dare to defy him."

Char's eyes hardened even more, until they truly resembled the chips of the substance that they were colored after. She put one hand on the other woman's shoulder.

"I'll make sure Shan-Yu doesn't get away with what he did," she whispered. "I will avenge your son."

Ryou's mother stared at Char for a long moment, as though hardly believing that a stranger would do such a thing. Then she let out a long, shuddering breath.

"Thank you," she murmured.

"Captain!" Mulan suddenly shouted.

Feeling as though she'd just been dunked in icy water, Char looked around and saw the source of Mulan's fear. Captain Shang was leaning against one of the walls for support, while blood oozed from a long red weal on his side.

Sora and the others rushed over; the redhead followed more sedately at the rear.

"Captain, you're hurt!" Sora gasped, already groping around in his pocket for a Potion.

Shang shook his head. "It's… just a scratch." He attempted to get up, but grunted in pain and put his free hand over his wound.

Mulan immediately fished a Potion out of her pocket and handed it to him; Shang gave it a suspicious look before uncorking the stopper and drinking the healing liquid inside.

"Captain, the enemy – where did they go?" the young woman asked.

Shang looked up at her, his dark eyes clouded with pain. "Shan-Yu headed… toward the summit…"

Sora finally chanced a look over at Char. The redhead's face looked to be carved in stone.

"We'll go stop him," the brunette said, looking determinedly at Shang. "It kind of _is_ our fault…"

"You mean my fault," Mushu murmured, just loud enough for the group to hear.

"No," Char's voice sounded suddenly. Everyone looked at her in surprise. Her chin was lifted defiantly and her ice-blue eyes blazed in anger. "Shan-Yu and the Heartless did this, not us."

"Captain," Sora said, "if you get the surviving villagers to safety, we'll handle this." He emphasized this point by clenching one fist.

Shang nodded. "Good luck." He looked over at Char. "And, Char – from the way you acted back there…"

She glared at him, clearly expecting a rebuke for being "soft".

"…I can see you've got passion and heart," the captain finished. "Although you are a woman, you're clearly of good caliber. You have my trust."

Mulan was staring at Char the entire time, a small flame of jealousy lurking in the back of her eyes. Sora felt a twinge of discomfort; if the two females didn't get along, this could lead to trouble.

Shang pointed up the scree-covered slope. "The summit is that way."

"Gotcha," Sora said, giving the other man a grin for good measure.

Then the five of them started up the mountain.

* * *

(1) EEEEE he's just so adorable :DDD And yes, I did get the name Ryou from .hack/G.U.

(2) Yes, some authors integrate a little piece of themselves into their characters, and this is no exception. I'm horrible with little kids, too...

(3) Here, I think Sora's mindset kind of makes sense. I can imagine him having nightmares about what the Keyblade and temptation did to his friendship with Riku. Even our happy-go-lucky little spikehead has to have inner demons ;)

(4) **Angels** by Within Temptation is a REALLY good song to listen to during that part. I mean, it's kind of useless now, since you already read the chappie, but maybe if you reread... (hint hint) XD

Me: Told you. Insanely depressing. But it's very important, because if Ryou HADN'T died, Char still wouldn't give a flying fuck about what happened to the Land of Dragons.  
Char: I suppose it's a "revenge" kind of thing?  
Me: Yup! We're going to be wrapping this world up in the next chapter.  
Char: FINALLY. You've been stuck on this part for, what, like, two months?  
Me: Oh, shut up.  
Char: No, how about not?  
Me: ...Furbies...  
Char: ("meep"s and hides in the corner)  
Me: ALSO! MUY IMPORTANTE! I'm getting VERY close to the end of the material I've already written out! So expect the updates to get less frequent. However, Christmas break is coming, so I'll probably spend the ridiculously short amount of time writing.  
Char: Joy, more torture.


	18. Chapter XVIII

Rawr.  
Char: Yeah, she's pissed off because her swimmeet yesterday was at noon, and it didn't even get out till, like, eight.  
Me: It was seven hours of goof-off time wasted!  
Char: Oh yeah, and she had to redo her persuasive speech for communications class.  
Me: GRR! Don't remind me!  
Char: Well, at any rate, here's Chapter 18.

**_Disclaimer-_** Chyeah, right. I'll own KH when Riku and Sora find this site.  
Riku: (reading) ...why do all these people write about me having sex with Sora?  
Sora: o.O  
Me: o.O I still don't own... holy shit...

* * *

Sora just thanked the gods that it wasn't a long journey, because with Mulan nervous and Char staring darkly ahead, things were unnaturally silent. Not even Donald and Goofy dared to disturb the silence, just glancing awkwardly at each other.

The group reached the top of the mountain, and Sora glanced around. It wasn't really much, just a snow-clad clearing surrounded by the edges of the slope. He was about to turn to the others and ask what to do next when a sudden screech brought him to attention.

A dark brown hawk – or perhaps it was a falcon; Sora had never been good at biology – was flying over them. As his eyes followed the bird's path, it came to land on a man's shoulder. A man that was currently holding a jagged sword similar to the one that they had found embedded in little Ryou's chest.

Sora didn't have to glance over to know that Char's hands had tightened around the hilts of her swords.

Shan-Yu smirked, seeing the weakness in the red-haired girl and liking it. Then he raised the sword in a silent signal.

The next thing Sora knew, a swarm of bird-like Heartless were coming up the rise. Admittedly, they were small, but from the looks of it there were at least a hundred of them.

Donald and Goofy gaped, but whipped out their weapons. Sora did the same, summoning the Star Seeker in a beam of pale lavender light.

"Attack!" Shan-Yu bellowed, waving the sword high in the air.

The Heartless, as one massive group, came forward, drill-like beaks spinning.

Mulan was looking around in panic, but a nudge from Goofy made her unsheathe her sword and start forward.

Sora couldn't check and see what the others were doing, because in the next moment the Heartless were upon him.

All he knew was a blur of gold, sapphire, lavender and pain. He slashed about wildly with his Keyblade, floundering desperately in an attempt to destroy all the Heartless at once. In response, they just bore down even harder.

_Darn it…_

Sora sliced feebly at the air, blinded by the colors surging around him…

_Giving up already? I thought you were stronger than that, Sora._

Sora's dark blue eyes opened wide at Riku's arrogant voice echoing through his head. (1) The thought of his friend sent a fresh burst of energy coursing through his body, and he whipped his Keyblade around in a circle before slashing outward. The Heartless were knocked away and vanished in a puff of dark smoke.

Nearby, Donald and Goofy were fighting back to back, covering Mulan, who still looked totally lost. Char was slashing and hacking wildly, all the while not taking her eyes off a point at the center of the swarm. Sora guessed that was where Shan-Yu must be.

"Hey!"

Sora nearly fell into the snow in his shock. It was none other than Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po. The red-clad soldier was holding what looked like a firecracker.

"Stand back; we'll handle this," Ling said, puffing his chest out arrogantly.

"About time," Char grunted.

Yao just glared at her and placed the small reddish cannon on the snow.

Nearby, Mulan, glancing over, gasped. Abruptly she raced over and knocked Yao aside, eliciting a yell of "Hey!" from the small man.

"Sorry!" she yelled back in her deepened voice. Seizing the firecracker, she aimed it at the peak nearby.

"Oh…" she suddenly murmured. "I need a flint… something…"

Mushu chose that particular moment to pop out of her bag and demand what she was doing.

Realization lit up in Mulan's eyes, and she promptly grabbed the dragon.

"Wait, me? Whoa, hey, wait a second –"

Mulan stretched Mushu's body, causing a jet of fire to light the end of the match, and let go of him so quickly that the dragon ended up clinging to the end of the cannon for dear life.

The cannon exploded, shooting Mushu – and the flame – off the summit. The dragon's screech carried even from where they all were.

_"You're going the wrong way!"_

Mulan grinned triumphantly. Even Char and the Heartless stopped attacking each other to look up.

Something suddenly dawned on Char, and her expression of wild fury transformed into horrified recognition. "Damn it, that idiot!" Her swords vanished as she raced toward them. "Don't you all get it? She's trying to –"

_Crash!_

For a moment it was all silent but for the sound of Sora's own pounding heart. Then, in the blink of an eye, snow came barreling down the mountainside in a swirling cacophony of white.

At that very moment, Mulan spotted Shang coming up the slope. "Captain?" she gasped, and looked frantically from him to the avalanche.

Shang's expression of greeting turned to one of terror and shock as he spotted the avalanche. "Ping, what –?"

"Look out!" Mulan cut him off, racing toward him and dragging him away by the wrist.

Char snarled a vulgar word and grabbed Sora's hand. "Come on; we have to get the hell out of here!"

"But…"

"Look, I want to kill Shan-Yu as much as the next person," Char growled. "But this isn't the time! He's gonna get buried anyway. Now go!" She emphasized this last part by giving Sora's gloved hand a tug.

"Run for it!" Yao howled, his voice barely audible above the rushing snow as he turned and fled, with Ling and Chien-Po not far behind.

At last Sora tore his eyes away from hers. He suddenly realized that yes, he was indeed going to get buried unless he got out of the way. The force with which this hit him made him whirl around and start running. He felt Char stumble from where she was still gripping his wrist, and gave her hand a quick yank to steady it. Sora didn't dare look back.

The group had fled behind a rock formation, where the snow slid off the top. Without really thinking, Sora skidded to a stop behind it and fell to the ground beside Donald and Goofy.

They all huddled there, terrified, as the roaring of the snow above them grew to a deafening crescendo. As abruptly as it had begun, the avalanche finished.

Shang chanced a look beyond the rock formation from where he sat next to Mulan, and sighed in relief. "It's okay to come out, everyone."

"Gawrsh, that was scary," Goofy breathed, crawling out from underneath the rock.

Sora looked out as well. As far as he could tell, nothing had changed, except that one of the peaks nearby looked considerably smaller. (2)

Char looked up irritably from where she had flung herself into the snow. "Well, Ping, I hope you're happy."

Mulan wasn't even listening. She was too busy talking to Shang, with something unnamed shining in her eyes.

"Thank you, Ping," the captain said.

Mulan blushed visibly, and Sora sighed inwardly. Even he knew that a girl masquerading as a boy couldn't blush at what their subordinate said. "It… was nothing," the woman murmured.

"I should never have doubted you," Shang went on, smiling at her. "From now on, you have my trust."

"Thank you, Captain," Mulan mumbled.

The others came out from under the rock and stood beside them. "Yeah, Ping, you did great!" Donald said.

Char just looked irritated, folding her arms across her chest. "If you discount the fact that you almost killed us all, then yes, it was great."

"Can't you just be happy for her?" Donald glared at Char.

"Whatever."

Suddenly, Mushu popped out of the snow in front of them in a blur of red and white. "First she uses me as a lighter," he grumbled, "then she uses me as a human cannonball!" He stepped shakily up to Mulan. "Man, the head ancestor's gonna hear about this. Mulan, let's just quit this charade and go home, girl!"

"Mushu," Mulan hissed, glancing frantically at the captain.

Mushu followed her gaze and gasped, clearly realizing that he'd done something wrong. Quickly he darted behind Mulan's legs.

"'Mulan'?" Shang repeated angrily. "A woman? It can't be!"

Sora felt the breath catch guiltily in his throat. Char just glared at Shang, as though daring him to say anything more.

"So she is a woman," she growled. "Does that make a difference? She just saved your sorry life!"

"You all knew, didn't you?" Shang ignored the redhead and looked at Sora, Donald and Goofy. "You knew that Ping was really a woman in disguise."

Sora stared at his snow-ridden shoes. "Yeah…"

"I can't believe you lied to me," Shang muttered, putting a hand to his head in distress. He looked at Mulan, who flinched under the force of his glare. "The punishment for treason and dishonoring the High Army… is death."

He hesitated, and the entire group held their breath. Then Shang turned away. "You're all dismissed. Get out of my sight."

Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po, who had previously looked out from under the rock to see what was going on, were at a loss for words.

"Captain?" Mulan tentatively asked.

"My debt is repaid. Now go! The emperor is waiting for us!"

Without another word, Shang headed back toward the ridge. Yao and his companions gave Mulan a helpless look and followed.

"Mulan…" Mushu groaned. "I'm sorry. I blew it."

"Well," Char muttered, "he was going to find out eventually."

Sora looked at her. Mulan was in despair, and all Char could do was theorize and act pessimistic.

"It's alright, everyone," Mulan said, though she still looked as though she'd just been dunked in icy water. "Um… if you don't mind, I'd like to go change."

"Oh, right," Sora said. He could feel Char's eyes on the back of his neck and winced. Clearly, the temporary good humor between them was gone, clouded by Ryou's death and Shang leaving. Sora felt a burst of disappointment. Char, he realized, actually acted semi-human when she wasn't hitting him or being annoyed.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Mulan came out from behind the rock formation. She looked pretty much the same, but her armor was gone and her hair fell down to her shoulders. Seeing everyone looking at her, she smiled hesitantly.

"Thank you, everyone. Sorry I got you all in trouble."

Sora grinned and shrugged. "It's no big deal. So, Pi – er, I mean Mulan… what are you gonna do now?"

Mulan shrugged back and looked down at the scabbard of her sword. "Go home."

Mushu, who now sat on Mulan's shoulder, sighed. "You know, your daddy's gonna be steamed as a chicken dumpling."

The woman cringed slightly at that. "You're right…"

Sora smiled wider, slinging his arms around Donald and Goofy's shoulders. "Don't worry. We'll take our share of the blame." He gave Char a hard look. "Right?"

Char grunted, which Sora took as a yes.

Mulan returned Sora's smile. "Thank you."

Without further ado, the group started back down the mountain. Sora sighed; they had just climbed all this, and now they were going to have to go down it again. Well, at least downhill treks were easier than going up.

He shot a glance at Mulan. To the young woman's credit, she didn't look like her heart had just been broken and thrown across the summit. She was staring at the ground as she walked, and even Mushu, who almost always had something to say, was silent. It was rather unnerving.

Donald and Goofy were examining each other's wounds, with the mage raising his staff to heal them all. Sora couldn't hold back a smile at his friends. Despite being goofballs most of the time, the duck and the dog had been there for Sora through thick and thin. Even when Riku had briefly become the new wielder of the Keyblade, they had returned to the brunette eventually. Looking at them filled Sora with hope despite the dire circumstances.

And then he looked at Char. Like Mulan, she was also staring at the snow, and her red locks fell forward so that Sora couldn't see her face from the side. The glimmer of the barely-visible sun hit her twin blades, which she was currently gripping tightly.

_She really wants to avenge Ryou,_ Sora realized. Looking at her, one wouldn't normally think that such a teenager would get so riled up over the killer of a little kid she barely even knew. But, as Char had proven in this world, she could get truly passionate about the things she believed in.

Sora's reverie was cut short when he felt himself suddenly stumble on something. He looked down and saw something pale red sticking out of the snow.

_What…?_

He leaned down and picked it up to examine it more thoroughly, but then Mulan gasped and pointed upward.

Shan-Yu's furious snarl echoed to an alarming crescendo throughout the path, and Sora saw the hawk come flying out of the air to land on the Hun leader's shoulder. Shan-Yu glared down at the ridge, and Sora felt a sudden urge to whimper and hide behind Char like a child with a nightmare.

Then the Hun leader turned away and disappeared down the slope opposite the group.

"Shan-Yu… he's alive?" Mushu gasped in shock. "Are you kidding me? Not even an avalanche can kill that guy!"

"He's heading for the Imperial city," Mulan said. Her eyes were wide with panic. "We've got to warn Shang!"

Sora thought he heard Char gasp sharply behind him.

"Right," Donald agreed, already raising his staff in anticipation for the battle.

The others raced down the slope. Sora started to follow, pocketing the small red charm as he did so, but stopped in his tracks when he didn't hear footsteps behind him.

"Char?" He turned. "What…?"

But he was met with nothing but empty silence. (3)

* * *

The brunette finally caught up with Donald, Goofy and Mulan at the very bottom of the mountain path. He was practically gasping for air by the time he reached them, and he'd tripped and nearly fallen enough times.

Mulan turned and saw Sora, who was now bent over and leaning on his knees for support. She frowned in confusion. "Sora, what's going on?"

"Where's Char?" Goofy added.

"That's the problem," the brunette managed at last. His chocolate-colored bangs swung as he lifted his head to lock his frantic gaze with Mulan's. "She's gone!"

* * *

Okay, so she'd run off on them when she'd clearly promised Riku she would stay with Sora no matter what. Did it really matter? This issue, or at least in Char's opinion, was dire enough that she could make an exception to the little "follow Sora in a stalker-ish way" rule.

Her fingers tightened even further onto the hilts of her swords. Ryou's last words still echoed in her mind; about how even though he was dead, she had kept her promise to come back.

She restrained a snarl. _Shan-Yu… I don't care if he's the leader of the Huns and the Heartless in this world. No one deserves to die the way Ryou did._

Setting her teeth and lifting her chin, she quickened her pace. She could see the crimson buildings of what was obviously the Imperial city spread out below the hill she was on.

The redhead stared down at the city. A brief flame of doubt flickered in her chest, sending an unpleasant wave of discomfort through her.

Then she started down the hill.

* * *

"Shang!" Mulan panted, catching up to the captain and his soldiers. Shang turned briefly, then saw who was speaking to him and abruptly looked back away. The woman's brow furrowed, but she kept speaking. "Shan-Yu is alive and he's headed this way!"

Shang looked at her again, this time with a look of sorrow on his face. "And why should I believe you this time?"

"But… she's telling you the truth!" Sora insisted.

Donald, who was staring in wonder at the buildings of the city, suddenly gasped and pointed a ways in front of them. Everyone looked where he was pointing and gasped. It was none other than Shan-Yu's hawk, who now flew just past the crowd and toward the palace.

The captain's eyes widened, and he turned to his soldiers. "Guard the palace! Do not let the enemy get anywhere near the emperor!"

They all nodded and raced toward the gate.

"We should go, too," Mulan said, looking determinedly at Sora.

"Captain, let's go save the emperor," the brunette ordered, whipping out the Star Seeker.

Shang blinked, confused at the young teen giving him orders; then he simply nodded and followed his troops, with Sora, Mulan, Donald and Goofy hot on his heels.

_I just hope Char's there…_ Sora thought. His throat tightened with the thought that she'd left for vengeance. More than likely, Shan-Yu and his Heartless would overwhelm her within seconds; she'd need a Keybearer and healers to back her up.

Then he felt surprised. Why was he worrying about this angry, anti-social girl he really barely knew?

Shan-Yu stood with his blade to an old man's throat, an old man who was clad in royal crimson robes. By the way Shang gasped, Sora assumed that this was the emperor.

"Now you'll bow to me," Shan-Yu hissed. The emperor simply looked at the Hun leader, dignified and regal despite his position on the ground.

"I don't think so," came a voice from up above. Shan-Yu lowered his sword and looked up. Everyone followed his gaze. Sora could've cried with relief as he recognized the long hair swaying behind the dark silhouette on the roof.

Char leaped down from the landing, stumbling a little as she hit the ground. However, she quickly regained her composure, and pointed one grass-stained sword at the Hun leader.

_How long has she been here?_ Sora wondered.

"I recall you killed a certain young child back at the village, to 'show what would happen if anyone dared oppose you'," Char said, putting on a mocking tone at the last words. "Well, I'm opposing you now, for the death of that child. What are you going to do, you bastard?"

Shan-Yu gaped at her for a moment, as though hardly believing that this young woman was talking to him like this. Indeed, Char's voice was all the more frightening because her teeth were clenched and she wasn't shouting at him.

While the Hun leader was distracted, Shang and his troops quickly ran forward and herded the emperor back behind the palace gates. The last thing the group saw before the gates closed was Shang nodding at them.

The Hun leader noticed the emperor's sudden absence and snarled. But before he could run forward to the gate, Sora and the others ran in front of the palace doors. The brunette gave Char a quick grin before getting into his battle stance.

"It ends now," Mulan hissed, unsheathing her sword.

"Right now," Sora added.

The hawk landed on Shan-Yu's shoulder, and a dark aura surrounded the man. He raised his free arm to the sky, laughing evilly. A group of Heartless materialized in front of him.

"And that's our cue," Donald muttered, and raised his staff.

Char raced forward almost at once, slashing and hacking wildly through the Heartless to reach Shan-Yu. The two of them began clashing blades, and Sora charged over to help.

"What the hell are you doing?" Char grunted, parrying one of Shan-Yu's blows and slicing at him with her free sword.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Sora shouted over the battle cries of Mulan, Donald and Goofy. "I'm helping you."

"I don't… need… your help!" the redhead yelled back, slashing at the Hun leader with each word.

"Yes, you do!"

Char glared at him, only to whip to the side as Shan-Yu's sword nearly impaled her. "Grr, all right."

Sora smiled and dashed over, delivering a flurry of blows to the Hun leader's side. Shan-Yu roared angrily and sent a dark aura pulsing toward the Keybearer. Sora quickly danced out of the way just in time.

"See?" he panted. "I told you."

By this time Donald, Goofy and Mulan had defeated all the Heartless, and were now helping to defeat Shan-Yu. Donald cast a couple of Curas here and there, while Goofy and Mulan hung back and got in a few blows whenever they could.

Shan-Yu, however, wasn't finished yet. They had forgotten all about the hawk.

Donald growled when he felt the bird's talons swiping at him. "Stupid hawk!"

Mulan and Goofy, now preoccupied with the hawk, started herding it off to the side, leaving Char and Sora to deal with the Hun leader.

"Damn it," Char grumbled, blocking yet another blow. "Why won't he just let up already?"

Sora was about to reply when he realized something.

"Goofy!" he shouted.

The dog's ears pricked.

"I think I'm going to have to use it," the brunette yelled over.

Knowing there wasn't time to wait for a reply, he closed his eyes. His breath hitched slightly; he knew how dangerous that was in a fight like this, but it was the only way he could concentrate enough to get what he needed.

Sora took a deep breath, reaching far inside himself for what he needed. Again, Riku and Kairi popped up in his mind; the thought of what he wanted reinforced the power he felt from within…

Then Char's furious snarl broke through Sora's concentration. Evidently, Shan-Yu had said or done something to anger her even more. The brunette winced as Char shouted again:

_"You bastard!"_

The concentration was ebbing, Sora thought with a flash of panic.

_No, no, no, no…_

Everything would be lost if he couldn't transform.

Then a burst of light rent the air. Sora blinked, then realized that it was coming from himself.

He chanced a look down at the normally Keyblade-free hand, and was greeted by the sight of the Kingdom Key. Relief flooded through him. It worked. (4)

Turning back to the battle, nothing really looked different, except for the absence of Goofy. Char was slashing and hacking furiously at Shan-Yu; her rage obviously had taken her over for the moment. Shan-Yu was blocking her onslaught effortlessly, smirking.

Sora bounded into the melee, noticing vaguely the increased speed of the tread of this form, and raised the Kingdom Key. It occurred to him that he had no idea how to dual-wield other than Char's little training session, but he pushed that frightening thought to the back of his mind.

The blow knocked Shan-Yu's blade to the side. The Hun leader snarled and tried to retrieve it, but a squelching noise stopped him in his tracks.

Char stood there, panting, blood dripping from multiple cuts. One arm hung almost limply at her side, and the sword that normally was held in that hand had vanished. The other arm was raised, holding the sword currently embedded in Shan-Yu's abdomen. On the other side, Mulan could be seen with her own blade impaling the man's side; the woman stared, wide-eyed, down at the gradually-leaking fatality.

The Hun leader stared down at the wound. The dark aura around him vanished, and he fell backward to the ground, blood leaking out of his mouth. Char placed one foot on his belly, dug her blade from his body, and made the sword disappear. Mulan quickly did the same, still staring in shock at her blood-stained blade.

Sora felt something within him jerk. The next thing he knew, the Kingdom Key had vanished, and Goofy was stepping over beside him.

"What did he say?" Sora asked quietly.

Char stared down at Shan-Yu's dead body, as though hardly believing what had just happened. "He said…" She looked up and met Sora's gaze. "He asked if Ryou was my child, and that if he was, I could just forget it."

Sora's eyes widened, but before he could say anything Mushu's voice broke the silence.

"Aww, yeah! Mulan's the best! Mulan's the best!" he cheered, leaping around on the ground. "Wait, wait a minute, no – I'm the best! Mushu's the best!"

The gates opened, and the emperor walked out with Shang and the troops at his side, a stern look on his weathered face. Sora suddenly remembered Shang's words.

"The punishment for treason and dishonoring the High Army… is death."

Mulan gulped audibly.

The emperor directed his gaze at her. "I've heard a great deal about you, Fa Mulan."

Inwardly, Sora sighed. Undoubtedly, a big lecture was on the way.

Mulan bowed, but she was trembling slightly.

"You stole your father's armor, ran away from home, and impersonated an Imperial soldier. You deceived your commanding officer, shamed the entire Chinese army, and dishonored your family name."

Sora shook his head and groaned. "We get the picture…"

"You're a young woman," the emperor went on, not once taking his eyes off of Mulan. Sora expected Char to step forward and passionately protest that little stereotype, but he didn't see a flash of red out of the corner of his eye that would announce her presence.

"And in the end…"

Donald, whose arms were folded, allowed them to sag at his sides in defeat.

"…you have saved us all."

Mulan's head jerked up in shock. "Your Excellency?"

Sora suddenly heard a soft cheering noise behind them, a sound that grew in intensity until it almost overwhelmed him. He turned around and saw that everyone who lived near the palace had come out.

_How long have they been there?_ he wondered.

Mulan straightened, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Yes, sir."

The emperor looked at Shang. "Captain Li?"

Shang nodded and picked up Shan-Yu's jagged blade from the ground, holding it out to Mulan. Her eyes widened.

"Take this, so the world will know what it is you have done for China," the emperor said.

Shang handed the sword to Mulan, being careful not to cut himself on the sharp point. Mulan bowed again. "Thank you."

Shang just nodded. The shadow of a smile flickered across his features before he turned to Sora and the others.

"Sora, Donald, Goofy…" He hesitated; Sora remembered that they had never really told him Char's name.

Char, who had been staring out at the sky, jerked her head toward him. "Uh, Char. It's Char."

"And Char," Shang finished. "Thank you all."

Sora laughed, patting Mulan on the shoulder. "Can I get an autograph?"

Mulan smiled gratefully back at him. "Thanks for everything, Sora."

Mushu, who had apparently been walking around unnoticed in front of the gates, suddenly spoke. "Now they gotta let me go back to being a guardian!"

"But Mushu, I thought you already _were_ a family guardian," came Char's voice. Sora jumped in shock and glanced over at her. A smirk currently was on her features, and her eyes glittered. "You're not saying you lied to us, are you?"

"Oh, uh…" Mushu hesitated, suddenly blustering. "Oh, you know, that's real technical, just for us guardians."

"You tricked us," Sora gasped.

"Well, uh, I just –"

A piercing light out of the corner of his eye caused Sora to turn. Shan-Yu's sword was glowing and was starting to float upward.

"Gawrsh, you think…?" Goofy murmured.

Sora stared at the sword for a moment, then summoned the Star Seeker. He held it up to the sky, and a beam of light akin to the one at Hollow Bastion shot out to pierce the veil of clouds. Slowly, the light seemed to push aside this world's sky, until the dark clouds of the pathways between worlds showed.

"Okay, guess it's about time to be moving on," Sora said.

"You shall be missed," the emperor told him, giving him a small, subdued smile.

"Is it okay if we come back to visit?" the Keybearer asked, a little jokingly. He'd already vowed to himself at the beginning of this journey that he would revisit everyone.

Mulan grinned back. "Of course it is! Take care."

Char raised an eyebrow. "You two play nice now," she said, referring to Shang and Mulan.

Both gave a start and blushed furiously. "Whoa, take it easy there, soldier!" Shang managed at last, his voice a little high-pitched.

Char's icy eyes met Shang's dark ones. "Thanks," was all she said, and turned toward the Imperial city entrance.

Sora blinked and ran to catch up with her. "What was that for?"

Char gave him a look that said this should be obvious. "For calling me a soldier."

"Well, he does kind of owe it to you, I guess," Donald muttered, coming up on Sora's other side with Goofy beside him.

Goofy was giving Char a look of scrutiny. "Gawrsh, Char, are you sure you're okay?"

"Never better," the redhead answered, and grinned cheekily. "We've gotten that out of the way, and…" Her eyes softened slightly. "Ryou was avenged."

"Why did you care so much, anyway?" Donald asked belligerently. "He was just a little kid, and we all know by now you don't really like anybody. So what was with the hero thing?"

"Donald…" Sora murmured in warning.

Char shot him a glare. "It's fine, I can handle this." Her gaze switched back to Donald. "I guess you could say… Ryou reminded me a little of me. Not now, of course," she added irritably. "I meant back when I first started researching."

A distant look came over her as the memories replayed in her head. "I would get lost so many times in the tunnels, and even though my friends were always there to bail me out, to this day I still can't really go in there without being a little scared." She laughed. "What can I say, though? I liked to learn.

"I saw that, in Ryou. He reminded me of what I used to be, before…"

Abruptly she cut herself off.

"Before what?" asked Goofy, gently trying to push her onward.

Char shook her head; the shell had gone around her again. "It's nothing. I shouldn't have brought it up anyway." She looked back at Donald. "Well, to answer your question… Ryou had so much potential, and…" She took a breath that shuddered slightly, and rubbed a finger across one eye. "It just seemed a shame to waste that for conquest."

Sora blinked at her; he hadn't thought of it that way. Come to think of it, he hadn't really stopped to think about why exactly Char was so driven to avenge this child. The brunette had been too busy fighting back Heartless and worrying about where the redhead had gone.

By this time the old checkpoint loomed up in their line of sight. Sora couldn't hold back a smile. In all the journeys he'd been on, he had learned that, no matter what happened, he would always have the memories of the people he'd met and come to care for as friends.

Unbidden, a flash of a blond-haired girl went through his mind, causing a sharp pang. He didn't get too much of her before she disappeared, but she was definitely wearing white. (5) The pain brought a hand up to his head.

"Sora, you okay?" asked Donald.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm fine," the brunette replied, a little shakily.

What was with that? Sora hadn't gotten a headache like that since at Yen Sid's tower, when Char's old black coat had caught his eye. Just thinking about it made his head ache a little dully.

"I think we've got some painkillers on the Gummi ship," Char said, obviously trying to be helpful. Something else was lurking in her eyes, though; but when Sora tried to get a grasp on it, the feeling was gone.

_

* * *

_(1) Well, what? I had to think of SOME way to get Sora out of his pity party!

(2) At this part, Char and Sora were originally going to end up tumbling so that they would be in a (ahem) "compromising" position. But I figured a) that would be taking things a little too fast, and b) all you pervs out there would take it the wrong way. -.-

(3) Dun dun DUN!  
Char: Right...

(4) Yeah... Sora changed to Valor Form, in case you're a total retard and couldn't figure it out XD

(5) -COUGH-NAMINE-COUGH-

Char: And now everyone will probably gather up in a mob and kill you.  
Me: Yeah... because this is the end of the already-written material...  
Char: But you DO have part of the next chapter done.  
Me: Yup! It's mostly a filler, so they really don't go to Beast's Castle until Chapter 20. Chappie 19 DOES have a Char/Riku flashback, though...  
Char: I can't wait till I get to drive the Gummi ship... (smirk)  
Sora: (gulp)  
Riku: God help you, Sora. Char sucks at driving...  
Char: Kekeke.  
Me: So, till next time!


	19. Chapter XIX

So yay, here be chapter 19.  
Char: Joy.  
Me: You don't like anything I do for you, do you?  
Char: Tch. Other than creating me, you haven't really done anything likable for me.  
Me: Well, yeah. Case in point: this chapter. Like I said, it's really just a filler, but it has a flashback and some Char/Riku friendship fluffiness.  
Char: WHY do I have to hug him?  
Me: Anyway, I'm going to make this really quick because my computer keeps fucking freezing. -.-

**_Disclaimer-_** Me no own, you no sue.

* * *

Sora's belly rumbled loudly as they entered the Gummi ship, causing everyone's heads to turn. He laughed sheepishly. "Uh, I guess it's lunchtime?"

"Uh, no kidding." Char coughed in what was supposed to be a polite way.

"Yeah, I think we're all kind of hungry," Donald added.

Sora grinned. "Well, you know how it goes. Can't fight Heartless on an empty stomach."

Goofy made a beeline toward the pantry, while Donald sighed and flopped down onto one of the chairs.

"What a trip," he grumbled.

"Well, at least we got to meet Mulan, right?" asked Goofy, his voice slightly muffled from where he was rummaging for food.

"And we got to see Mushu again," Sora added. "That was a big plus."

"I forgot how obnoxious he is," Donald muttered under his breath. Sora suspected that if the mage were human, he would be putting a hand to his head in exasperation.

"Still, though, I guess it was nice to see your friend again," Char murmured, causing Sora to jerk in surprise. She had the tendency to sneak up on him; currently she stood next to him, unnoticed till now.

"So, Sora," she said, moving to sit in the seat next to Donald and focusing her gaze on the brunette. "Tell me a little more about these 'summons' you had. I know Mushu was one of them, but other than that…"

One eyebrow went up over one of Donald's dark eyes, as though he suspected she was just trying to fill the void of silence.

In contrast, Sora's sapphire eyes brightened. "Well, summons are creatures with strong hearts whose worlds had been destroyed," he began. "And they got sealed inside charms, which we all found on our last journey. They really help out a lot," he went on, practically babbling in his ardor.

Char couldn't hold back a small smile as she listened to him tell her about his various summons and what worlds they had come from. Admittedly, she had never seen the Keybearer summon anything other than Mushu, so in this case she was being honest in her curiosity. Sora's normal happy-go-lucky demeanor was magnified even more, his eyes large, bright jewels as he spoke.

_Apparently he likes remembering his last journey,_ she thought. Inwardly, she frowned. _Why would you want to remember something that tore you from your home and everything you cared about?_

The memory of what had made her and DiZ leave Hollow Bastion popped into her mind, causing her to cringe a little.

Unfortunately, Sora noticed. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Char snapped back, a bit too quickly. She cursed her lack of tact when Sora gave her an odd look. Damn, how bipolar must she look now?

Fortunately, they both were saved by the sound of Goofy's voice. "Hey guys, how do sandwiches sound for lunch?"

"Yeah, sure," Sora called.

"We haven't eaten anything but pasta for the past few days," Donald grumbled, reminding Char that it had only been about two days since this journey had begun.

She leaned back in her seat, one arm against the armrest and the other lifted so her hand could push her bangs back. They promptly fell back into their place over her eyes again, and she sighed mentally. If only three days felt like forever, and factoring in the possibility that this journey could take months…

_Good gods._

A memory flashed back into her mind, but not the unpleasant one of Xehanort and the others betraying her and their master. This one was a bit less painful for Char to remember, because it was of her last time in Twilight Town – or the virtual one, if you wanted to get really technical.

It was of the last time she had spoken to Riku.

* * *

_"Tell her, Ansem." The dark-cloaked man opened his mouth to speak, but DiZ cut him off. "In private."_

_This time, both of the others looked bemused. DiZ just smiled._

_Still blinking in confusion, Ansem – or perhaps Riku; Char had never stopped referring to him as Riku in her mind, since the true Ansem was already right there – led her outside. Once they were safely out in the mansion foyer, Char crossed her arms. "So, what did you want to tell me that Master couldn't say?"_

_Riku hesitated, then tentatively reached forward and placed a glove-clad hand on her shoulder, as though afraid that she might summon her blades and chop his hand off. The redhead flinched at his touch. Since when had Riku become such a touchy-feely person?_

_"Char," the boy began, his voice deep from the transformation. "I'm going to tell you something you might not want to hear. But you're going to have to hear me out."_

_Char's eyes widened. "Why wouldn't I want to hear it?" She thought of jerking her shoulder away from his grip, but she had the feeling that that would drive a wedge even further into their already-canyon-like relationship._

_Riku's amber eyes – damn it, she would _always_ force herself to think of them as the sea-green she had first known – flicked down to the hand on her shoulder. His eyebrows lifted, perhaps in surprise that she _hadn't_ pushed him away. For some reason, this annoyed her more than his evasion of her first question._

_"Just tell me," she insisted._

_A silence passed between them, so long that Char was about to open her mouth and repeat the question again._

_When Riku broke the tension, he spoke softly. "Sora will awaken soon. And when that happens, DiZ and I are going to have to leave this place."_

_"Leave?" Char couldn't help it; her voice cracked a little. "But – isn't that what he's going to think of first thing when he wakes up? He's going to want to find his friend, to see you again! And then… and then your whole journey will be over." Her voice almost broke at the thought of that. _

_Riku blinked almost teasingly. "So what, you don't want me to leave?"_

_Char scoffed, trying to cover up her previous anxiety. "Tch. Let's just say that I feel better when you're around. You scare people off."_

_"Pfft, thanks." Riku's mood turned serious again almost at once. "Char, I think what you fail to realize is that… Sora can't see me like this. _

_"Think about it. What if you saw your old friends again?" He emphasized the word "friends", and Char flinched. _Friends…yeah right, _she thought. _Friends don't go off and become Nobodies, and then turn on their master and friend.

_"I guess…" she began slowly. "Honestly, I would probably rip them apart."_

_"Exactly," Riku said. "If Sora sees me carrying the form of his old enemy, he'll attack me. And… I don't want him to see my darkness."_

_"See your darkness?" Char snorted. "What kind of garbage are you spouting now?"_

_"Just don't ask about it, Char," Riku replied sharply._

_"Ooh, a little sensitive on this, are we?" Char snapped back. "I'm terribly _sorry."_ She dragged out the word 'sorry' so that he would understand her sarcasm._

_Riku pulled his hand away. "Look, if you're going to be like that, I can't tell you what else DiZ wants you to do."_

_"Oh yeah, he did mention that," Char recalled. "So, what does he want?"_

_"He wants you to go with Sora," the boy answered, almost instantly, as though he wanted to get it over with._

_Silence passed. Then Char spoke again, eyes wide. "Wait, _what?_ I thought I was going to stay here with you and Master!"_

_"Apparently not," Riku muttered tartly. "DiZ says you need to keep Sora on the right track. Be his guardian." Dryly, he added, "Babysit him, if you have to."_

_"I get it, okay?" Char shouted. "But _why?!"

_"It was just DiZ's orders!" By this time, Riku was yelling too, trying to match her. "What are you so mad about anyway? You said yourself that you were going to be bored waiting here with us."_

_"Yeah, well, I wasn't exactly in the best mood when I said that. It wasn't like I _meant_ it! I don't…" Char groped for words that would describe her feelings without being vulgar, which was actually harder than it sounded. "I don't want…"_

I want to stay here with you!_ was what she wanted to say – scream, actually, to get her point across. Somehow, though, she got the feeling that that pathetic statement wouldn't help her case much._

_She realized suddenly that she could feel the shameful trail of tears making their way down her face, and felt a burst of anger at her own sentimentality. She lifted one hand and wiped the tear furiously away, only for it to be replaced by another. Growling in annoyance under her breath, she turned her face away._

_"I… I just… I'll think of Roxas every time I look at him, you know," she mumbled pathetically._

_A gloved finger beneath her chin turned her face back to look at Riku. His amber eyes were soft._

_"What?" she snarled, but her voice was punctuated by a sob._

_"I understand that you don't want to," Riku said, his voice surprisingly empathetic. "But you have to. I can't be seen, and DiZ is going to be busy wrapping everything up."_

_"I know," Char muttered._

_Riku smiled apologetically. "I'd give you a hug, but considering how pissed off you are at me right now…"_

_"No," Char murmured, surprising herself. Apparently Riku as well, because his eyebrows went up again. "No, a hug sounds nice."_

_"Hm." Riku grinned wider. "Well then, princess, I guess I'd better listen."_

_"Since when was I a princess?" Char grumbled, even as he pulled her close. "Alright. I'll do it… but I won't like it!" she added quickly._

_Riku laughed, wrapping one arm around her back and the other around her shoulders. "I figured as much." He sighed, ruffling her bangs slightly and sending a light flush across her face. "I'm gonna miss you."_

_"Yeah, yeah, yeah…"_

* * *

"Char? Char!"

The redhead blinked her eyes open. "Hm?"

It was Donald, shaking her from her reverie. "The food's ready."

"Hm? Oh, yeah… right…"

As she pushed herself out of the chair, the redhead stared at the floor, trying to get the memory of Riku out of her mind. Sora and the others were bound to notice something was wrong if she kept acting like this, she told herself.

Sora already was wolfing down what looked like a ham-and-cheese sandwich; Goofy stared bemusedly at the brunette's appetite. Char raised an eyebrow as she walked up to stand beside him. "Feel better now?"

"Yeah, actually," Sora replied through a mouthful of sandwich. The redhead just gave him an annoyed look and turned to Goofy. "What've we got?"

"Food," Donald muttered before the dog could reply.

Char glared at him. "Uh, I'd kind of already gathered that, thank you very much." Turning back to Goofy, she just said, "Never mind, I'll look."

The knight shrugged with a grin. "Help yourselves, guys."

After they had all finished their meals, Char looked out the window and noticed that the sun was starting to sink. _Has it been that long?_

Sora apparently noticed it as well, since he jerked a thumb toward the window. "It's getting late. We should probably set out tomorrow."

Donald nodded vigorously in agreement. "Yeah, I think we're all a little tired…"

Char sighed; even she had to concede the point. She was exhausted from the big day. _Avenging young children has a tendency to do that,_ she couldn't help but think dryly.

The group set up their blankets and sleeping areas on the floor. Char arranged hers absently, tugging her blanket one way and then the other, lost in thought. It occurred to her that they really needed to get some beds in the Gummi ship, because sleeping on the floor on a journey like this just wouldn't cut it. And they needed a proper kitchen too, but since there were only two rooms in the ship it would be rather difficult…

_Gods, Char, you sound like a freaking interior decorator._

Char growled under her breath at the realization, and wondered if anything else would change her along the way.

Sora plopped down on his blanket. He lifted his arms in an attempt to get his jacket off over his head, only to get it hopelessly stuck over his untidy spikes. Char couldn't help but smirk at the sight of the Keybearer, hero of the worlds – trying to master his jacket, of all things.

"Nice move, Key-boy," was all she said.

Sora gave her an embarrassed smile, and wiggled so that the jacket was the rest of the way off, revealing his pale blue undershirt. "Sorry."

Goofy opened his mouth to say something, only to yawn so intensely that he fell back against the blanket.

"Goofy?" Donald poked him.

The dog didn't say anything, but a few snoring noises came from his side of the circle of blankets they had formed.

Donald groaned. "Geez… he always had this problem back at Disney Castle, too…"

"I never really got the entire story behind that, by the way," Char found herself saying. Then she blinked. What was she doing?

"Yeah, I know you guys used to live there with the King and Chip and Dale," Sora added. He was currently sitting cross-legged, and now he leaned forward with his hands on his knees, his eyes sparkling like an eager child at story time. "But what was that like?"

The duck turned his face away, but Char caught the look of excitement, the nostalgic look of someone fondly remembering the old days, flashing across his face. "Hmph. What is this, the third degree?"

"You _know_ we're not gonna stop bugging you until you tell us," Sora whined, leaning over and poking Donald with each word for emphasis.

The mage snarled and cast a glare at Char. She couldn't help but grin. "He's right, y'know."

Donald's brow furrowed and he squawked irritably. "Okay, okay, geez."

Sora smiled eagerly, a smile that reminded Char of Roxas, for some reason. It was odd, because other than the memories with Anxclof, Char had never seen the blond Nobody truly smile.

As Donald told the story of his role back home, Char kept an eye on the moon, which peeked at them from the corner of the window. It steadily rose higher into the sky.

"…and then His Majesty sent Goofy and I the letter to go find Sora," Donald finished, and looked pointedly at Sora. "I think you know the story from there."

Char was about to open her mouth to ask more, then closed it abruptly. She reminded herself not to pry too much; while she wanted to keep up the ignorant façade, she wasn't too curious about the details of Sora's first journey at the moment. _That can come later,_ she reminded herself.

Sora looked out the window and gave a start. "Wow, didn't think it'd get that late." He yawned as he spoke, distorting his words slightly. "G'night. I'll see you guys in the morning."

"'Kay," Donald said. "Good night, Sora."

"Mm-hmm," Sora murmured. He had already flipped over onto his side, his bangs flopping over his eyes.

This left Donald and Char as the only ones truly awake. Dark eyes stared into ice-blue for a moment; then Donald abruptly turned away.

"I'm getting to bed," he grumbled. "You should too." Dryly, he added, "Or else you're going to do badly tomorrow."

Char snorted. "Sweet dreams to you too, duck boy."

Surprisingly, Donald didn't seem to notice the pejorative. He just grunted in reply, and in a few moments had gathered the blanket around his feathered body and closed his eyes.

Carefully, so as not to wake everyone else, Char reached over to take her jacket off, then folded it beneath her to use as a pillow. She wrapped the blanket around herself, then leaned over and blew out the candle that Donald had lit earlier with his magic. She had to blink a few times to get used to the sudden change of lighting before looking around. The moonlight illuminated the trio as they slept.

She found her gaze drawn to Sora again. The brunette was sprawled out, his mouth opened slightly and messy bangs covering his lids.

Again, her words to Riku came back:

_"I'll think of Roxas every time I look at him, you know."_

Watching Sora, she knew it was true. As of yet, everything the boy did, whether it was as simple as walking through the forest or his tactics in battle, reminded her of Roxas.

As much as she hated to admit it, he had also been wise in activating – what was it he had called it? Ah yes, Valor Form – the form the fairies had given him to defeat Shan-Yu. Char's mouth twisted wryly; she had realized that they probably would have lost if Sora hadn't thought quickly.

_You can't fight all his battles,_ she reminded herself.

The fight against Shan-Yu made her remember poor Ryou, croaking out his last words while blood oozed from his chest. Her throat seemed to close up at the thought, and so she turned her concentration toward sleep.

_I can worry in the morning,_ she thought with a chuckle. The concept filled her with a sense of hope, and she sighed, because now she could finally get to sleep.

Closing her eyes and curling into a ball, Char drifted off into slumber.

* * *

Char's dreams were cluttered with anger and hatred. First it was of Xehanort, of the tragedy that, really, had brought her here in the first place. Her body shuddered as she watched the memory replay before her mind's eye. The pale-haired man had just stood there, watching in dull interest, as the Heartless had fallen upon him, a heaving, squealing mass of black through which the white of his lab coat had barely been visible.

She recalled all too vividly the pink of his own heart rising up through the skies of Hollow Bastion… up, up, up; swirling in a sparkling glow of colors until it took its place in what Char knew was called Kingdom Hearts. The Heartless cleared away as a different being entirely from Xehanort stepped out from the shadows, in a horrifying caricature of a phoenix flying out from the ashes.

Those amber eyes had looked at her, and the mouth that should have been torn and bloodied had smiled.

And Char had fled.

Reliving the memory inside her mind millions of times hadn't diminished the pain and fear of it. Thinking of it now made her tremble in her sleep.

Next came Roxas, and Anxclof, and Xehanort, who was now under the alias of Xemnas. All were holding Keyblades, blood-coated Keyblades, rusty Keyblades with a dull glitter. Char tried to turn, tried to escape, but found that her back was to a brick wall.

Roxas was wearing his Organization outfit, and stared at the redhead with dull, unaffected sapphire eyes. Char's body quivered even more as she realized she was looking into Sora's eyes. For some reason this made a cold bead of sweat slide down her cheek.

He was closest of all, and as he approached Roxas reached up, slowly, painfully, until the fingers of his free hand were stroking the side of her face almost lovingly. The blond was mouthing the same words over and over again, in an endless, unspoken rhythm.

_Your fault._

_Your fault._

_Your fault._

Anxclof and Xemnas were also clad in the dark cloaks, only their expressions were full of hatred and anger. They raised their Keyblades, as if to deliver the killing blow.

Behind them walked an all-too-familiar young boy, a boy she had watched die that very morning, a boy who looked five but who was actually seven. The jagged blade still stuck out of his chest, and his eyes were still cold and dead, like windows looking out to the sky in winter.

_If only you had been there, Char,_ his eyes seemed to say. _Why weren't you there? You let me die._

That was when Char woke up with a start, her own eyes wide and her chest heaving in a panting, horrified rhythm.

Quickly she looked over at the others, and sighed in relief. So far, she was the only one awake, except for a barely-stirring Goofy.

Slowly but steadily, her heartbeat slowed. She lifted a bare arm and wiped the sweat off her face.

She had had some pretty horrible nightmares lately, but that had been the worst yet. Char shivered at the thought of Ryou, then reminded herself that she shouldn't be remembering the poor little boy that way.

Somehow, though, she doubted that if he had lived, he would want to be remembered as a casualty of a useless war.

_That's all over now,_ she told herself.

Back when she had lived with Riku and DiZ, whenever she had a nightmare, Char had left her own room downstairs and gone into Riku's, which was right across the hall. Contrary to what it may have looked like, the mansion was larger than just the foyer, the stairs and what lay beneath the library. There was a system of interconnected hallways with many rooms inside, as though the mansion had been some kind of inn in a past life. Char and Riku had chosen their own rooms way back when they had all had to move there, rooms that had just happened to be right across from each other. Whenever a dream had shaken her, Char had slipped over to Riku's room to lie beside him, trying to calm herself; the silver-haired boy's presence had always helped with that.

Now that she thought back on it, Char realized it was rather childish for a sixteen-year-old to be doing, realized the implications of such a thing. Indeed, on the mornings succeeding these nights DiZ had often found the redhead and the silver-haired teen lying together in an awkward entanglement of sheets and limbs.

_No amount of desperate explanations would ever make me live that down,_ Char thought with a small smile.

Perhaps it was an inflection on the fact that Char had grown up without a mother and, virtually, without a father, no matter what DiZ had said. In her mind, Riku was like an older brother, a person she could go to in times of comfort, a person she could confess to. Because in all honesty, Riku was a person who had screwed up enough times to listen to someone else's own mistakes.

Char dug around in one of the Gummi ship's drawers for a moment and sighed in relief when she found what she was looking for. Yen Sid had thought ahead to place a hairbrush in the drawer, since, being female, Char wasn't willing to let her long hair go untamed for long.

She absently brushed it out, watching as the others woke up. Goofy was first, which wasn't really surprising, since he was the first to fall asleep last night. The knight grinned at seeing her, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "G'mornin', Char! Didja have a good sleep?"

Char hesitated, then shrugged. "More or less," she muttered.

The dog tilted his head to the side. "Somethin' wrong?"

When Char didn't say anything, Goofy went on, "Y'know, whenever something's troublin' you, it always helps to say it out loud."

"Yeah, I know," Char muttered. _I don't need _you_ to be my psychologist._

Goofy gave her a doubtful look, then turned and shook Donald gently. "Wake up, Donald, a-hyuck."

The duck stirred, then sat up slowly. "Goofy…" he groaned. "I was having the best dream and then you woke me up!"

"Sorry!" Goofy said hastily, lifting his hands up in surrender.

Char heard a grunt behind her and looked to see what it was. Sora was sitting up, the blanket entangled around his body. He put a hand to his head, causing Donald and Goofy to snigger.

"What's so funny?" the brunette asked, lowering his hand and pouting.

"You've got a major case of bed-head, man," Char muttered, grinning.

Sora groaned. "So that's it? You know how my hair is!" He emphasized his point by tugging on one of the wayward spikes.

"Sure," Char laughed, handing him the hairbrush. It occurred to her how sanitarily bad that was, but she brushed it aside. _Yen Sid should've thought to put more of that in here anyway,_ she thought. "Get your hair untangled."

She cast a look out the window. The sky was murky and dark with cloud, but the sun peeked through at a point near the horizon, showing that it was early morning.

"We have to get going," she said, turning back to the others.

"But aren't we gonna get breakfast?" asked Goofy.

Char hesitated.

"Yeah, we're hungry!" Donald added imploringly.

The redhead growled. "Fine, whatever," she grumbled, turning away.

At first it seemed like they wouldn't be able to find anything to eat, much to the disappointment of Sora and Donald. _Men,_ Char thought, watching them frantically search the pantry. _They're all bottomless pits._

At last, though, Goofy found some pancake mix in the back of the cupboard, and soon they had enough for them all to eat. Sora and Donald, of course, fell upon the food like ravenous wolves at a kill, while Char and Goofy took theirs at a slower pace.

"Geez," Char commented at one point. "Are you guys trying to get the hiccups or something?"

"What?" Sora replied through a mouthful of food, giving her a desperate, wide-eyed look. "I'm hungry here!"

Donald didn't even reply, he was so intent on breakfast.

Char finished the food on her plate, placed it at the dishwasher, and headed over to the screen that showed the new worlds. She allowed herself to look over the one that was the dojo and that was the Land of Dragons; they had already locked that world free of Heartless. Next to the Land of Dragons icon was what looked like a dark castle.

She lifted one hand and signaled for Sora to come over. "I think we should go to this world next," she said, pointing at the castle.

Sora shivered. "It looks kinda scary, though."

"But Riku and the King could be there," Donald reminded the brunette.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

Char moved over so that Goofy could take the pilot's seat. A devious grin crossed her face as she made a mental note to pilot it herself sometime.

"And what are you so happy about?" Donald asked, giving her a suspicious look.

"Oh, nothing," Char replied airily, sitting next to Sora.

Said Keybearer gulped. "I don't think I want to know."

"No, you don't," Char muttered.

"Full speed ahead!" Goofy cheered, steering the ship into the mist.

* * *

Me: OMG! There's actually no annoying numbers to signify comments at the end! But yeah, like I said, quite a bit of Char torture.  
Char: Grawr. Like I would ever really dream about any of that.  
Me: Well, you need more character development, okay?  
Char: I'm sure.  
Me: Well, anyway, next chapter they're going to Beast's Castle! And then Anxy comes along again... (smirk) Well, you're just going to have to wait to find out!  
Anxclof: Fortunately, though, Saf's Christmas break is coming up next week, so updates will probably be more frequent, just because she has no life.  
Me: ;-; Anxy... that was mean... 


	20. Chapter XX

Here's Chapter 20!  
Char: You're in a surprisingly good mood.  
Me: Well, Christmas IS coming up, after all, and I'm pretty sure I got everything on my list:P  
Char: I meant considering what your friend told you on Wednesday.  
Me: Sh-shut up. They don't need to know about that!  
Char: Yeah, basically, her friend has an enormous crush on her and chose the day before break to tell her about it.  
Me: Gah, I told you not to tell.  
Char: Too bad.  
Me: Aaaaanyway, this chappie is one of my favorites. It's nice and long, too - 13 pages on Word! That should be enough for your attention spans, right? XD (chased by angry mob) KIDDING! But yeah, this world was unexpectedly a pain to write. I found a way to twist that around, though! So, here we go!

**_Disclaimer-_** Tch, please. And my cat is the queen of England.

* * *

"I _hate_ those Heartless!" Donald squalled irritably as they exited the Gummi ship.

"I hear ya," Sora sighed, rubbing his sore side. Due to the Heartless and Nobodies assaulting them from all directions on the way to this world, the ride had been just a little bumpy.

"Whose bloody brilliant idea was it not to put seatbelts on the seats?" Char seethed. Despite her vow to maintain her composure in front of Sora and the others, she had fallen out of her seat at _least_ five times.

And Goofy was supposed to be the safe driver…

She looked up at the sky and couldn't help but shiver. The castle had looked a little frightening before, but it was nothing compared to now. An ominous blanket of clouds thickly coated the sky, and every once in a while a streak of lightning split the darkness. The castle arched thorn-sharp into the sky. Below them, a drawbridge was, for some reason, out, so they could walk across without fear of the moat.

_A moat? A dark castle? How cliché…_ Char thought, letting out a "hmph" and striding ahead.

"Aren't we going to get this over with?" she called over her shoulder.

"We're coming!" Donald yelled. A series of rapid, loud footsteps announced his arrival next to her. The duck gave her a glare. "Why are you in a hurry?"

"Donald, this place is kinda scary," Goofy reminded him, at the same time looking around nervously. "I don't think anyone would wanna stay here for long, a-hyuck."

Now they stood directly in front of the castle gates. Sora took a deep breath before walking up and, with quite a bit of effort, pushing the doors open. The gates made an eerie creaking noise as they yielded, causing Donald to yelp and scramble to hide behind Char.

The redhead glared at him and pushed him aside, while Sora shivered and stared in wonder out at the corridor. It was mostly a large room with halls to either side, with a set of stairs in the middle that spiraled upward into two separate upstairs areas.

"I wonder who lives here," he murmured.

As if to answer him, a loud, earth-shaking roar pulsated through the area. Char nearly lost her balance, but Sora, who was nearest, ran over and clumsily caught her just in time.

"What was that?" Donald asked a little shakily.

Sora thought for a moment, then his eyes lit up and he looked eagerly at the others. "Guys, I think that's the Beast!"

Char blinked in what she hoped was a convincing way. "The Beast?"

"He helped us on our last journey," Sora explained. "Maybe we should go check up on him."

Only now did she realize that he was still holding on to her shoulders. She felt heat rise beneath her cheeks and gave the brunette a pointed look. He returned it with confusion, then looked down, yelped, and jumped away. His bangs couldn't hide the crimson that dusted his face as he stared, embarrassed, down at the ground. "Sorry," he mumbled. (1)

Char shrugged. "Just… don't do it again."

Sora looked up and nodded.

Donald suddenly squawked in surprise. A dark shadow had just formed near the duck, but this shadow had yellow eyes, and it slid away from the group, through the open door of one of the rooms nearby.

"Come on!" the mage shouted to the others, already whipping out his staff in preparation for a fight.

Sora suddenly remembered the red chain he'd found only yesterday. He reached into his pocket and examined it for a brief moment, then gasped when he realized what it was.

"Sora, let's go!" Goofy called.

"Right," the Keybearer said. He concentrated for a brief moment before the Keyblade appeared in his hand. It was predominantly red, with swirls of yellow-orange around the circular hilt. The shaft of the blade was vaguely flame-shaped. (2)

He dashed after his friends, with Char following close behind.

Donald practically kicked the door to the room open, brandishing his staff threateningly. However, there was no Heartless that he could see in the room. It was a little like the living room in Sora's house back home, complete with a rug and fireplace.

But this room had one important difference. Sora found his eyes drawn to what was on the table nearby; a dome-shaped jar with a brightly glowing pink rose inside. It glittered in a radiant way, almost seeming to invite them forward. As they looked on, a petal fell delicately to the bottom of the dome.

He heard Char inhale sharply behind him. "Wow," she murmured. Out of the corner of his eye Sora saw her walk closer to get a better look. "It's pretty."

Something inside Sora gave a pang at that moment, almost like a warning bell going off inside his head.

Donald had been about to reach forward and grab the rose, but a whooshing noise interrupted him. The Heartless popped up directly in front of him, and he leaped back, startled. "Found it," he remarked dryly.

Sora brandished his Keyblade, then gave a start when another Heartless coalesced near him. He slashed at it and it vanished, only to be replaced by another. Many more of the black beings appeared, surrounding the four in a circle.

Char muttered a word that Sora had only heard his father use once. The group pressed back into a tight circle, back to back with their weapons out.

"Aw," the redhead grumbled, slashing one Heartless away with her sword. "Do the wittle Heartless not wike us wooking at their wose?"

Donald sniggered. "I guess not." He growled in annoyance as one Heartless slashed him with its claws and cast Thunder on it in retaliation; he grinned in triumph when it disappeared.

"Do you think the Beast knows he's got Heartless running around?" asked Sora, grunting with the effort of slashing the mass of Heartless away.

"Tch," Char replied. "I can imagine the real estate now: come on, buy this place! It's nice and roomy, oh yeah, and did I mention the ant-like things that'll steal your heart? They live in every room! So, how about it?"

Sora laughed, but the laugh turned into a gasp of pain when the Heartless all pushed him back against the wall.

Char stared, wide-eyed, at him, totally ignoring the other mounds of black assaulting Donald and Goofy. Déjà vu rippled through her mind; of herself being the one pinned to the wall with multiple enemies coming at her in all directions.

Instinctively, she charged forward, slicing through the darkness with both blades and effectively clearing the way. She let out a snarl of anger as she finished the last of the Heartless around the brunette.

Sora gave her a grateful look and she extended her hand. "You okay?" she asked breathlessly, ignoring the stinging cuts that the black creatures had given her.

Sora took her hand and let her pull him up. "Yeah, thanks," he said, then hesitated. "Um… a Potion would be nice."

Char rolled her eyes and slapped one of the vials into his hand. "Don't worry. I'm on it."

Sora could only stare at her. How was it, he wondered, that this girl, this girl who had joined him almost three days ago, knew almost everything that went on? Why was it that he, the one who was the chosen wielder of the Keyblade, the one who had been on a journey before this one, had to stumble and fall all the time?

_Why is Char always right?!_

"Hey!" Donald's squawking voice rose above the brunette's reverie. "If you lovebirds are done, some help would be nice!"

Char glared indignantly at him, slashing at the Heartless that had come up to her. "Excuse me, duck boy? You want to come over here and say that to my face?" The last part was grunted out, since she had to raise both blades to guard against the multiple enemies that had come at her. (3)

Sora was about to add his own comment when a burst of pain in his side announced the arrival of still more foes. He sighed. "Oh, come on!"

"Somebody help us!" Donald shouted.

Almost on cue, the doors were thrust open by furry hands. The person – or rather, creature – came through the doors. Char recognized it as the Beast from Sora's memories, the Beast that had helped the Keybearer in Maleficent's castle.

The furry animal came forward, his violet-blue cape billowing slightly behind him. Noticing their new target, the Heartless abandoned Sora and the others and surrounded the Beast.

"Look out!" Goofy cried.

The Beast glared at all the Heartless, then, with a furious roar, knocked them aside with a few slashes of his powerful claws.

"Just in time," Sora said with a grin, running up and raising his hand, obviously expecting a high-five.

The Beast completely ignored him and just pushed him away. Sora fell to the floor, staring in confusion at the furry creature.

Donald and Goofy were tossed aside as well. When the Beast approached Char, the redhead glared at him. "Okay, listen up –"

Her lecture was cut off when she was thrown to the ground, just like the others. The Beast gave her a glance before taking the rose in his paws and leaving the room.

Donald growled indignantly and rubbed his face. "Why'd he have to do that?"

"Gee, d'you think maybe he forgot who we are?" asked Goofy.

"Well," Char muttered, getting up and resisting the urge to utter the curse words at the tip of her tongue, "to be perfectly blunt, I'd be pretty pissed off too, if _I_ had walked into my parlor and found _you_ guys killing Heartless and soiling my rug."

"Oh, _thanks,"_ the duck said sarcastically.

"You're welcome." Char returned the sarcasm with gusto.

"Hm." Sora put a hand to his chin. "With this many Heartless around, though, something has to be up."

"Yeah," Donald said. "Let's go find out."

"Right," Sora agreed, nodding.

They all left the room. Char looked around at the castle interior. When they had first entered the group had been too preoccupied with the Heartless to really notice what was in here, but what she saw made her shiver a little. There were a few gruesome adornments aligning the walls; she heard the pounding of something outside and guessed that it had started raining. If it rained here a lot, she really wouldn't be surprised.

Donald suddenly stopped in his tracks, and Goofy nearly ran into his back.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Char.

"I thought I saw someone at the top of those stairs," the duck answered, pointing toward the east set of stairs.

"If the Beast lives here," Goofy reasoned, "then that lady's probably Belle."

"Maybe she'll know what's going on." Sora was already setting off toward the staircase.

"Wait up!" Goofy called, chasing after the brunette with his loping gait. Char and Donald weren't far behind.

A booming crash of thunder rolled overhead, causing the mage to yelp. Char gave him a look that was half incredulous, half amused. "Don't tell me you're afraid of storms, Donald?"

"No," he shot back almost at once. "I was just startled!"

"Sure."

He gave her one last glare and ran up to catch the others, which was actually a bit of an effort, considering his small legs. Char followed at a slower pace.

At the top of the stairs, they were met with a long hallway. Sora turned to the others and put a finger to his lips.

They inched forward, and eventually they heard a muffled voice coming from one of the rooms.

"What am I going to do?" it was saying mournfully.

Donald stepped back from the group, who watched curiously. "Okay," the duck grunted, then charged toward the door.

"Donald!" Sora cried.

Char rolled her eyes. "It's just like last time… You'd think he'd learn."

The door opened just as Donald was about to crash into it, causing him to stumble and fall flat. "Hey," he growled, raising his head and looking around indignantly. "Who opened the door?"

He looked up. The others followed his gaze and saw a young brunette wearing a blue and white dress. "Oh, I'm so happy you're here!" she cried, leaning down and scooping Donald up in a hug, much to his chagrin.

"Hey!" he yelled, struggling valiantly, but to no avail.

The woman looked around Donald's head. "Sora! Goofy!" she greeted enthusiastically. Then she saw Char. "Oh, who's this?" She gave Sora a teasing look, which was answered with a startled grunt.

Char sighed and stepped forward. "I'm Char Nightblaze. And… you must be Belle."

"I see they've already told you about me."

"Yeah, I suppose…" Char already didn't like Belle. She reminded her of the girls who used to tease the redhead for living in a lab with only men for company.

"Put me down! Put me down!" Donald was shouting.

Belle finally seemed to notice the duck's displeasure. "Oh, I'm sorry." She set him down and stepped back.

"So… where's the Beast?" asked Sora.

"More importantly, what's _wrong_ with him?" Char added.

At the mention of the Beast, Belle sighed and looked at the ground. "He must be in the West Wing," she murmured sadly. "We don't talk like we used to."

Sora felt his heart twist for the woman. "Did… something happen?"

"Yes." Belle looked up at them and frowned. "Isn't that why you're here?"

Char and Sora exchanged a glance. Clearly, the brunette had no clue about Riku – which made sense, considering that she was unconscious whenever Riku and Sora had battled.

"Not exactly," Sora answered at last. Belle's face fell.

"But we can still help out, right?" Goofy said quickly.

Donald tilted his head to the side. "The Beast won't talk to you?"

She sighed again. "He's been acting strange lately. The only ones who might know why are locked up in the dungeon, and I want to help them, but…"

"Wait a sec," Char interrupted. She raised an eyebrow. "Who locked who up?"

"The Beast locked his servants." Now Belle's sorrow was replaced by shame.

Sora blinked in shock. "But… why? The Beast I remember wouldn't do that."

"That's what I don't know."

"Hm." Char crossed her arms. "Where is this dungeon?"

Belle looked a little bemused, but answered anyway. "You can get to the undercroft from the west hall. The dungeon is down there."

"West hall. Got it." Char looked at Sora. "Let's get going."

"Be careful," Belle said.

The group left the room, and they were immediately met with Heartless while going down the stairs. "Feh. I should've known," the redhead muttered, summoning her blades.

They carved their way up the opposite staircase and into what Char guessed was the west hall. At one section of the room, suits of armor blocked the way to another set of dark hallways.

"Think the dungeon's down there?" asked Sora.

"No, Belle said there's an undercroft, remember?"

"Oh, like we know what that is," Donald grumbled.

Almost on cue, a group of Heartless materialized in front of them in bursts of black fire. This time, though, there were a group of Nobodies with them, too. They featured the pure white symbol on their foreheads, but otherwise their bodies were colored silver. In body shape, they looked a bit like the Samurais from Hollow Bastion, except that these only wielded one sword, in a stance that looked disturbingly familiar to Char.

"It can't be…" she murmured.

Sora, Donald and Goofy were already charging the enemies. Donald zapped one Heartless with Thunder while Goofy's shield pierced through the rest before coming back to him. Sora went for the Nobodies, but had to hold up his red Keyblade to block the rapid blows coming at him.

Char knew he was going to need backup, and that she needed to get out of memory lane in order to help out. She drew her weapons and ran over, delivering slashes with both swords to either side. The Nobodies stumbled backward.

Sora put a hand to his head and grimaced. "Where have I seen this before?"

"Uh, in case you haven't noticed, we don't have time to be worrying about that," Char replied between clenched teeth, bringing her sword down to slice through one Nobody.

Sora seemed to ignore her, but he did get back into the battle. "They're called Avengers, aren't they?" he muttered absently, knocking one enemy away from Goofy with his Keyblade. (4)

_Does it matter?!_ Char felt like screaming, but she held it back.

It got down to the Avengers beating the dual wielder and the Keybearer back further into the hallway. Donald and Goofy raced after them, casting and attacking whenever they could. Char noticed the suits of armor out of the corner of her eye as she clashed blades with one of the two remaining Nobodies.

"These things are tough," Sora grunted between blows. His voice was tempered by frustration. For some reason, the way these enemies fought reminded him of someone, a familiar person that he felt guilt at not remembering.

Suddenly he realized what these Nobodies reminded him of: the girl who had fought them in the cave at the Land of Dragons. It made sense – the way both the Nobodies and the girl held their weapons were the same, as was the battle tactic of forcing their enemy into a corner.

But… why did he feel like the girl was important to him?

"Sora, look out!" Donald's squawk cut abruptly through the brunette's thoughts, bringing everything back with a sharp, icy clarity. Sora whirled around and saw the glint of an Avenger's sword catch the light as it brought the blade down toward him. Panic took hold of him and he did the first thing that came to mind: he feinted sideways out of the way.

For a brief moment, there was silence, but for Char's grunt of triumph as she finally finished off the other Avenger. Sora's enemy couldn't catch its balance in time, and suddenly there was a deafening clattering noise as the sword ripped through the suits of armor and scattered the pieces of steel everywhere.

Char took that moment to steal up behind the Nobody and slash it from head to foot. It was knocked away and disappeared.

"Damn," the redhead muttered, holding out her hands and making her swords vanish. She looked down at the metal parts lying in a strange, disorganized pattern on the floor. "Those Nobodies must be pretty strong, if they can take a suit of steel armor into pieces like that."

"Well, does it matter?" Donald asked, walking up beside them. There were a few cuts on his body and his feathers were ruffled, but otherwise he looked all right. "At least they're gone now."

"Yeah," Sora murmured.

Goofy ambled up next to his duck friend and handed him a potion, which the mage took grudgingly. Char sighed and looked at Sora. "Are you okay?"

"Okay?"

"I'll take that as a no." Char turned away. Almost as soon as she had looked the other way she spotted a door on the opposite side of the hallway. "Anyway, look – I think that might be the way." She pointed at the door.

"Wouldn't there be a little more defense in front of the door if it was?" asked Goofy.

Char shrugged. "Those suits of armor probably _were_ the defense."

Donald and Goofy exchanged a glance, then turned back to Char and nodded.

Sora, who had been staring at the ground, jerked his head up. "Oh, yeah – right. We've got servants to save." He grinned, but Char could see the falseness in his smile. She knew he was still thinking about the Avengers.

Sighing, she headed toward the door. From the footsteps behind her, she knew that Sora, Donald and Goofy were following, which made her feel a little awkward. The little devil on her shoulder screamed to take this opportunity, but the rarely-exercised angel reminded her that Sora was the one they trusted, and not to enjoy this for long.

They entered the room, and a deep, musty smell hit them almost at once. "Oh, yeah… definitely dungeon material," Sora said.

Char gave him a quick smile, and he relaxed a little. "Let's go."

She let Sora walk on ahead this time. He glanced back at her uncertainly, but she just stared straight ahead. After a moment, the brunette continued on his way. Donald and Goofy looked at each other, shrugged, and took their places close to the Keybearer's side.

Inside the next room, they were greeted by a strange door depicting strange creatures that reminded Char of Heartless. "This must be it," Sora said.

Donald walked over to the door and gave it a thoughtful look. He knocked on it hesitantly, then pressed the side of his face to it, trying to listen for something.

Suddenly, the eyes of the creatures engraved on the door glowed a demonic red-gold and the creatures themselves glowed with violet fire. Donald yelped and leaped back. "Uh-oh!"

Sora's hand jerked out before Char could do anything and pulled the duck out of the way, right before a black, red-clawed fist landed where Donald had been. The Heartless slammed their fists together, and the group summoned their weapons.

"Somehow I don't think the door was originally like that," Char said almost sarcastically. As she spoke, the Heartless raised their fists, and a group of bat-like Heartless appeared around Donald and Goofy. Luckily, the two had excellent reflexes from their last journey, and they began taking care of the enemies almost at once.

"Hm, really?" Sora answered, his naïveté taking over any concept he might have gained of sarcasm.

"Never mind." Char raced forward with her blades brandished in front of her.

Together, they worked at bringing the Heartless' endurance down. It was even harder than it looked, though, because the door kept summoning more Heartless and Donald and Goofy had to run over and exterminate them. What was worse, Char and Sora felt the fist that had almost crushed Donald enough times.

"Hey!" Donald's voice reached Char from across the room. She turned and was nearly hit in the face by a small vial with blue liquid inside. (5)

She scowled as she recovered the Potion and got it open with her thumb and forefinger, managing to keep her sword in her hand. "Thanks, duck boy. Maybe next time I want to heal _you_ I'll thwack you in the face."

Donald grunted in response. He was too busy casting his spells, trying to keep the group of Heartless from overwhelming him.

Char gulped down the Potion and sighed as she felt strength coming back to her. She turned her attention back to the door as well as Sora. A pang of guilt hit her stomach as she realized that really, Sora was worse off than she was. And if the Keybearer was lost, they were, for lack of a better word, screwed.

_I probably shouldn't have hogged the whole Potion like that…_

She was snapped out of her guilt when a black fist crashed into her belly, effectively knocking the breath out of her.

"That was a cheap shot, you son of a –" she snarled in a wheeze.

"Uh, can I get a little help over here?" Sora interrupted hastily, before Char could go into the vulgar words hovering on the tip of her tongue.

The four of them finally managed to defeat the Heartless possessing the door. The creatures trembled for a moment, then sank back into the door and become stone again, tendrils of murky darkness swirling around them. A black and purple orb of the same substance rose out of the creatures and vanished.

"Well, that was a pain," grumbled Donald.

"But the servants are probably past this door," Goofy reminded him.

"You're right," Sora said, his Keyblade disappearing as he spoke. "Let's go."

They entered the next room, which, if possible, was even worse than the first one, both in odor and size. Char found herself with one hand to her nose and pressed back to the wall. To her frustration, there was nothing inside but for a candelabrum, a clock, a tea set, a wardrobe, and a few chairs.

"There's nobody here…" Sora sighed. "Was that all for nothing?"

"I am going to be so pissed if it was," Char muttered under her breath.

Goofy gave her a curious look. "Hey Char, did you say somethin'?"

"No," she lied, inwardly seething.

"Now, now, young lady," a sudden voice broke in, causing the group to jolt in surprise. The voice was motherly-sounding, but not without a touch of sternness. "There's no need for that."

"Tch, really?" Char answered angrily. "Then why don't you come out and show yourself?"

"Well –" began the voice, but it was interrupted by another.

"Shh! Keep quiet. It might be _them."_

"Oh, but they all look nice enough to me," another female voice replied.

Goofy stepped forward, looking around in bemusement. "We _are_ nice. We've come to rescue you."

"Did somebody say 'rescue'?" another voice asked, this time with a strange accent.

"Uh, yeah," Sora called into the semi-darkness. "Belle sent us to find you."

At that, the voices all started up at once. "Belle?"

The sound of soft clattering made the group look down. The owners of the voices were none other than the objects that they had ignored.

"Wow," Goofy said. Sora just stared in amazement.

Char squatted down to their level. "What happened to you guys?" she couldn't help but ask. She was aware that she was gaping like an idiot, but seeing a talking teapot could do that to you.

"We were captured and thrown in here, that's what!" the clock grumbled irritably.

"Ignore Cogsworth," the teapot said, revealing itself to be the owner of the motherly voice. "We're just happy someone's come!"

Char blinked, somewhat abashed. "Uh… sorry for being so rude, ma'am…"

Donald coughed dryly as he crouched down. "You know you're apologizing to a teapot, right?"

Char shot him a glare. "Shut up."

Sora squatted down on Donald's other side, and Goofy did the same. "I'm Sora. These are Donald, Goofy, and Char." He motioned to each of his companions as he said their name.

The objects introduced themselves as well. The teapot was Mrs. Potts, the candelabrum was Lumiere, the teacup was Chip, the wardrobe was Armoire, and the clock, of course, was Cogsworth.

Abruptly, Donald came forward and picked up Cogsworth, who sputtered indignantly. "D-don't touch! I am self-winding, sir!"

Goofy came over next to the duck and stared in fascination. Donald was looking at the clock with the same look. He uttered an amazed "Wow!" and began shaking Cogsworth, much to the clock's anger.

"We're just happy you're okay," Sora said.

"Oh, but it is we who are glad to see you," Lumiere said, turning and jumping up onto one of the chairs.

"But seriously," Char said, "what happened to you guys? I mean, how did you get like…" She gestured helplessly to everyone else.

Armoire giggled, causing Char to feel awkward all over again. "Well, we used to be human, you know, until the enchantress cast her spell."

"Enchantress?" echoed Goofy, who had torn his attention away from Cogsworth and Donald long enough to listen.

"Yes, we were turned into objects when the prince was turned into a beast," said Lumiere.

At that, everyone gave a start. "The Beast is a prince?" Sora managed incredulously.

"It seems so long ago now," the candelabrum said.

"It was a cold winter's night…" Mrs. Potts added, shaking her "head". "An old beggar woman came to the castle, and asked for shelter."

"But the master of this castle – that is, of course, the prince –"

Char looked over her shoulder and saw that Cogsworth was still held by Donald. "Donald, put him down. He can't talk when you've got him in a death grip like that."

The mage glared at her, but set the clock down. "Sorry," he muttered.

Char glanced at him. "You just apologized to a clock – you know that, right?"

Donald just gave her a venomous look.

Cogsworth just dusted himself off indignantly and cleared his throat. "The master turned her away, all because of her… ahem… _meager_ appearance."

Sora's eyes widened. "That's awful!"

Lumiere sighed. _"Oui._ He was a spoiled prince – selfish and, how shall I say, cruel."

"But that doesn't sound like the Beast," Donald said.

"It was how he was back then," Mrs. Potts said. "The old woman warned our master not to be deceived by appearances... Still, he would not take her in. Then the old woman's ugliness melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress. She turned the Prince into a beast, a shape she thought fitting for his cold heart. And to further punish him, everyone in the castle was enchanted, too."

Sora stood up and crossed his arms. "That's quite a story. Is there anything we can do to help?" He knew it was a stupid question as soon as it had escaped his lips, but it was the polite thing to say.

The servants all sighed. "We already know what needs to be done," Lumiere said. "But with the master out of sorts…"

"Yeah, he sure was actin' weird earlier," Goofy mused.

"He didn't trust us, even when we told him who we were." Donald glanced over at Char. _"Her_ I could understand, but…"

Char rolled her eyes. "Oh, haha, very funny."

"It's almost as if he's forgotten how to trust others," Sora murmured. His eyes suddenly lit up and he looked at his companions. "Hey, you don't suppose he's turned into a Heartless, do you?"

"Well, if they're a part of this, then it's a good thing we're here," Donald said, puffing out his chest.

"Let's go find the Beast," Sora said.

"Ah, but it will not be so easy," Lumiere cut in. "You see, the master has placed suits of armor in front of the hall leading to his room."

"None of us have figured out how to get past them," Armoire added sadly.

"Oh, that won't be a problem," Char said almost airily. "You see, we were fighting these enemies earlier, and they got knocked into the armor. Basically, it's nothing but scrap metal by now."

Cogsworth's eyes widened. "Hm, I see."

"Well, let's go, then," Sora said.

* * *

The group led the servants out of the dungeon. Mrs. Potts sighed in relief and trembled a little; Char guessed that that was the equivalent of stretching for the teapot. "It's so good to feel fresh air again!"

As they crossed the hallway and headed up the small set of stairs, Char looked around suspiciously. Earlier the place had been crawling with Heartless and Avengers, and now it was absolutely empty. Something wasn't right.

When she voiced this to the others, however, Sora just shrugged. "We should enjoy it while it lasts, then, right?"

Char gave him a glare. "Sora, don't tell me you've forgotten what happened the last time you guys didn't listen to me."

The brunette winced, clearly remembering Ryou's death. "Alright," he murmured at last. "We'll keep on our toes."

Char let out the breath she had been holding in relief, and smiled at him in silent thanks. Predictably, she wasn't the type who enjoyed saying "thank you" aloud.

Cogsworth cleared his throat, causing everyone to look at the clock. "This way to the master's room," he said, pointing to the left.

Sora nodded. "Right. Let's go talk to the Beast."

They filed down the hallway and opened the door. What they saw within made Char's blood run cold.

For a prince's room, the room was rather small. It contained a large double bed and a few tables; the rose rested on one of these tables. A furry back, covered partially by a blue cape, was turned to them, and a dark-cloaked figure with its hood up stood next to the Beast.

"She's scheming to take everything you have," the figure was saying in a distinctively masculine voice, a voice that Char knew all too well. "This castle, your precious rose, and then… your life." He turned away and began to pace, his gaze turned downward so that he couldn't see the group. "Trust no one. Feed your anger. Only anger can keep you strong."

"I've had enough of strength," the Beast murmured. "There's only one thing I want now."

His companion laughed. "And what is that? To love, and be loved in return?" He looked back, and his tone darkened. "Who could ever love a beast?"

The Beast whirled around and snarled, but the man was unfazed. The gaze that lay beneath the hood scanned the room, and landed on the group.

"Greetings, Char," he said almost genially, spreading his black-clad hands in a welcoming gesture. "You look well."

"Wish I could say the same for you," the redhead retorted, bringing her weapons close to her in a fighting stance. Beside her, Sora and the others did the same. "Y'know, considering that you lost your heart and all."

"Yes, I would say the same." A tint of sarcasm peppered the man's reply.

"Just shut up, Dilan," Char growled, the name slipping out unconsciously. That was the only problem: when she got angry, she tended to get too impulsive for her own good. "Let's settle this here and now, shall we?"

"You seem to forget that I no longer refer to myself by that name, nor do our other companions."

"What_ever!"_ Char lowered her swords and charged toward the Nobody.

He merely lifted a hand and blocked her strike with a swirling sphere of solid air. The redhead bounced off harmlessly and fell to the ground. (6)

Then he turned to the Beast. "You see? Belle has accomplices."

Without another word, he vanished into a dark portal.

Char was already getting to her feet. Sora ran over, but there were no injuries except the ones to her pride.

"Damn, I hate that guy!" she snarled.

Sora looked over to the Beast. "Hey, prince!" he greeted. "Are you okay?"

The Beast stared at him for a moment, then threw back his head and let out an earth-shaking roar. Donald and Goofy squeaked and leaped back; Char and Sora jumped in fear.

"Oh, dear! Master!" Cogsworth cried.

In a single movement, the Beast had bounded forward and aimed a slash with his claws at Sora, who scooted away just in time. They all watched, eyes wide, as the telltale purplish-pink glow shone from the former prince's fur.

"Great," Char muttered. "Yet another possessed thing to take care of."

Fortunately, though, the Beast was much easier than whatever had taken over the door. All they had to do was keep him back into a corner while Cogsworth and Sora kept calling out, trying to jog their friend's senses.

At last, though, the demonic shine faded, and the Beast fell to the floor, barely catching himself with his paws. Cogsworth headed up to his master, eyes huge in his clock face with anxiety.

"Cogsworth… what happened?" the Beast murmured, putting a paw to his head.

Cogsworth hesitated. "Well, Master… uh, you see… that is… How exactly…" he blustered, his speech eventually dissolving into nervous mumblings.

Char sighed, rubbing the growing bruise on the back of her shoulder. "Quite basically, you went nuts and tried to kill us."

"Char!" Donald shouted, glaring at her.

"Well, _what?_ I could see Cogsworth wasn't going to say it before my hair turned gray!"

"And you put everybody down there in that dungeon," Goofy added tentatively.

"I did what?" Beast got to his feet, staring at the ground, trying to recollect everything.

"Ah, yes, you did," Cogsworth mumbled.

"Who was that guy you were talking to?" asked Sora, in a feeble attempt to change the subject. "The one in black?" He glanced at Char. "Not another of your old friends, is he?"

"If I ever deigned to call that bastard my friend again," she muttered in response, "please feel free to throw me in a field of pink bunnies and flowers. It'll make life much less forgiving, trust me." (7)

"Xaldin?" Beast asked, looking at Char. "Do you… know him?"

"Once," she answered, returning his stare evenly. There was surprisingly quite a bit of humanity left in his cinnamon orbs; she had to admire his tenacity, considering that if she were in his position, she would have long since gone mad. "When he was someone else."

Beast sighed. "He came from the darkness. He… used my anger to control me." He put a paw to his head again. "He took all my sadness, my sorrow, my pain – and turned it all into rage."

"So you could no longer see the truth," Char mused. She took a deep breath. "Beast, I don't think Xaldin was trying to bring out your dark side just for kicks."

"But you probably just wanted to make sure your friends didn't get hurt, by throwin' 'em in that dungeon, right?" Goofy said.

"Yes, I suppose."

"Of course it is!" Sora said, smiling. "We know you're good inside."

Beast looked from his servants, to Sora, Donald and Goofy, and finally to Char. She just shrugged. "I haven't been with these guys long. But from what they've told me, you've helped them out in the past. That doesn't exactly sound like something a person like Xaldin would do."

"She's right, you know," Cogsworth cut in. "After all, Belle can see the kindness in your heart, but I'm afraid you've yet to –"

Beast's eyes widened at the mention of Belle. "Belle!" He stared at his feet in shame. "Belle… I've mistreated her… I've mistreated her and been so selfish."

"Well, she didn't say anything about that," Sora admitted.

"She'd never tell anyone of my cruelty. She's too good."

"Why can't you just go talk to her?" asked Sora.

Beast's head jerked up in surprise. "But…"

"No excuses," Char cut in firmly. "Come on, we'll go with you."

"Yes…" The former prince looked at Cogsworth and the other servants, who shot to attention. "You all can go back to your duties."

"Yes, Master!" Cogsworth said, shooting up in a salute. Then he began herding the others off down the hallways.

"See?" Sora said to the Beast. "They still respect you."

His response was a doubtful grunt.

They set off at a steady pace down the hallway toward the east hall. Char glanced over at Beast and saw him staring at the ground. It occurred to her that he reminded her of herself in a way – searching for redemption, and more importantly, trying not to screw up in the process.

_As of yet I haven't really succeeded in the latter,_ she thought guiltily, looking at Sora. She could tell that his wounds from the previous battles were paining him, yet he just kept on going with a smile on his face. _Is it for his own sake, or the Beast's?_

She redirected her gaze straight ahead again and just prayed that they didn't encounter any more enemies on their mission here.

* * *

(1) xD Oh come on, Sora, you know you liked it...

(2) In case you don't remember, the little red thing that Sora found in the snow in the Land of Dragons was the Keychain for the Hidden Dragon. Essentially, he's really going to find the rest of his Keyblades that way.

(3) Sorry, I HAD to put that. I can totally imagine Donald construing their relationship as romantic, because he's really just the kind of person that enjoys driving his friends crazy.

(4) This is a throwback to Anxclof's Organization title, which I made up off the top of my head last night when I was writing that scene and needed a name for her Nobodies. xD Her title is the Blade of Vengeance, which will probably make more sense when I write a little bit more about her past and who her Other is.

(5) Okay, this is THE funniest mental image ever. I don't care what anyone says.

(6) Xaldin is such a bastard, and yet I can't help but love him. Even though he effectively shish-ka-bobbed me on my first playthrough at LEAST fifteen times.

(7) Damn, this is coming out to be a lot of A/Ns! Anyway, Char's saying here that if she ever starts _liking_ the Organization, Sora can kill her, because think about it; is she REALLY going to go to a field of pink bunnies and flowers of her own free will?

Me: So, yeah, I think I effectively took out most of the annoying puzzles in this world xD  
Char: Thank GOD. Those were a pain, even for me.  
Anxclof: (gives her the evil eye) What do you mean by "even for YOU?"  
Me: Well, time willing, I'm going to post another chappie before Christmas. As well as a Christmas special with my OCs!  
Char: Tch.  
Me: She actually loves Christmas, but she doesn't want to get too much of a happy-happy joy-joy reputation. I say HOPEFULLY I'm going to get another one up, because we have a bunch of people coming over for the next few days. So, for now, enjoy the chappie, and wait patiently for the next one while I finally end this long-ass A/N.


	21. Chapter XXI

Even though I have my sister and her fiance over right now (yes, my sister's getting married - I still find it hard to believe that I could be an aunt XD), I still managed to finish up this chappie a little while ago!  
Char: I bet you're glad that he showed you an easy way to level up in Final Fantasy XII, hm?  
Me: Oh, hell yes. I'm in the dungeons and I've already died once.  
Anxclof: Heheh. Loser.  
Me: Shut up. Anyway, just a bit of a warning: Most of you will probably hate Anxclof after this chapter. I know _I_ do... (glares at Anxy)  
Anxclof: (eyeroll) You hated me anyway, remember?  
Me: (sweatdrop) Oh yeah... eheheheh...  
Char: But yes, she didn't feel like writing too much on the annoying battles at the end of Beast's Castle. So there's not too much elaboration.  
Me: Christmas special's at the end of this chapter, btw, but don't feel free to skip ahead to that!  
Anxclof: -.- You just want more people to hate me.  
Me: ...maybe I _do..._

**_Disclaimer-_** As much as Anxclof lurves Sora, I own Kingdom Hearts. And she hates his guts.

* * *

They had reached the part of the stairwell that joined the east to the west when they heard a sudden voice around the corner. "Master! Master!"

They all craned their necks to see; a second later, the wardrobe came hopping down the stairs with surprising ease.

"Armoire," Beast greeted. "Where is Belle?"

"That's what I came to tell you," the wardrobe replied, sounding a little anxious. "She left her room in a hurry. Something about going after this… man in black."

"What?!" Beast snarled. "Why can't she ever do as she's told?"

"Temper, temper, now!" Armoire said. "You know that her spirit is what makes Belle so special."

"We'd better go find her!" Sora said, looking urgently at the Beast.

The wardrobe headed back up the stairs to search, and the group was about to do the same when they suddenly heard a muffled voice.

"I'm warning you – you'll be sorry!"

"Belle!" Beast shouted, looking around frantically. "Where are you?"

"Beast, help! I'm in the ballroom!"

Without waiting for consent from the others, the Beast raced for the door right across from them and threw it open. Char nearly tripped trying to keep up with him. "Does he even know that he could be walking into a trap?" she growled.

Sora shrugged a little breathlessly. "Yeah, well, people do all kinds of things when they're in love."

"Right…" Char didn't want to be too much of a downer, but she thought the whole romance thing was pretty stupid if it got you into trouble.

A flicker of motion inside the ballroom caught their attention. Char noted the intricate beauty of the designs on the floor and ceiling, as well as the lights of the chandelier above them. Belle was running across the floor, away from them.

"Belle!" Beast called again.

"I'm all right!" she shouted back, running to the balcony door and locking it behind her.

No sooner had the lock clicked than an earthquake shook the floor. A dark ball-like Heartless, with chains rattling eerily around it and blue fire swirling on its frame, came floating down from the ceiling. It turned toward the door and, upon seeing that its target had left, turned back around to Sora and the others.

Donald looked down and yelped in shock. The others followed his gaze; darkness was covering the floor, giving the illusion of disappearance. The ceiling was following the same procedure as shadows coated the walls.

The Heartless landed on the ground and roared again, challenging the group.

"Fine then," Char said, running toward it with swords unsheathed. "If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!"

Sora got into his own battle stance with the red Keyblade, which he had decided to call the Hidden Dragon.

The ball-like creature vanished almost immediately, but Char could see the air trembling slightly where it had once been. She leaped up and landed a few blows to its hide, causing it to become visible again.

"I think if we attack it, it'll lose concentration and become visible again!" Sora called.

"Okay," Donald and Goofy yelled back, concentrating on offense.

But now the Heartless had changed battle tactics. It leaped onto the chandelier, which fell promptly to the floor, and a plasma-like laser began firing out of either side of the chandelier.

Char leaped back out of the way of the laser, but it just came around in a circle and knocked her back into the Beast. She growled, shook it off, and ran recklessly forward again, only to get hit by the blast yet again when it came around.

"Get behind me," Sora said firmly, pushing her back with his free hand. (1) He leaped onto the chandelier and put out his Keyblade. A beam of light shot out of it, effectively knocking the Heartless out into the open.

They beat up mercilessly on it for a bit before it turned invisible again, this time vanishing beneath the floor. "Damn it," Char muttered, looking around with her swords in a guarding stance. "Where the hell did it go?"

Then she noticed the dark maw rising up from beneath the Beast, who was looking just as confused. "Look out!" she yelled.

The former prince looked down, but it was too late; the sharp fangs had already swallowed him. Sora, Donald, Goofy and Char stared in shock for a split second, then the jaws spat the Beast out again, sending him flying into the air. He landed with a snarl of indignation and pain.

Donald cast a healing spell on their ally while Sora, Char and Goofy searched for the current of churning air that announced the Heartless' presence. Purple bursts of demonic light suddenly lit up the room, coursing across the area and hitting the group hard.

Char spat out a bit of blood. Inside she was nervous. This Heartless was tougher than anything she had ever fought before, including Roxas and Anxclof.

She shivered at the thought of the latter, remembering seeing the Avengers. From Roxas' memories the redhead knew that Anxclof's title in the Organization had been The Blade of Vengeance, leading her to believe that Anxclof was almost certainly here, waiting for the chance to kill Sora.

_Well, it won't happen,_ Char thought firmly. _Because…_ She gasped and jumped back when the Heartless materialized practically on top of her.

_Either I'm going to keep my promise, or this thing is gonna kill us first!_

Finally, the Beast seemed to have had enough. Roaring "Get out!" in fury, he leaped forward and gave the Heartless a final, deciding slash with his claws.

Donald sighed and fell back onto his haunches, while Goofy wiped sweat out of his eyes. Sora grinned at the Beast. "We did it!"

"Or… did we?" Char murmured, eyes wide as she watched the ball spasm for a few moments. It opened its mouth wide, and darkness consumed it, forming a cage around the creature.

"Oh, don't be so pessimistic," Sora replied. He walked up beside her. "If you say it's not gone, you're probably gonna jinx it and –"

His reassuring words were interrupted by the sound of the dark cage bursting. From within came a chimera-like black creature, with dark claws on the end of its paws – hands? Char couldn't really tell – and crimson fins on its head. Sora stared at it, his mouth opening and closing in terror.

"What did he tell you?" Donald cried, leaping up and brandishing his staff.

"Oh, like this is _my_ fault!" Char yelled back, running into the fray along with the Beast and Sora.

Like its previous form, the chimera Heartless turned invisible. "This is really getting old!" Sora shouted.

But this time, no matter how many blows the group aimed at it, the chimera remained invisible but for the trembling air around its form. Char managed to trap it into a corner of the room a couple of times, but every time it would teleport away. Its massive claws inflicted near-fatal damage on the party, and by the time they managed to get it to be visible again they were almost out of Potions.

"We can't rely on Donald's healing forever," the Beast grunted.

"Yeah, I know," Sora answered, blocking the Heartless' claws with his Keyblade. "We have to think of something…"

They didn't have to worry for long. The group's onslaught soon proved to be too much for the chimera, and it roared before fading into nothingness. A large, pink floating heart flew off from where it had been.

The ballroom seemed to quiver slightly before returning to normal. Char made her swords vanish and crossed her fingers behind her back. _Please don't turn into something else…_

But to everyone's relief, nothing showed up. Sora let out a breathless sigh of relief and leaned against his Keyblade. "Okay, we really _did_ finish it this time."

"So you think."

Everyone gave a start at the voice and looked behind them. At the entrance to the ballroom, stood Xaldin with his hood still up.

"Dilan," Char hissed between clenched teeth, clenching her fists. (2)

"The Organization," Sora murmured.

"Xaldin!" Beast roared, charging toward the man.

Xaldin just laughed before tendrils of shadow consumed him. "Farewell," his voice whispered, echoing around the ballroom.

The Beast growled in disappointment, slowing to a stop and lowering his claws. "Xaldin… what does he want here?"  
"He's with the Organization," Sora explained. "Ever heard of the Nobodies?"

When Beast shook his head, Char continued. "When a strong-hearted person turns into a Heartless, a Nobody is created too. Organization XIII – that's who Dil… er, Xaldin is with – has control of all the Nobodies. That's why Xaldin was trying to piss you off and make you go mad: he wanted you to become a Heartless so he could get your Nobody and have control over it."

"Everyone! You're all right!" Belle cried, running out from the balcony.

"Belle!" the Beast cried. He raced up to meet her, but as he put his arms out, Belle turned away. The servants came walking out from behind the brunette.

Sora, Donald, Goofy and Char watched in silence.

"Belle… I'm sorry," the Beast murmured at last. "I… wasn't myself. I hope I haven't done anything to hurt you." He stared down at the ground and swallowed. "Forgive me."

Belle looked back at him and he glanced up hopefully. The girl was smiling. "I know you weren't yourself. You don't have to apologize." A little sternly, she added, "But I had hoped that you might have changed a little bit." Beast cringed a little at her words.

"I wish you could start trusting me," she went on, crossing her arms.

Lumiere sighed. "Oh, dear… time is running short."

"What do you mean?" asked Sora, tilting his spiky head to the side.

"Remember the rose?"

"From the Beast's room?" said Donald.

_Well, _yeah,Char couldn't help but think. _What other rose is there around here?_

"Precisely," said Cogsworth. "You see, if the master can learn to love and earn love in return, before the last petal on that rose falls… the spell will be broken."

"Really?" Char asked. "You think he's gonna make it?"

"We think so," Mrs. Potts said.

"Yup, I think you're right," Goofy cut in.

Sora sighed. "I _hope_ you're right…"

The Hidden Dragon suddenly appeared in his hand in a flash of red light. Donald and Goofy stared at it.

Sora lifted the Keyblade up, and a beam of light shot out. Like in Hollow Bastion and the Land of Dragons, the light seemed to push aside the surface above to reveal dark clouds beneath.

Beast moved to the group. "What happened?"

"The gate is open!" Donald announced.

"We should probably be going," Char said to the Beast and Belle.

"You're welcome here anytime," the brunette said, smiling at Char. The redhead hesitantly returned it.

"Also, if you hear anything about my friend Riku, or the Organization, or Heartless, please let us know!" Sora added a little hastily.

The others all nodded.

"Okay, see ya later!" Goofy called, as the group left the ballroom.

* * *

They headed down the hallway and out of the castle itself. Char felt before she heard the rapid drumming of raindrops. A flash of lightning lit up the sky.

Donald growled irritably and shook himself in a vain attempt to dry off. Sora glanced at Char, seemingly not noticing the rain. "So, where to next?"

The redhead blinked, somewhat surprised that he trusted her with the navigation – she, who was practically the antithesis of pathfinder. "Um… I really don't know. I didn't look at the map for very long." She shrugged, lifting one gloved hand to sweep her wet bangs off to one side.

"Can we just hurry up?" Donald complained. "It's getting worse out here!"

"Yup, he's right, a-hyuck," Goofy murmured, shaking his head and causing his dog ears to flop about.

"Okay, we should probably –"

Sora's words were instantly cut off by a choked cry of pain. He managed to look down and saw the golden tip of a Keyblade jutting conspicuously out of his chest. From the wound, a small rivulet of blood trickled down, mingling with the rain.

Char gasped when she saw who held the Keyblade and stepped back, eyes wide. The female brunette was smiling breathlessly in triumph, even though rainwater was streaming down her body and plastering her hair to her back and neck. The look of desperate happiness in Anxclof's emerald gaze chilled the redhead to the bone. (3)

Donald and Goofy gaped as well and raced forward, but Anxclof sighed, displeased at the possible interference. She lifted a hand, and in the blink of an eye a fiery wall had appeared in front of the mage and the knight. Though the rain raged on, the wall seemed to be untouched.

"Yes," Anxclof whispered, glee dancing in her expression. "I knew going to the trouble of sending the Avengers after you would pay off."

"You…" Char's voice was no louder, even though a thunderclap nearly drowned out their words. Somehow, this seemed to be a situation that didn't call for shouts and snarls of battle.

Sora was trembling, even as more blood leaked from where the Keyblade appeared in his chest. Anxclof seemed to notice her victim's pain and, almost in a disinterested way, put a foot against his side and yanked her weapon out of his body. Blood sprayed everywhere and the brunette fell to the ground, barely catching himself with his hands.

"It was you all along, wasn't it?" Char was panting now, panting with fear and anger. Fear for Sora, and anger at what Anxclof had done. "It wasn't enough that you got to spend the time with Roxas that you had, was it? No, you had to go all this way in order to get him back."

Anxclof shrugged, swinging her bloodied Keyblade, a Keyblade that Char, horrified, recognized from her nightmare.

_But it's too late now. _She clenched her fists.

"Like he said…" The brunette smirked, looking down at Sora. "People do all kinds of things when they're in love."

"Do you really believe that?" Char spat. "Here's a news flash for you, Anxclof: _neither of you have hearts!_ You cannot feel love. You cannot feel anger. You can't feel a damn thing, because neither you nor Roxas nor the rest of the gods-forsaken Organization have the capacity to!"

Anxclof stared at her, chest heaving. "Do you really believe that?" she asked at last, speaking from between clenched teeth. "Well, I have news for _you –_ Char Nightblaze, the only one not to fall from grace; Char Nightblaze the kidnapper; Char Nightblaze, the savior wannabe –" She snarled the words out with deliberate force and venom. The redhead in question took another step back, feeling like she had been stabbed repeatedly with a hot poker.

Anxclof went on, never taking her eyes off of Char, "Nobodies may have no hearts, but we remember what it's like. That's why we are different from Heartless. That's why I'm here. That's why I haven't given up."

While the two girls had been speaking, Sora had grown alarmingly still. Now, a glowing pink heart lifted out from his chest.

Char jerked her head toward it, watching in barely disguised horror as it floated up toward the clouds. A million things to do went through her mind at that moment: attack Anxclof; leap up and try to catch Sora's heart before it was lost in Kingdom Hearts; anything to keep this horrible nightmare from reaching fruition.

But as it was, she just stared and gaped.

Anxclof watched it as well, her glittering green eyes tracing the path of the large heart in its journey toward the clouds. "Bye-bye, Sora," she hissed, waving up at the shape.

Char glanced behind her and saw Donald and Goofy, looking at her with shock and a kind of numb horror. Guilt shot through her, so abruptly and painfully that it nearly doubled her over.

_I'm so sorry, you two. Gods, Sora, I'm sorry._

Sora's limp body rose up and vanished in a flash of light. When it cleared away, he was replaced by a black, Heartless-like creature, a creature that was shaped vaguely like Sora. The spikes at the top of its head and the length of the hands and feet were certainly the same. But the feral, predatory look in those flashing golden eyes could never imitate the glow that Sora's gaze contained. (4)

The Heartless' amber eyes landed on Char. With a snarl, it charged toward her.

Char didn't know quite what she should do. While her first impulse was to hack the thing to pieces, the rational part of her mind knew that this had to be Sora's Heartless. If it was lost, the Keybearer was gone forever.

So, as it was, all she could do was step aside, her gaze fixed on the ground. The creature attempted to skid to a stop, but ended up crashing into the wall of fire that Anxclof had conjured.

A light, self-deprecating smile crossed Char's face. It almost would have been funny, if the situation weren't so dire.

Roxas' mouthed words crossed her mind again. _Your fault, your fault,_ it chanted.

A warm tear slipped down her cheek, followed by more soon after.

Meanwhile, Anxclof had stepped toward the place where Sora's body had been. The Nobody was frowning, with the look of a person who has hoped for something for so long, only to have it snatched away at the last moment.

"Don't tell me…" she whispered, her voice cracking slightly.

Char laughed harshly. "So what? If Roxas doesn't come back, are you going to _apologize,_ Anxy?" She spat out the pejorative. "A little late for that, isn't it?"

"Late for what?" a different voice abruptly cut in. A voice that Char recognized instantly, for she had heard it for two weeks of the time she had spent in Twilight Town.

Anxclof's head jerked up. Next to the Gummi ship, shaking the water droplets out of his eyes, stood Roxas, clad in his Twilight Town outfit.

His gaze lighted on Anxclof, and he flicked his head, causing a few droplets to scatter from his rain-coated blond spikes of hair. "Hey, Anxclof. Couldn't you have picked a better place to call me back?" He shook his head in mock rebuke.

The female Nobody stared at him for a moment, her eyes brightening from within until their delighted emerald was almost blinding. Then a grin split her face, the widest that Char had ever seen, even from Roxas' memories.

The bloodied Keyblade vanished. Right afterward lightning flashed, and Char had the crazy idea that Anxclof's power might have caused it.

In the next instant, the brunette was running toward the blond, still grinning like a moron and stumbling a few times on the rain-slicked ground. Roxas was nearly thrown to the ground as Anxclof leaped into his embrace, throwing her arms around him and pressing herself close.

He stared down at the top of her head for a moment, blue eyes – eyes that were so like Sora's, it nearly made Char start to cry all over again – wide. His face became ten shades redder. "Anxclof…?"

"Damn it," the brunette mumbled into his shoulder, tightening her arms around his neck. "I was so scared… so scared that you were gone forever."

Roxas gave her another incredulous look, as though hardly believing her sudden display of affection. However, the bemusement went away soon after. He sighed, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and using the other to hold her head. "I'm sorry that I scared you." He smiled. "I wasn't gone. I was just… hm, how do I put this? Stuck in storage for a while."

Char could only look on as the two Nobodies embraced, feeling as though she was intruding on something deep and private. The emotion resulted in an awkward, violated feeling. From the looks on Donald and Goofy's faces, they felt the same way.

Roxas suddenly seemed to notice the others watching, and peered around Anxclof's head. His eyes widened. "Donald…? Goofy?"

The dark blue orbs landed on Char and darkened. "And you…"

Char met his gaze evenly.

"Anxclof, what happened to Sora?" the blond asked, pulling away and holding the brunette by the shoulders.

Anxclof's face fell slightly. "Well…" She jerked a thumb toward the Heartless-like, dark Sora that was now sitting up and snarling. "See for yourself."

Roxas' eyes widened. "So… you killed him?"

"Well geez, when you put it like that…" the female Nobody began, anger forming in her voice. She let her words trail off, letting her actions speak for themselves.

"I sacrificed everything to get you back, Roxas," she said at last, speaking slowly so as not to raise her temper. "Axel was going to help, but he had other plans."

"You dragged Axel into this, too?"

"I was _going_ to," she corrected. She met his blue eyes with her green ones. "Roxas, I've been searching for you for the past two weeks. The least you could do is be a little grateful here."

Roxas hesitated. Then he smiled a smile that shattered Char's heart; a smile that sealed the deal.

"You're right, I guess. I think I'm just glad to be alive."

Anxclof stared at him for a moment. Then she grinned broadly. "So, Roxas… where do you want to go first?"

Roxas blinked. "Hm… Can we go to Twilight Town?" A shadow briefly crossed his eyes, but he continued. "I want to see how all my friends are doing, even _if_ they won't know me."

"Why _wouldn't_ they know you?" asked Anxclof, putting out a hand and summoning a dark portal. At the same time, the wall of fire disappeared.

Donald yelled in anger and raced toward Anxclof with his staff raised, but the brunette seemed to not notice.

"Well, that's kind of a long story," Roxas admitted.

Whatever else they were about to say was lost to the others, as the two Nobodies vanished into the portal. The portal faded off into oblivion as well, and Donald nearly fell over trying to skid to a stop.

Char stared out at where Roxas and Anxclof had been. Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes again.

She noticed that now it was raining harder than ever.

Goofy stepped up behind her and set a hand on her shoulder. She glanced over at him and saw that he was looking at her with sympathy and grief.

It surprised her that he wasn't angry – it was her fault that Sora…

Sora…

_Oh, gods._

Char wiped the tears firmly off her cheeks, not knowing if the water that replaced them was truly rainwater or not. "Damn it," she muttered.

"Well, _now_ what do we do?" Donald murmured sadly.

Char let her shoulders slump in a sigh. "I don't know." She looked around and, after a few panicked moments, saw Sora's Heartless scuffling about near the bushes. The creature was sniffing at them and stuck its nose in, only to leap back, rubbing its nose in pain.

_Yeah… that's _definitely_ Sora in there._

"We need Sora's Heartless," she said abruptly.

"Are you crazy?" Donald asked, eyes widening. "The last thing we need is a Heartless running around the Gummi ship!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Char glared at the mage. "Just trust me," she said at their doubtful looks. "I remember something like this from when I lived at Hollow Bastion." As she spoke, the memories came rushing back unbidden.

"A girl was attacked by a Heartless and became one herself. But my master took her Heartless away somewhere. When they returned, she was back to normal! I asked him where he'd taken her, and he said something about Disney Castle and some cornerstone or whatever."

As she spoke, Donald and Goofy's eyes widened in recognition. "We know what you're talking about!" Goofy said.

"At the castle, there's a Cornerstone of Light," Donald explained. "It's kept our castle safe from evil. If anything could bring Sora back, the Cornerstone definitely could!"

Char sighed in relief. To be honest, she wasn't sure that her idea would work, because she was still trying to regain her composure. "Alright, let's go get… um…" She glanced over at the dark Sora, not knowing whether or not to call it a "him" or an "it".

Fortunately, Donald and Goofy knew what she was talking about, and just nodded and headed toward the Gummi ship.

_Better let them navigate for now,_ Char thought. _They know how to get to their castle._

Now came the difficult task. She stepped up behind the Heartless Sora, trying to keep herself light on her toes to avoid alerting it. Unfortunately, her effort didn't work; the creature's head jerked up at once and it whirled to face her.

So what was she supposed to say? "Here, Heartless Sora; c'mere, boy"?

She settled for saying roughly, "Get over here, Sora."

It stared at her, black head tilted to the side and its golden eyes scrunched up slightly.

"Don't give me that look. Get your sorry butt over here."

In response, the Heartless turned away and went back to what it was doing.

Char felt an unnatural, choking anger rising in her throat: anger toward Anxclof, anger toward the Organization, toward Roxas, even toward Riku and DiZ for making her go through with this. Her life seemed to rise behind her in a towering, furious wave, poised to crash over her head at any moment.

"Sora," she hissed, seizing the Heartless by the back of the shoulder and heaving it around to face her. The creature's skin felt vaguely like a human's, which didn't really surprise her, considering that she had kept a small Shadow Heartless as a pet before.

Sora's Heartless stared at her even longer this time, this time with wide eyes, as though not believing that she had dared shout at it. This annoyed her even more.

"Either you get your shadowy ass on the Gummi ship," Char snarled, putting her face up to the Heartless' human-like one, "or I take your Keyblade – and I don't give a damn whether I'm a chosen one or not; in case you haven't noticed I'm past that – and hack you to pieces." She shook it hard by the shoulder. "Got it, Key-boy?"

If possible, the yellow eyes got even bigger, so that now they resembled the moon that was currently hidden above their heads. Char realized that her death grip on "Sora's" shoulder was probably hurting it, but at this point she didn't gave a damn.

She released it anyway, half-expecting the Heartless to scuttle off over the wall that surrounded Beast's castle. "Go away if you want to. I don't care anymore."

She turned away, the lump in her throat threatening to strangle her, and started toward the Gummi ship.

The sound of sharp claws scraping against the rain-soaked ground caused her to look back. Sora's Heartless was right at her heels, and it put one dark hand on her arm, giving her a strange look.

Char had seen this look before; it hadn't been directly shown to her by Sora, but she had seen him give it to Donald and Goofy enough times while watching his memories. It was a look that said _I care about you and everything's going to be okay._

"So, changed your mind?" she asked, voice dulled with pain and exhaustion. _I can't believe I'm trying to talk things out with a stupid Heartless…_

But the Heartless surprised her. It grunted and gave a few quick bobbing motions with its head.

"Much appreciated," the redhead answered gruffly, trying to keep back the tears threatening to spill forth yet again. It was so stupid – she had barely cried at all in the past year, and now it felt as though the slightest little thing could set her off.

She squared her shoulders and started toward the Gummi ship, with the dark Sora close behind.

* * *

(1) Aw he's protecting her! (heart eyes)  
Char: (irritated sigh)

(2) I _think_ that's Xaldin's original name. I had to do some heavy research for that part of Char's past, most of which is from Wikipedia (and we all know that site's not entirely honest, but I was too lazy to check Jiminy's journal).

(3) Toldja you'd hate Anxclof by the end of this chapter.

(4) Yay, it's Anti-Sora! (huggles Anti-Sora) Just so you all know, I love Anti-Sora, so this probably won't be the first time he shows up in this fic. (chased by Sora fangirls... wait, wouldn't that mean I'm chasing myself?)

Char: Well, _that's_ a rather half-assed remedy for Sora, isn't it?  
Me: It makes sense, though, right?  
Char: Why not.  
Anxclof: (is off being cuddly with Roxas)  
Sora: (ish dead)  
Anti-Sora: (snuggles with Char)  
Char: o.O;;  
Me: Anyway, Christmas time's a-coming, and we all know what that means!  
Falcon: Oh, great...  
Me: (hums nonchalantly and hangs up mistletoe) And what do _you_ all want for Christmas, little boys or girls?  
Char: HEY! I know I _act_ like a guy, but -  
Copperhead: Just because I have long hair doesn't mean -  
Falcon: ARE YOU CALLING ME GAY?! (eyetwitch)  
Everyone Else: ...  
Anxclof: Are you calling _Roxas_ gay? (eyetwitch)  
Me: Ah... they really ARE alike...  
Char: Feh, I'll bite first, before Saf lets out TSA spoilers. I want an actual IPOD, not your crappy CD player...  
Me: (shifty eyes)  
Char: And that's about it.  
Sora's Spirit: I WANT MY HEART BACK!  
Char: (pushes him away) Stfu. You're gonna get it back when this story arc is over.  
Anxclof: I already got what _I_ wanted for Christmas... (everyone tilts their head questioningly to the side and she shoves Roxas under the mistletoe) An AnkuRoku moment that isn't a flashback, you morons! (kisses Roxas)  
Roxas: (starry-eyed)  
Me: Yeah, that's the official pairing name now... :D  
Falcon: I just want happiness for everyone. ...And for Saf to leave me alone.  
Me: D:  
Copperhead: I want hot girls to tackle me! (is mauled by Falcon) Ah, no, wait, I just got that.  
Falcon: (turns red) F-flattery isn't gonna work with me!  
Copperhead: (seductively) Oh? Then what about this? (pushes her down to the floor)  
Falcon: ACK! NO! (her screams of protest eventually turn to... um... pleased sounds)  
Everyone Else: ...  
Me: (looks up) o.O Damn, that was a long A/N... I'm probably gonna get flamed now...  
Char: Yup.  
Me: -.- You sound sad for me. Anywho, that about wraps it up! Next chapter, everyone heads to Disney Castle, and Anti-Sora has a "moment" with Char!  
Anti-Sora: (leaps on Char's lap)  
Char: OW! You're not a cat, you retard! Get away from me!


	22. Chapter XXII

Just thought I'd finish this chapter before New Year rolled around, so I wouldn't look like someone who hasn't posted since last year XD  
Char: Right...  
Me: But I don't really like this chappie... (sulk) Nothing really _happened_ in it, except that they get to Disney Castle and Anxclof and Roxas have some fluff. Just be happy I even got this chapter done at all, because I've been busy lately playing .hack/GU.  
Char: Pfft. "Busy", my ass.  
Me: D:

**_Disclaimer-_** Um... Can I call a friend on this?

* * *

Things were unexpectedly quiet on the Gummi ship without the actual Sora there. It took only about ten minutes to reach Disney Castle, especially with Donald's reckless piloting, but the sliver of time seemed to take an eternity.

While the duck and the dog navigated quietly in the front, Char chose to wait in the back room of the ship. Currently she was stretched out on the floor, lying on her belly with her fists on either side of her face. The Heartless Sora bounded around the room, looking bored with the proceedings. He made a few circuits through the area before plopping down next to Char.

The redhead watched him – she had decided to know the Heartless as male, because hopefully the real Sora would be back before all of this was over – furtively with her peripheral vision. So far, the Heartless had shown almost no signs of hostility toward neither her or the other two occupants of this vessel, much to her curiosity and bemusement. Perhaps there was still a fragment of Sora's heart left in the creature, she mused thoughtfully, and that fragment recognized who these people were.

She had also taken to calling the Heartless "Anti-Sora", for wasn't that, in a nutshell, what the dark creature was – a shadow, an antithesis to the hero and champion of the worlds of light?

Anti-Sora stretched out on the floor. He tilted his head to the side, watching Char in a way that made her skin crawl a little, before moving slowly, meticulously, to match her position.

Char held back a laugh that was half-amusement, half-relief. "It won't be long now," she murmured.

The yellow eyes didn't stray from her. No expression showed in them, but for now Anti-Sora seemed rather relaxed.

_When we get to the castle, though, that's going to be a different story…_

"Hey!" Goofy called to them.

"We're here!" Donald added, sounding as though he could barely contain his excitement at being home.

Char pushed herself up and looked at Anti-Sora. "Ready to go?"

In response, he leaped up, still retaining the somewhat-feral posture of a normal Heartless. He looked up at her, and she almost felt guilty for what she was about to do to him.

The breath caught slightly in her throat when he raised a dark hand, clearly wanting her to take it. She hesitated, then accepted the hand. It felt odd to be virtually leading a Heartless around – almost like a dog.

The two of them left the room to meet Donald and Goofy.

* * *

"So, see your friends yet?" Anxclof asked.

Roxas sighed. The grip of his hand on hers tightened almost imperceptibly. "No, not yet. I'm sure they're here, though."

Inside, Anxclof's head was still whirling from what her friend had told her. So, the Twilight Town he had been put into had been virtual; a fake. The thought of what Char and the Superior's master had done to Roxas made the brunette's blood boil. She'd like to see how _they_ liked being torn away from everything they knew and being thrown into a whole different place indefinitely.

Honestly, from Roxas' story, she was now glad that she didn't know where her Other was. From the sound of things, the reason Roxas had been kidnapped was because Sora had needed him to awaken.

People were passing by, bustling about in the busy streets of Twilight Town. Anxclof, who had spent her three years of existence in mostly isolation, found herself feeling rather overwhelmed by it all. Women were gathering their children away from where they had been playing with their friends; men were giving each other friendly challenges and swinging what looked like blue foam bats at each other; shopkeepers were calling out loudly, trying to sell their wares. She noticed that Roxas instinctively raised his free hand to wave at some of these people, and guessed that he had known these people in the virtual Twilight Town.

"Is it hard?" she murmured.

Roxas' blue eyes flicked down to her. "Yeah," he replied after a moment. "I see these people, and I try to say 'hi', but they look at me like I'm crazy and walk away." He stared down at the ground. "Sometimes… I feel like I _am_ crazy. I mean, I get kidnapped and put into a virtual world? Pretty weird-sounding, huh?"

"You're not crazy," Anxclof argued at once. "This is just the exact meaning of the saying 'Bad things happen to good people'; that's all."

Roxas laughed. "Maybe you're right." He pressed his arm a bit closer to hers. "I'm just happy you're here."

Anxclof felt a slight tingling on her arm where he'd touched her. Char's words came back to her in a harsh rush:

_"Here's a news flash for you, Anxclof: _neither of you have hearts!"

Unconsciously, Anxclof's hand tightened around Roxas'. What she had told the redhead was true: while the Organization didn't have hearts, they remembered how it felt. They remembered feelings of sorrow, anger, love and pain. They remembered the warmth of someone they cared about, and the coldness of someone who didn't care about them. Roxas and Anxclof were no different.

"Hey Anx," Roxas suddenly said.

Anxclof tilted her head up slightly to look at him. "Hm?"

"I want to show you something."

The female Nobody felt her curiosity piqued at the intense look in his eyes. "Sure."

Roxas nodded and smiled before leading her off toward a sign that read "Station Heights".

* * *

"So, this is your home, huh?" asked Char, looking around at the garishly glowing lights of the Gummi shed. An entrance to the courtyard of the castle lay nearby, with a pool of pale light spilling into the shed.

Anti-Sora was also surveying the area with his dark yellow eyes darting about warily. The grip of his hand on Char's was starting to hurt, it was getting so tight.

She flexed her fingers and gave the Heartless a glare. Thankfully, he took the hint and his iron grip lessened.

Char knew that he could sense the light and general happiness surrounding the castle and everything in the world. For Heartless, not just a Keyblade and a very good pair of twin blades were the perfect annihilators – enough light and joy could be an unwelcome catalyst as well. Anti-Sora was clearly no exception.

"Yup," Goofy answered cheerfully, looking around.

Donald was grinning so widely he could barely speak. Char restrained a smirk at the duck's obvious enthusiasm. If it hadn't been for the unpleasant circumstances in which she had left Hollow Bastion, what felt like so long ago, she would probably have felt the exact same way when she and Sora had gone there.

The mage and the knight led her out into the courtyard. Char found herself breathless as she looked around. A pleasant breeze ruffled her hair, causing the grass around them to sway slowly. A cobblestone path wound its way around the circular area. Sunlight shone onto the grass formations that were scattered around the courtyard, casting a pale sheen against the emerald.

"Wow," she said. "It's actually kind of… nice."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Donald retorted.

Char rolled her eyes and decided to dodge the question. "Meh, well, I guess I shouldn't expect anything less for King Mickey."

Meanwhile, Anti-Sora was trembling slightly, and he nuzzled a little closer to Char's side for comfort. She stared down at him in surprise, then sighed and put her hand on his head. Since the Heartless was the dark part of Sora incarnate, it made sense that when she touched the dark spikes, the feeling of caressing hair reached her hand.

If Anti-Sora's "hair" felt like this, Char mused, then it conjured up the question of how the real Sora's spiky tresses would feel.

Then she started. _Whoa, Nightblaze – get your head out of the gutter! _

Was it her imagination, or did her cheeks heat up just a little bit? (1)

She noticed Donald and Goofy were looking at her strangely. She cleared her throat, attempting to get her composure back. "So, um, which way is this 'Cornerstone'?" She raised her free hand and did air quotes with her fingers on the last word.

"It's this way." Donald and Goofy led the way with Char and Anti-Sora following close behind.

They made an odd foursome, the redhead thought – a duck mage, a dog knight, a Heartless, and… she didn't know exactly what to refer to herself as. The outcast? The vagabond?

_The extra wheel?_ she mentally added dryly.

Whatever it was, she found herself hoping that it would change by the end of this journey. Back in Twilight Town, she honestly hadn't given a damn whether Sora lived or died. But now, whether it was the promise to Riku driving her or not, the thought of the brunette being gone forever because of _her_ stupid mistake made her throat tighten tangibly.

_I'm getting too sentimental for this,_ she thought. _Must be the dorks rubbing off on me._

With a chuckle, she stepped forward, only to get yanked short. She glared at Anti-Sora, who was refusing to move. "What's your problem?"

The Heartless just shook his head frantically. Donald and Goofy turned around from where they were standing at the entrance to the castle itself.

"Gee, you think he can sense the Cornerstone?" asked Goofy.

"Probably," Donald said.

"You guys aren't helping," Char muttered. She tugged Anti-Sora's hand, not too hard, but firm in her grip. "C'mon, let's go."

But no matter how hard she pulled the Heartless, no matter what cajoling words the trio tried to use, Anti-Sora was set in his decision. He didn't want to go inside.

Char hissed, letting out the breath from between her teeth. "Gods, his dark side's even more stubborn than the real thing…"

She looked up at the sky. The sun was just starting to glitter in the dying shine of twilight. _Great._

Donald and Goofy didn't know, but Anti-Sora had a time limit; a time limit until the real Sora ceased to be forever. She had asked DiZ about it after he had brought the girl back from the Cornerstone, and he had patiently explained everything to her. If he hadn't gotten the girl – or rather, her Heartless – to the light in time, her heart would have been consumed by Kingdom Hearts itself.

If Anti-Sora didn't get to the Cornerstone…

Char swallowed nervously at the thought.

Anti-Sora noticed the small, almost imperceptible movement – it unnerved the redhead, how focused this Sora could get on a single thing or person – and cocked his head.

"What are we supposed to do?" murmured Donald.

Char's head jerked up from where she'd been staring at the ground. She was going to have to play the tough-chick card again.

She opened her mouth to speak, but the Heartless, surprisingly, was way ahead of her. He glanced back from where one "hand" rested on the doorknob into the castle, his shoulders tensed in a slight wince. Char could tell that being so close to so much light and happiness was hurting him, but he chose to brave it anyway, which mystified her.

Donald and Goofy stared in equal bemusement at the dark Sora. But he just stared at them more insistently, as if telling them to get going.

Char felt something pull deep within her, and with a start she realized that it was her heart, twinging in sympathy for him. Despite his current state, Sora could still manage to stick his neck out for his friends.

A smirk spread over her countenance.

"Well, what're we waiting for?" she asked Donald and Goofy. "Let's get a move on!"

* * *

"So… remind me what we're doing here?" Anxclof muttered dryly as Roxas pulled her along.

The blond cast her an annoyed glance. "We're trying to get to Sunset Hill. I thought I told you already."

"Yeah, well…" Anxclof let the sentence trail off on purpose. _I might've been tuning you out…_ she finished in her head.

Roxas shook his head in mock rebuke and returned his gaze to the path ahead. "I told you, the tunnels are more fun than the train."

Anxclof opened her mouth to reply, only to squeak and leap back as a thunderous roaring noise sounded above their heads. The ground trembled under their feet, nearly unbalancing both Nobodies in the process. The deafening crescendo lasted for only about three seconds before pealing off into the distance.

Anxclof let out a deep, shuddering breath. She realized, to her humiliation, that she had instinctively clung to the nearest solid thing, which of course happened to be Roxas. She put one hand against his chest and pushed herself away, knowing that her face had gone a shade of red reminiscent of Char's hair.

"Oh, yes, _so_ fun," the brunette muttered, dusting herself off, trying to regain her dignity. "A freaking earthquake every ten minutes. That's _great."_

Roxas laughed. "Ah, you'll learn to love it."

Anxclof raised an eyebrow at him and put a hand on her hip. "You just liked that because I was clinging to you the whole time."

The blond put a finger to his chin and darted his eyes about, acting like she'd caught him in the act. "Well, _maybe…"_

Anxclof rolled her eyes. "You're horrible."

They continued on, with Roxas leading the way. Anxclof managed to listen carefully as he rattled off the destinations of the various tunnels beneath the subway. She realized that, despite the circumstances of his kidnapping, Roxas had gotten something out of it: he had met loyal friends, and while there was the slight little complication that they weren't real, they seemed to care about him; and he had learned more about life here than he ever had at the World That Never Was. For some reason, Anxclof felt a pang of jealousy at that thought.

She knew that even though Nobodies weren't supposed to have hearts, she distinctively recognized the feeling of being in love; she supposed that her Other had been in love at the time Anxclof had been born. That indescribable emotion appeared whenever she was with Roxas, as it was now.

The memory of when she had first joined the Organization popped up, unbidden, in her mind. It had been almost a year, and prior to that, the brunette had been on her own for nearly two years. Xemnas had spotted her hacking apart some Heartless in the world known as Agrabah, and obviously his curiosity had been piqued.

He hadn't really captured her, in the true denotation of the word. The Superior had approached her, and with a few words got her to come with him. Looking back, the female Nobody laughed softly; she had been so _naïve_ back then. Despite Anxclof's feigned toughness, she was really just confused and nervous at being around so many people like her.

Most of them were creepy, she remembered that. Xemnas had looked at her like she was a dead animal he was about to dissect – detached; cool; almost impassive. The others had greeted her either with somewhat-playful threats, or with apathy and indifference.

The boy that everyone called Number Thirteen caught her attention almost at once. He had been hanging around the edges of the crowd with a spiky-haired redhead known as Number Eight. When she had passed their rooms on the way to her own quarters, Axel – the redhead – had clapped her on the back and, with a mock-grim smirk on his face, wished her luck at living here. Roxas had just smiled and nodded. Almost at that moment, the trio's friendship had been born.

At this point, they were almost to the path that, according to Roxas, led to Sunset Terrace.

"…and then Pence said, 'Dare', and Hayner told him to propose to the trash can!" Roxas burst into laughter at the memory. (2)

Anxclof snickered. "Man, you guys played some weird games. Who would _willingly_ do that kind of thing?"

"Well, that's why it's fun," Roxas explained. "You get to see your friends do some pretty stupid stuff, and then you get to make an idiot out of yourself too. But it's never anything dangerous."

Anxclof snorted. "Whatever."

They emerged from the tunnel, blinking to get used to the sudden light. Anxclof had just enough time to absorb her surroundings before Roxas grabbed her wrist and yanked her off again.

"Oy!" she shouted. "Let go!"

Roxas looked back without slowing and grinned, but didn't say anything.

Anxclof growled in protest, but she didn't make an attempt to stop him. Clearly, Roxas knew what he was doing.

_No matter how moronic being here has made him, _she added silently.

The main reason she was so jealous of him preferring Twilight Town over his former home hit her. The World That Never Was had heralded fear and anger, the desire to learn the truth. Here in Twilight Town, while Roxas had initially been forced to stay there, he had lived like a normal teenager, blissfully unaware of his past life as a Nobody and a Keybearer.

And for the first time, Anxclof wondered if she'd done the right thing by killing Sora to get her friend back.

* * *

"Whew." Donald plopped down on the floor, panting. "I didn't think there'd be so many Heartless…"

"Damn straight," Char muttered, flicking her sword in order to get a few stray pieces of darkness off of it.

The trio had entered the castle, only to find it swarming with Heartless. Needless to say, they'd been nearly overwhelmed. Surprisingly, though, they had managed to pull through.

A key reason for Char's dread at seeing the Heartless was that she assumed Anti-Sora, seeing his "kin", would go over to their side and fight with the Shadow Heartless. In that case, the Keybearer would truly be gone. To his credit, however, Anti-Sora stayed out of the way, though a distinct light of craving glittered in his yellow eyes.

Now, he was back to acting like an antsy child. He stared around anxiously, squirming slightly and, every once in a while, glancing urgently at Char. Even though the nervousness in his stance pulled tangibly at Char's heartstrings, she swallowed her sympathy almost at once.

_It's a _Heartless, she argued mentally. _We get him to the Cornerstone, he's back to normal, we go on. It's as simple as that._

Yet the voice in the back of her mind popped up again.

_You should know by now that nothing is ever easy. Just look at what happened back there!_Char dismissed it with a shake of the head and chose to examine their surroundings. They had entered a library of sorts; thick books lined the walls and shelves seemed to take up all the space. The floor was a pristine, almost blinding white tile. Almost like the Beast's castle had been, broomsticks swept the floors, running on their own.

However, it was the being at the center of the room that got Donald and Goofy's attention. They gasped and shot to attention at once.

"Your Majesty!" Donald said, bringing his hand up in a salute. "Queen Minnie! We're back!"

The person in the room – who Char immediately realized was not human at all – turned to face them and smiled. "You're here! Thank goodness," she added gratefully. "You two have perfect timing."

"That must be a first," Char muttered.

This caught the mouse queen's attention. "And who's this?" she asked Goofy.

The redhead sighed and spoke for him. "Sorry, Your Majesty. I'm Char Nightblaze."

She could feel the surprised gazes of Donald and Goofy on her as she spoke, and cast an open glare in their direction. Was it really that surprising that she knew how to be polite?

"So, uh, where's the King?" she went on, looking around.

She felt an unceremonious tug on her pant leg. Donald gave her a pointed look and then glanced back at Queen Minnie. "You'll have to excuse her, Your Majesty."

Minnie put a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle. "Anyway, you've all come at just the right time!" she said.

"Yeah, we noticed all the Heartless," Goofy said.

"Kind of hard not to…" Char added quietly.

"Oh… so those are the Heartless," Minnie mused.

Char thought that this world must be pretty secure, if the queen didn't even know what a Heartless was. For a brief moment, the idea of such a quiet, bright world tempted her; but she shook her head to clear it. They had more important things to think about right now…

…such as the way Minnie was currently eyeing Anti-Sora, a glimmer of fear visible in her eyes.

"Why are you traveling with a Heartless, then?" she asked, voice trembling.

Char reminded herself that Minnie was unused to such danger, and so she couldn't exactly roll her eyes and tell the queen to suck it up.

Now came the awkward part: telling her that the hero who had kept the worlds safe thus far, had, quite literally, been reduced to a shadow of his former self.

_Because of _my_ stupid mistake,_ the redhead added silently. She felt a pang of shame remembering how she should have seen Anxclof coming.

Donald and Goofy were staring guiltily at their feet, so the task of informing Minnie of the current disaster fell to Char.

This was going to be difficult.

She took a deep breath. In the same moment, she felt Anti-Sora's grip tighten. Unconsciously, she squeezed his hand in return – not really to reassure him, but to get him to stop cutting off her circulation – and opened her mouth to speak.

"Your Majesty… this Heartless here _is_ Sora, the Keybearer. That's actually the reason why we're here."

"We need the Cornerstone of Light, Your Majesty," Goofy added tentatively.

"Oh, my…" Minnie sighed. "If that's truly what you need, then come with me. I'll need a guard to take me to the audience chamber. I haven't been able to leave this library by myself since the Heartless started attacking."

Char managed to swallow a bit past the lump in her throat. At least now they knew where they were going.

Donald and Goofy gave her a salute and turned to leave, but they were brought back by Minnie's sudden gasp.

"Oh, no! I forgot to warn everyone else in the castle about the danger! We must be sure they're hidden someplace safe!"

"Your Majesty, with all due respect, I think they all know about the Heartless," Char said.

"But…" Minnie looked torn between her subjects and curing the savior of the worlds.

"We'll go help get everyone somewhere safe, Your Majesty," Donald cut in.

"Yeah, you guys know your way around, so that would be best."

Anti-Sora just squirmed a little more, clearly wanting to be out of here. Char let go of his hand and threaded her fingers through the dark strands of hair, pressing his head close to her.

_It'll be over soon,_ she thought, hoping against hope that her words would somehow reach him. (3)

"Alright. I'll stay with the queen and make sure she gets to the audience chamber safely." _Heh._ _I'm almost like a regular little diplomat now,_ Char thought sardonically.

Donald and Goofy just nodded, summoned their weapons, and left the room. Minnie turned to Char.

"Well? Shall we get going?"

* * *

(1) XDDDD Of course, this is really just the scientific side of Char coming out. With a mind as quick as hers (and I'm not trying to make her sound Sue-ish either; think about how smart YOU'D be if YOU had Ansem for a teacher), one thought just kinda leads to another.  
Still, I love playing with the idea that she likes him even now xP

(2) I had to actually do a dare like that once. It was partly funny and partly humiliating. o.O

(3) Aww. In her own awkward little way, she's trying to reassure him. (At least that's what I THINK it is... She keeps alternating from "suck it up, you wuss!" to "it'll be okay -huggles-").

Me: Next chapter... We might head to the Timeless River, or we might not. THE CHOICE IS YOURS.  
Char: Not really; she's just trying to sound like the people that say the announcements at her school.  
Me: D:  
Char: So, in advance - here's to another crappy year.  
Me: Also, along with the New Year comes another celebration: This fic's reached over 100k in wordcount:D  
Char: That might just be because of your rambly A/N's...


	23. Chapter XXIII

Me: Chapter 23!  
Char: About time you posted it.  
Me: Hey, shut up. I had a lot to do, okay? What with swimmeets and finals and all...  
Char: And you still having to read The Count of Monte Cristo before Monday...  
Me: -.- Don't remind me. Well, anywho, I get the feeling our lovely readers are going to like this chapter. (grin) No, Char and Sora don't have sex or anything...  
Char: o.O

**_Disclaimer-_** YES! I TOTALLY OWN KH! That's how I can think up all those brilliant subplots!

* * *

"As soon as the trouble started," Minnie said, putting a hand on the shining bubble around the gate, "I made sure to seal this room."

Char and Anti-Sora watched, the former keeping an eye out for any Heartless behind them. A brief glitter shone from the ring on the mouse queen's finger before the barrier vanished in a flash of purple light.

Anti-Sora flinched at the flash and burrowed his head closer to Char's leg. The redhead sighed. She knew how uncomfortable he was, but she wasn't exactly an affectionate person.

A small door appeared inside the tall gate, and Minnie headed hastily into the audience chamber. Char delivered one final slash to a Heartless that got a little too close and followed. She made sure to close the door behind her, even though she knew that that probably wouldn't be enough.

The room was completely empty but for the red carpet that ran down its middle, leading up to an ornate golden throne. Char looked around in awe. "Wow, nice." She looked at Minnie. "So, where's the Cornerstone?"

The queen opened her mouth to reply, but then gasped and pointed up. Char followed her gaze and saw a horde of Heartless floating down from the ceiling. They all were tall, tower-like beings with what looked like golden eyes staring tauntingly out at them.

_Great,_ she thought, readying her blades. _And where's the Keybearer when you need him? Stuck up in Kingdom Hearts, that's where._

"Oh, no," Minnie moaned, scurrying to hide behind Char. "Not here, too…"

Char flashed her a grin that carried more confidence than she felt. "Don't worry. I've got 'em."

Without waiting for a reply, she pushed Anti-Sora backward out of the way and leaped forward. A few well-placed slices in the core of the Heartless on her way past rendered it dead on the spot.

As soon as the twin swords had passed through the Heartless, Char whipped to the side, narrowly dodging a bolt of lightning that fired out from one enemy. Silver blurs cut through the air in her strikes. The swarm of Heartless finally seemed to notice that an enemy was nearby, and began moving toward the redhead.

Minnie looked around nervously, not entirely sure what she should do; Anti-Sora just fidgeted, as pensive as the queen was. In front of them, Char was hacking and slashing as hard as she ever had.

Inside, though, the memory of when the Samurai Nobodies had nearly overwhelmed her was going through her mind. She knew she wasn't good with multiple enemies. In fact, she had known it since long before she had met Sora, since she had first become interested in learning the sword. A few days' training had told her that much.

And yet…

The mental image of Sora on his hands and knees, panting and bleeding as Anxclof stood over him, appeared in Char's mind. She couldn't glance back at Anti-Sora even briefly, the Heartless were coming at her so quickly. But she knew in the back of her mind, a dark corner that currently quivered with dread, that the Keybearer didn't have much time left.

The thought filled her with new determination and she raised her swords high in the air before spinning them in a circle. To her relief, the technique that she barely remembered learning from Dilan succeeded in obliterating the enemies around her.

"Char, help!" Minnie suddenly shouted.

The redhead in question spun to see what was wrong. To her horror, a group of Heartless was closing in on Minnie and Anti-Sora.

Her first instinct was to run toward them and fight off the swarm of tower-like creatures, but this thought was nipped in the bud almost at once when another Heartless smacked her in the back with its ball-and-chain. Char caught her balance just in time and slashed it away.

How the hell was she supposed to save the queen in time if these stupid things kept getting in her way?

She snarled, feeling frustration build up inside of her, and swung her blades out, wildly slicing in all directions. Most of the Heartless were knocked back and vanished in the attack.

She could see light flashing every so often from the small gap between the Heartless, and guessed that Minnie was trying to attack.

_Key word being "trying", obviously…_

The voice popped up in her head again. _Didn't I tell you before that nothing is ever easy?_

Char hissed under her breath and took out her anger on a few more Heartless.

"Come _on,_ give us a break," she growled.

This would've been much easier if she hadn't let Anxclof kill Sora… But then again, if it hadn't been for Char's stupid mistake they wouldn't even be here in the first place.

Char gasped suddenly. Where was Anti-Sora?

She looked frantically from side to side. All she could see was a mass of the tower Heartless, broken often by flashes of white from the rest of the room.

_Crap. Crap, crap, crap…_

Panic welled up in her chest, rising and almost choking her. Maybe the Heartless had finished him off…

At that moment, the sound of claws hacking through something made her turn. The tower-like enemies disappeared in orbs of murky dark light. Anti-Sora stood where they had been, his claws out and looking around. His yellow eyes caught her own gaze, and Char swore that he would've smirked at her if he could.

Then he whirled around toward the other Heartless, leaped high in the air, did a flip, and, using his back claws for balance, leaped off of one while slashing into another. Char grinned. "Showoff," she muttered, before turning back to her own battle.

With Anti-Sora's decision to help, the battle grew much simpler. Eventually, they stepped back, side by side, their respective weapons out in a battle stance. While the Heartless had been subdued, they were still ruthless and coming toward the group.

Minnie hesitantly stepped up to the throne, glancing around nervously at the Heartless. She reached over and pressed a button on the arm of the chair. Anti-Sora jumped in surprise and withdrew to behind Char as a rumbling grew beneath their feet; the redhead was nearly unbalanced as well in the tremors.

The throne was moving with the quakes and now it receded in a flash of blinding light. Not much to Char's surprise, Anti-Sora pressed himself close to her side, trying to get away from the light. The redhead put an arm over her eyes to nullify some of the brightness.

When the light cleared away, she lowered her arm and looked around, wide-eyed. The Heartless were gone. Behind them, the floor where the throne was had been moved aside. Next to it was a set of stairs leading downward.

Char glanced over her shoulder at Minnie. "Couldn't you have done that before?"

The queen sighed. "I was going to, but then those Heartless came…" She shivered. "Hopefully this castle will never be invaded by them again." Minnie took a deep breath as though to calm herself, and then smiled at Char. "You and… Sora have my thanks."

Char shrugged, though inside, she wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep now that it was over. "It was nothing." She turned fully around so that she and Anti-Sora were standing beside Minnie. "So… I take it the Cornerstone is down there?"

"Yes."

"Well then, let's go." The redhead could've cried with relief. After this they could finally get on with the rest of their journey.

Then she frowned slightly. Since when had she starting to think of this as _her_ venture, as well?

"Hey!" A familiar voice suddenly called. The three of them turned and saw Donald and Goofy running through the door toward them.

Donald skidded to a stop in front of them and shot into a salute. "Your Majesty, we got everyone else to safety!"

"Thank you, Donald. And you too, Goofy." At the queen's words, Goofy rubbed the back of his head modestly, while Donald just stood up straighter.

"Aw, it was nothin', Your Majesty. Most everyone had already gone somewhere safe."

"Since we're all here now," Minnie said, "I'll show you to the Cornerstone."

They all started down the staircase. Char looked at Donald and Goofy. "Geez, we could've used you guys! A bunch of Heartless were in here and I had to fight them all off."

Goofy's eyes widened. "All by yourself?"

Char hesitated, realizing how her previous words must've sounded. "Er, well, not exactly." She gestured at Anti-Sora, who was looking more anxious than ever. "He helped out, too, near the end."

Goofy uttered an awed "wow". Donald gave a noise that sounded like "hmph" and looked away. "Pretty good," was all he said, under his breath.

They entered the corridor. The room was completely dark, but the light that came from the Cornerstone lit it up so they could see everything. Donald and Goofy gasped when they saw the thorns that covered the walls, and Minnie nodded sadly.

The Cornerstone of Light was what caught Char's attention. It was even more beautiful than DiZ's description, so long ago. It vaguely resembled one of the snow globes that Hollow Bastion sometimes sold when the weather got colder. Elaborate designs were on the stand of the Cornerstone itself, and the interior of the ball was black but for the swirling myriad of light within it.

Char found herself stepping closer, inadvertently dragging Anti-Sora with her. The Heartless, so docile before, if a little antsy, suddenly seemed to go berserk. He pushed himself away from the area the light hit so that he ended up pressing against the wall. He seemed to totally disregard the pain the thorns brought him in his effort to escape the light.

Minnie shook her head. "It's the same with everyone else brought here…" She looked squarely at Char. "If you can retrieve him, I'll do the rest."

"And then Sora will be back to normal?" Donald asked, a little worriedly.

The queen nodded. In the half-light, Char could see the anxiety in her dark eyes. "Yes."

The redhead thought she was more uncomfortable than any of them, except perhaps for Anti-Sora himself. From the dark creature's reaction to the Cornerstone, she figured that the real Sora didn't have much time left before Kingdom Hearts devoured him.

She gave a single, determined nod and, steeling herself, walked over to Anti-Sora. The yellow eyes glimmered at the sight of her and the Heartless hissed in warning.

Char ignored the sound that made Donald and Goofy shiver. She stepped forward until she was right in front of Anti-Sora. He pressed himself further back against the wall, as though sensing her intentions.

Without further ado, she scooped him up almost like she would a cat and started back to the Cornerstone. Anti-Sora struggled furiously, his claws leaving shallow scratches along her arms, but she just clenched her arms tighter together and eventually he fell limp. Clearly, this was not the Anti-Sora that had watched her in the Gummi ship and imitated her every move like she was one of the gods.

She stopped directly in front of the ball of light and looked expectantly at Minnie. Anti-Sora suddenly lashed out with renewed strength, causing Char to loosen her grip in surprise. This was just enough for him to leap away.

Char gasped and reached out, but Donald was closer. With a triumphant cry, the duck seized the Heartless by the back of the head.

"Do it!" Char called to Minnie.

The queen nodded and pressed a button on the side of the Cornerstone's stand.

There was a brief moment of silence. Then a blinding flash of light shone, enveloping the area in pure white.

When the light cleared, Char hesitated, her heart pounding, before opening her eyes and daring to look around.

Donald still held the being by the back of the hair, his grip clearly loose. Char took in the messy brown spikes, the confused dark blue eyes, the overly large amount of zippers on the outfit. Sora was indeed back.

He shook his head and glanced at Donald, looking somewhat pained. "Ow. Donald, could you let go now? I'm fine."

The duck did so; at the same time a ridiculously large grin was spreading across his and Goofy's faces.

Sora got to his feet and stretched, arching his back and holding his arms high above his head. "Man, this is worse than when we woke up in Twilight Town." He looked around, putting a hand to his head. "Wait, where are we now?"

"Our castle," Donald answered, still grinning.

"Yeah… because I remember I was talking to Char… and then…" Sora winced at the memory. His gaze landed on Char.

She stared at him with a weird mixture of relief and annoyance on her face. He felt a tingle of discomfort at the way she was looking at him. "Uh… what…?"

He was cut off when she suddenly charged toward him and…

…she _hugged _him.

Sora practically choked with shock, staring down at the crimson hair that currently matched the color of his cheeks. He had never really been this close to Char before, unless one counted when he had nearly rolled over on her in the tent at the Land of Dragons. And now that he was, he was stunned beyond words at why this anti-social, temperamental girl, this girl who before now had seemed to hate him – or at least strongly dislike him – would so much as touch him.

Let alone _hug _him.

"You're an idiot," she mumbled into his shoulder. (1)

One part of Sora was screaming to hug her back, and the other… well, the other didn't know quite what to think. He looked awkwardly around.

"Uh… what happened?" was all he could say.

"You turned into a Heartless, and we took you here, to the Cornerstone of Light, to put you back to normal," Donald explained.

"All for one and one for all," Goofy added.

Char finally seemed to realize what she was doing, and pulled away. "Yeah, well, I'm just glad you're back. You _are_ the Keyblade bearer, after all." Dryly, she added, "We need you, but I can't understand for the life of me why."

_Yup. She's back to normal._

"Hey, Sora," Goofy said suddenly, looking closely at the brunette. "Your face is really red."

Sora started. "Uh, is it?" He rubbed a knuckle across the bridge of his nose sheepishly.

"I hate to interrupt this _touching_ little reunion," a voice said suddenly, "but I was going to need your attention, and I feared that you might be distracted." (2)

Everyone jumped and whirled around. In front of the Cornerstone of Light stood an image of Maleficent.

"No way…" Sora breathed.

Maleficent laughed her sadistic cackle. "I see the wretched Keybearer is back to normal. And his pitiful lackeys are with him as well."

"Who're you calling a lackey?" Char growled, summoning her swords and charging toward the witch. But she only passed right through her, nearly crashing into the Cornerstone in the process.

"All in good time," Maleficent went on. "I promise you'll be able to partake of my vengeance. But you must be patient."

Minnie stepped forward, trying to glare at the other but failing miserably. "Just what do you want her, Maleficent?"

The witch in question bowed in mock respect. "Ah, Queen Minnie. Radiant, as always. You see, I'm here on a… property venture. I want this castle for my own." Looking around, she added, "Although it's a bit too 'bright' for what I have in mind." She smirked. "I suppose I'll just have to fill every room with my own personal touch of darkness."

She reached her hand out and everyone watched with bated breath to see what would happen. Clearly the witch's intention was to touch the Cornerstone, but as soon as the glove-clad finger grazed the surface it seemed to jerk back, as though it had been shocked. To her credit, Maleficent didn't seem to be flustered at this turn of events; she just let out a "hmph".

"You'd better stop right now if you know what's good for you!" Minnie blustered. Behind her, Sora and the others readied their weapons.

The brunette raised his Keyblade and made to charge forward, but a sudden pang in his side brought him to his knees.

"Sora!" Donald and Goofy rushed over.

Maleficent chuckled. "Oh, not feeling well, Keybearer?" Looking at Minnie, she said, "Don't worry, I'll stop… Just as soon as this castle belongs to me!" She cackled in a way that made the animals' hair stand on end, and even Char shuddered as the witch vanished, her laughter still echoing eerily.

"What a hag," the redhead muttered. Looking around, she kneeled in front of Sora. "You alright?"

Sora looked up. Seeing the slight worry on her face, he grinned and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Your wound from when that girl stabbed you must still be there." As she mentioned the brown-haired girl, Char stumbled almost imperceptibly. Almost like she knew the girl from somewhere, but didn't want to mention her name.

"I got it." Donald brandished his staff and put it to Sora's chest. Both the staff and the boy's wound glowed with a brief, white light; when it faded away, Sora placed a hand on his wound.

"Hey, it doesn't even hurt now." He smiled at the duck. "Thanks, Donald."

"Oh, dear," Minnie murmured. "What should we do? Nothing like this has ever happened before…"

Char got to her feet and sighed. "I wish I could say I knew something, but… I don't."

"What a surprise," Donald muttered, earning himself a glare from Char.

"I know!" Goofy suddenly said. "We should go ask somebody who knows stuff that ain't in any book!"

Donald's eyes lit up in understanding. "Merlin the wizard!"

"Yes," Minnie said, her voice thick with relief and exhaustion. "Merlin just might know something about this mess."

"Alright, let's go ask his advice." Char glanced at Sora. "Are you okay to travel?"

Sora stood up and winked at her. "Ah, I've been through worse than this." A slight shadow seemed to pass over his eyes as he spoke.

_Is he remembering the last time he turned into a Heartless?_ Char wondered.

"But how can we leave?" Donald said suddenly, looking helplessly at Minnie. "All those Heartless could still be out there…"

"A ton of Heartless are here?" asked Sora, tilting his head to the side. Char realized that he must be totally lost. The fragment of his heart that had been contained in Anti-Sora had probably been too small to maintain memory.

For some reason, she felt relieved at that. The thought of how she had treated Anti-Sora so well, and the Heartless in return, still made her redden a little at the thought of the real Sora's reaction.

_Is it that I don't want him to see me being anything other than tough?_

She knew it was okay to open up – had known it from the moment she'd committed to this stupid journey. But it was in her nature to keep secrets; wasn't it in every human nature to want to have just a few things held dear to them alone?

Either way, this wasn't the time to get contemplative.

"Yeah," Donald was saying. "We had to get all the castle citizens to safety." He puffed out his chest. "They were swarming everywhere! The walls were black with them!"

"Donald, don'tcha think you're exaggerating a little bit?" asked Goofy.

Minnie managed to chuckle, though her voice cracked a bit with the strain of the day. "There's no need to worry." She glanced at a part of the wall that wasn't covered with thorns. The others craned their necks to see and caught sight of a few flickering buttons.

"Those will take you to any location of the castle," the queen explained. "Mickey had them built, just in case something like this happened."

"Where _is_ the King, by the way?" asked Sora.

Minnie shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know… He's always gone nowadays."

Donald and Goofy sighed in disappointment.

"So, will one of those things take us back to the Gummi hangar?" Char questioned.

Minnie nodded. "Yes. As you know, that's the only safe place."

"Okay, let's go!" Sora chirped.

Char couldn't help but roll her eyes at that. Even after all that had happened, he could still be so chipper…

They walked over to the buttons on the wall. Char's thoughts wandered to a certain brown-haired Nobody.

_Hm… I wonder what happened with her… Roxas is gone, probably. And now she'll be more eager to kill Sora than ever._

Maybe Riku had been right in choosing Char for this… The redhead heaved a sigh, being careful not to let the others overhear.

This was going to be harder than she had thought. (3)

* * *

Anxclof and Roxas sat on the hill, each holding a stick of what the blond called "sea salt ice cream".

"It's only the best food here," he had said when she'd inquired as to what exactly sea salt ice cream was. "C'mon. I'll get you a bit and you'll see what I mean."

Now, as much as she hated to say it, Roxas had been right. The ice cream managed to combine the salty flavor of the coastal air along with the general sweetness, without being totally repulsive.

They looked down at the beach. The waves lapped slowly back and forth underneath Sunset Hill, and the dying sun reflected the whiteness of the sand, making the light almost blinding. Truth be told, Anxclof didn't like the permanent twilight of this place; it made it difficult to tell what time it really was. According to Roxas' watch it was early afternoon, though.

"You know…" Roxas suddenly said. Anxclof shifted a little so she could look at him. The other Nobody was staring absently at the remains of his melting ice cream.

"I never did find my friends," he went on quietly.

Anxclof hesitated. She never had been good at the comforting stuff.

"But it's probably just as well," he said when she didn't reply. "They… they wouldn't have recognized me anyway." He laughed softly, but his words lent a sort of bitterness to it. "Because according to them, I'm not real."

Anxclof had to protest at that. "But you _are," _she said. Roxas looked up, meeting her gaze with distraught blue eyes. "You're real," she continued. "How else would I be sitting here talking to you right now?"

Roxas smiled a little, and Anxclof punched his shoulder. "See? You know it's true, and that should be all that matters."

"Heh, yeah…" The blond grinned wider. "I guess you're right. Thanks."

Anxclof shrugged. "Don't mention it." Sarcastically, she added, "I'm just trying to help out our resident depressed kid."

"Oh, _thanks a lot," _Roxas joked.

They sat in silence for another moment, finishing up their ice cream. Then Roxas spoke again.

"You know… while I was here… my memories were all gone."

Anxclof stiffened. "Those guys…?" Her voice trailed off in her effort to keep back her anger. She looked away and clenched her fists. "Like it wasn't bad enough that they took you away from everything you'd ever known? They had to take away the memory of everything too?" A snarl managed to escape her. "Someday, I don't know where or how, I'm gonna find the guys who did that to you, and then I'm gonna –"

She was interrupted by Roxas putting a finger to her lips, effectively silencing her. Anxclof took a deep, calming breath. "Sorry."

Roxas shrugged, but didn't take away his finger. Clearly, he had something important to say.

"Like I said, I didn't have any memories of you and Axel, the Organization… I didn't even remember that I was Sora's Nobody. So… I can't exactly say I missed you."

Anxclof didn't say anything.

"But… my memories all started to come back in the last week that I was here." Roxas met her eyes. "In my dreams, I saw you and Axel, and everything we would get up to while we were in the Organization. I remembered… who my real friends were."

Anxclof held her breath, waiting for him to get to the point. She had a small idea of what he wanted to say, but she wanted to hear him out first.

"I remembered who _you_ were… and I know how sappy I sound," he added at Anxclof's raised eyebrow. "Just hear me out."

Anxclof shrugged, even though she was starting to feel both nervous and excited. "Go on."

"The point is that…" Roxas heaved a breath and looked at her. For the first time she noticed that his free hand was gingerly touching hers.

"I… I think I love you. Okay? That's all I wanted to say." Roxas said all this in a rush.

Anxclof stared wide-eyed at him.

"Well, Sora did like Kairi, after all, so I guess that emotion must have carried over to me, because Nobodies remember what their Others felt…"

He was babbling. Anxclof managed to put a finger to his lips, making him close his mouth and stare hopefully at her. (4)

"Roxas," she said, her mouth forming into a grin as she spoke. "Just shut up, okay?" Hesitantly, she added, "I… I like you too."

Roxas' eyes grew wide enough to mimic Anxclof's.

"I don't know…" Anxclof took her hand away from his face and put it on her chest, over the place where her heart should be. "I never found out who my Other was – I wasn't in the Organization long enough to find out, and it wasn't like Xemnas ever gave a damn. But… I must've gotten some sort of positive feeling from her – or _him_, for all I know."

"That'd explain a lot," Roxas said playfully.

Anxclof raised an eyebrow. "Don't ruin the moment, spike."

Roxas chuckled. After a few moments, it grew into chortling, and then into hearty laughter, which the girl couldn't help but join.

They spent a happy minute laughing at the joke that, in retrospect, hadn't even been that amusing in the first place – laughed to the point of tears at such a stupid nickname, a nickname that Anxclof had given him herself.

She realized that the reason for the laughter was that both of them were relieved; relieved that the other returned their feelings in kind.

Roxas' laughter petered off into silence, to be replaced by a sudden, unnatural seriousness. Anxclof suddenly realized that they were inches apart.

Almost of its own accord, one hand came up and pushed a dark brown lock out of her face. She stiffened at first, then relaxed as the hand gently came to rest on the back of her neck.

One part of her was screaming for him to kiss her already, and yet the other part wanted so badly to savor this. She knew that even now, Char and the others were probably trying to get Sora back in whatever way they could.

And while Anxclof didn't know a true way to give a Heartless back what it had lost, she was pretty sure that there were ways.

She suddenly realized that while she had been thinking, Roxas had leaned further toward her, so that his lips now covered hers.

Anxclof's mind seemed to shut down. _Kiss him back, you idiot! Kiss him back!_

She could feel him smirk into her lips and felt an almost competitive feeling surge through her.

Tentatively, she leaned forward, being careful not to fall and break the contact – the contact that, in retrospect, she had worked so hard for. In response, the hand around her neck tightened almost imperceptibly into a fist.

Eventually, they had to pull back for air. As Anxclof did so, she was staring at the ground, and brought a hand to her lips.

"Roxas…" She looked up when a random beam of light shone out of the corner of her eye.

The blond was looking urgently at her, his entire body seeming to become transparent – which, Anxclof realized with a pang of horror, was where the light had come from; it had shone through his body.

"Roxas!"

Roxas' eyes, half translucent as they were, seemed to shine with an unwilling understanding. "Heh. Looks like they got Sora back after all." His voice almost echoed, as though he were disappearing into the distance even now.

Anxclof shook her head fiercely. "Damn it! If I'd known there was a way to get Sora back, I would've disposed of the others as well!"

Tears were sliding down her cheeks, creating shameful trails of heat in their path. Roxas reached forward and wiped them away with a finger.

"It's like DiZ said…" He shrugged sadly. "This is the fate of a Nobody."

A strangled sob managed to escape the confines of Anxclof's throat, and she clutched his hand tightly to her cheek.

Light rent the air: brighter this time, more definite than the dying sun. Anxclof had to close her eyes against it.

When she opened them, the hand that had held his was empty, pressed only to her face. Roxas was gone.

Anxclof fell to her knees and pounded a fist on the ground. The tears were falling more quickly now, which only frustrated her even more.

So, all that had been for nothing…

"Damn it," was all she could say. She stared at the ground, which seemed to blur before her. "Roxas…"

The whispered word turned into a cry of pain that echoed throughout the area and sent the seagulls flapping away.

_"ROXAS!"_

* * *

(1) Oh, the awkward fluff. She's really only hugging him because she's so relieved. Besides, what did you expect? Something like this:  
Char: Omg, ur back to normal! I now see how hott u r! Lets hav sex liek omg!  
Sora: Liek, okay! (insert... inappropriate... things)  
Come ON. This fic is rated T, people. :)  
Anyway, there they are, having their desperate cuddle moment...

(2) ...and then Maleficent shows up, all "zomg evul", to ruin it. xD

(3) Ah, yes. Here comes the beginning of one of the most awkward parts I will probably ever write, mostly because A) I've never been kissed, so I don't really know what it's like (aside from fanfics, which as you all know aren't always accurate), and B) the ending that follows is somewhat cliche and probably expected by all our readers.

(4) Anxclof's such a copycat...  
Anxclof: Well, WHAT? I had to think of SOME way to make him shut up for a second!

Me: So, yeah. One of the best action scenes I've written thus far, and a bit of fluffy/tragic romance too.  
Anxclof: All in all, a great chappie, I would say!  
Char: Tch. You just liked it cuz Roxas kissed you.  
Anxclof: MAYBE I DID!  
Me: (sigh)


	24. Chapter XXIV

Me: Bleh, well, I practically forced the middle and end of this chapter today x.x Oh, and it doesn't really help that NO ONE REVIEWED LAST CHAPPIE...  
Char: Saf, don't review-whore. It's not cool.  
Me: Well, I'd seriously appreciate a little feedback. It's part of the reason why this chapter is so late, actually... I was going to update on my 15th birthday, but, I dunno, I just didn't FEEL like it.  
Char: AND your English teacher is psychotic.  
Me: Right, that too.  
Char: Anyway, Saf's pity-whoring aside...  
Me: HEY!  
Char: ...here's the semi-crappy new chapter.  
Me: Yeah... this is the part where I'm fairly uninformed. I haven't played KH1, so I don't know what Maleficent's castle used to look like. You'll see why that's important in a bit... (wink)

**_Disclaimer-_** No.

* * *

Char sat in her respective chair in the Gummi ship, staring off absently out the windows. After they had warped back to the Gummi hangar, the group had promptly been greeted by Chip and Dale, the chipmunk pilots, who enthusiastically thanked them for their assistance. Sora had looked confused the entire time, and Donald and Goofy had had to explain to him what had happened while he had been up in Kingdom Hearts. But, thank the gods, they hadn't told him about what all Sora had done while he was a Heartless.

It was this relief that caused Char's melancholy. If she had known she was going to feel so bad about it later, she certainly wouldn't have treated Anti-Sora the way she did – like a pet, a little brother, almost; protecting him from what he feared.

_But what was I supposed to do?_ she argued mentally. _Kick him around?_

The main thing that bothered her was that if it had been the real Sora – the brown-haired, Keyblade-wielding, dorky Sora – she would have picked that option. Char was the type of person who thought the only way to get anywhere was to be as tough and dependable as possible, and so far, that had worked.

Now, only – Char scanned her memory briefly – three days into this momentous journey, she could see that forcing everything on Sora and the others could not be the best course of action.

She pulled her legs up and rested her chin on her knees. Outside the window, green wisps of cloud rushed by as the Gummi ship headed toward Hollow Bastion.

Hollow Bastion. The thought of heading back home again made her shudder. She supposed that she should feel happy, but remembering the events that forced her to leave tainted whatever happy times she had had there. Char could hardly remember the antics of Braig, the clumsy enthusiasm of Ienzo, her brief time with her pet Heartless, without reminding herself what had happened to them all.

She could hear the others talking behind her while the chipmunks piloted. Sora's brown hair flashed out of the corner of her eye, inadvertently bringing back the memory of earlier. Char felt heat flow into her cheeks and ducked her head in an attempt to hide it; but thankfully they didn't seem to notice.

In reality, she had no idea what had possessed her to hug him when she saw he was back. Relief, surely – but if that had been it, she knew she would have done nothing more than pat him on the back and give him a thumbs up.

There was also that other tiny little possibility –

Char pushed that thought to the back of her mind at once. She knew for sure that she didn't harbor a crush on the Keybearer; and even if she did, the purpose of both her and Sora's quests would keep them from doing anything.

Char had never been the type of girl to swoon and float after boys. In fact, she was probably more apt to slice them to pieces if they tried anything; this had put them off and she had been mostly left alone. She dismissed the aforementioned girls as stupid, no-personality suck-ups with no pride. Unfortunately, this seemed to be all that men were attracted to.

She suddenly realized the implications of what she was thinking about, and shoved it to the back of her mind.

She pushed a stray piece of her bangs back off her face, which promptly fell back into place again. As she did so, her eyes scanned the area – for what reason, she didn't know; perhaps boredom, she mused. Her gaze met Sora's. They stared into his own sapphire orbs for all of about a quarter of a second before he darted them away.

Char knew he was thinking of the way she'd hugged him, and couldn't blame him for his attitude – the memory still brought heat to her cheeks.

She sighed inwardly. _This has to stop._ If they were to make it through this journey, there could be no awkwardness between the two of them.

Swiftly, before she could persuade herself not to, she got to her feet. Sora had clearly caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and lifted his head quizzically.

Char took a deep breath and walked past him, to the entrance to the back room of the Gummi ship. She stopped at the door and turned to give the brunette an expectant look; he jolted to attention and followed her into the room.

The sound of the door closing behind them suddenly seemed to shut out everything else; even Donald and Goofy's voices were muffled, clear as they had been from outside. The abrupt silence unnerved Char, but she sensed that Sora had something he wanted to say.

After a few moments of agonizing silence, Sora finally spoke. "Well… um… So about today…"

"You're wondering about the hug," Char interrupted. Without really intending it, her voice had hastened in the last part, very nearly skipping over the last word.

Sora closed his mouth and nodded, staring at his shoes.

Char sighed. "To be honest, I don't even know why I did that. I guess…" She groped for the right words; words that wouldn't give the poor boy any ideas. He already had Kairi; he didn't need anyone tampering with that knowledge.

"I guess I was just relieved," the redhead finally said. "I mean, you turned into a Heartless, and the rest of us had to race against time to get you back."

Sora shrugged, but he did raise his eyes to meet hers. "Yeah, you're right." His mouth formed into a small, crooked little grin. "Thanks."

Well, Char thought, the kid was trying. That was a start.

In response, she took a step forward, almost like someone who wanted to observe a wild deer up close: careful, stepping lightly so as not to scare it away. She saw the smile fade a little, but he kept his gaze locked with hers.

"I have an idea," she began. In response, Sora tilted his head.

"I think… we should just sort of forget about everything that's already happened. Not literally, of course," she added irritably at the look on his face, quailing at the idea of losing memories. Ironically, he didn't even remember the experiences at Castle Oblivion that had given him that fear.

"No, I just mean, like…" Char hesitated. "…maybe we could keep going. As… friends."

_Friends._ The word felt strange to pronounce in her mouth, or at least the plural form – the only true friend she'd had as of yet was Riku, and even now he was far away. Char bit her lip as she realized that, at this point, she really could use a friend.

If Sora noticed the way her mood jarred at the thought of Riku, he didn't say anything. His face brightened slightly. "Yeah, I think that'd be good."

Char stared at him for a moment. In that infinitesimal sliver of a moment, she thought she'd seen something of Roxas flash across his face.

The thought of this almost brought a wild, reckless grin to her face: this meant that Sora was back for good. However, as it was, the unbridled happiness had to be toned down to a subdued smile.

"Yes. I'd like that."

She cleared her throat, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and stuck the other hand out in front of her. "So. If we're starting over, I'll have to introduce myself. My name is Char Nightblaze; I use dual blades, I hate the Organization, and I love autumn. I actually have no clue why."

Sora chuckled and stuck out his own hand to shake hers.

It was so bloody ridiculous, Char thought later, but in that moment she really did think they were starting over. It could very well have been that – just a boy and a girl, trying to reestablish things and get things right.

Donald's voice suddenly called, "We've reached Hollow Bastion!"

"Gotcha," Sora called back, and turned to Char. "Okay. We're heading to Merlin's house, right?"  
Char shook her head and "tsk"ed. "Sora, your bad memory precedes you."

"And what's that supposed to mean?!"

Char simply laughed in reply, then glanced toward the windows. The sky showed that it was getting pretty close to sunset; the clouds had darkened, and Char guessed that rain was coming to Hollow Bastion later. Red and orange streaked the sky, seeming to dance together and swirl into harmonic reddish-brown.

In that moment, Char felt like things were going to be all right.

* * *

They landed the Gummi ship in the same place it had been before – at a high point of the town, where stairs sloped down to enter the marketplace. Char stepped out first, restraining the urge to inhale deeply like before and relish being home. She knew they couldn't stay here for long; they had a mission to accomplish and a castle to save.

The idea of showing Sora and the others to her old home flashed briefly across her mind, with such vivid clarity that she could almost hear her own voice telling them everything. The thought sent an unexpected burst of sorrow through her, making her stride a little more uneven.

Donald gave her an odd look, but he ran on ahead of them, shouting, "To Merlin's!" all the way.

Goofy sighed. "Y'know, he really ought to wait for us before he runs off…"

Sora shrugged. "He's got the right idea, though."

They followed the duck across the marketplace and into the more isolated district of the town. Char looked around, noticing things that she hadn't seen the last time they were here – mostly because last time they had been busy fighting the Nobodies. On the obsidian wall of the stairwell nearby, she could see the small crack where Braig had always had his target practice; near Merlin's house itself, she spotted the path leading into the back alley where she had found her pet Heartless.

_Gods,_ she thought, as a powerful wave of nostalgia washed over her. _You've gotta get over this… You can't go practically falling to pieces every time you come here._

The group entered Merlin's house. "Anybody home?" Donald called.

"Merlin! The castle's in danger!" Goofy added.

Char sighed. "Oh, like he's gonna know which castle you're talking about…"

But at that moment a sound behind them made them all turn. Merlin had just entered the room – clearly not through the door, since white smoke was fading from in front of him. "What is all this racket?" he complained, and then started when he saw them. "Oh, it's you!"

Char lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave. "Hey, Merlin. Look, it's not like we don't love to pop in just to say hi –"

"But we have big trouble!" Sora cut in. "Maleficent's back."

Merlin's dark eyes widened. "Oh, dear… Inside your castle?"

Donald and Goofy's horrified looks affirmed his question.

The wizard put a hand to his beard, staring at the ground in dread. "This is not good at all…"

"And there are Heartless in every part of the castle, and the queen's in danger!" Donald added urgently. He looked like he was about to keep on going in a rant about how terrible the situation was, but Sora shook his head.

Merlin suddenly sat up straight. "Hold on just a minute!" He looked at Char. "Was it truly Maleficent that showed up in the castle?"

"No, it was just a simulation…" Char began, adding for safety, "But we know it was her."

"Yeah, I don't think Pete could make something like that." Sora shivered at the memory of the woman he had hoped never to see again. When he, Donald and Goofy had fought the witch as herself and then as the dragon, the situation had been terrifying enough; now it was all the more important, because more people were in danger.

He unconsciously lifted his chin in a more determined way. _I'm not going to let Maleficent get away with this._

"Yes, I see," Merlin mused, turning away briefly.

Char couldn't help but tap a foot impatiently. "Merlin, we came to you because we thought you'd be the best bet. Apparently, this kind of thing hasn't happened in the castle before, so the answer to this problem isn't in a book."

"He's thinking," Donald said before Merlin could speak.

Char returned the duck's glare. "I _know_ that! But we're running out of time as it is."

They squared off for a moment before Donald growled and looked away. Char guessed that he had conceded her point; it was his home that was under siege, after all.

"Sora." The sound of Merlin's quiet voice made them all jump. The wizard was looking determinedly, yet nervously, at Sora, as though there were some task that he wasn't sure the brunette could complete.

The Keybearer stood up straighter. "Yeah, Merlin?"

After a few moments, during which Char began to wonder with a sense of dread whether Merlin had an answer at all, the aforementioned wizard spoke. "Do you know where Maleficent is hiding now?" (1)

* * *

"So, is this really the only way?" Char asked, not without a note of despondency in her voice.

Merlin nodded. "Yes. As far as I can tell, there are no other alternatives. At first I thought there might be a portal through which the Heartless have been going to reach the castle, but then I realized that there was no way that could be."

Sora tilted his head to the side. "Why?"

"If the Heartless had entered the castle from the inside, they would have been eliminated at once by the Cornerstone of Light. Am I correct?" Merlin directed this question at Donald and Goofy.

"Yup, you're right. That Cornerstone'd wipe 'em all out as soon as they got in," Goofy said, his eyes lighting up with understanding.

"But it still doesn't make sense," Char cut in. "If what you're saying is true, then they shouldn't even be there at all…" Her voice trailed off. If that had been true, Sora, in his Heartless state, would have vanished as soon as the Gummi ship had landed. There had to be some other point to this.

She glanced at Sora. He was currently looking at Merlin with his head of spiky chocolate-brown hair tilted to the side. _At any rate, I'm just glad he's back to normal._

"Maleficent probably realized this, and so she had to ensure that her Heartless had some sort of protection," Merlin went on. "And for that, there had to be another, special kind of Heartless, one that was immune to the Cornerstone. A sort of older brother Heartless, if you will."

Char's eyes widened and she looked at Sora again. "But… Sora became a Heartless right before we decided to go to the castle! So –"

"Exactly," Merlin finished. "When Sora became a Heartless, Maleficent knew she had to act and send her own Heartless to the castle."

Sora had a look of shock and disbelief on his face. "So this all was my fault?"

Donald shook his head vigorously. "Of course not! It's that girl who turned you into a Heartless."

"Yeah…" Char murmured. She realized that this was partially her own fault as well – if she hadn't helped kidnap Roxas, Anxclof wouldn't have tried to get him back through Sora.

The redhead looked back at Merlin. "At any rate, we still have to do it, right?"

Merlin nodded. "Yes… but I'm not quite sure you're prepared."

"Too true," Sora murmured. "Maleficent was so hard to beat the last time we fought her…"

"But that was only because of Riku," Donald corrected.

Char nearly flinched. The mage's words brought up the memory of when Riku had told her about his past. The silver-haired teen had been staring at the ground in shame, his words nearly muffled, when he'd mentioned how he had exploited the darkness in Maleficent's heart to make things difficult for Sora.

As it was, the redhead had to keep up her act of not knowing anything. "You mentioned Riku before, right? Wasn't he your friend?"

Sora gave her a sidelong glance that was partially hidden by brown bangs. "It's a long story," he murmured.

"But think about it, guys: she hasn't been back for too long, so she hasn't had time to build her power up!" Goofy pointed out.

Char put a hand to her chin in thought. "You have a point. I mean, how long has she been gone?"

"A year, at least," Sora answered. "You're right." He suddenly looked at Merlin. "But how can we even be sure she's still stuck up there at the castle?"

"Your news is the first I've heard of Maleficent's return. The citizens would know if she had left the tower."

"You're right." Sora turned to the others and took a deep breath. "All right. If we're absolutely sure this is the only way…"

"It is," Char said abruptly. "I know Merlin; he wouldn't make this kind of decision rashly. I trust him."

The wizard gave her a grateful look.

"So we're really infiltrating Maleficent's castle?" Donald asked, the nervousness showing even through his show of bravado.

Everyone unconsciously flinched. Even the mention of Merlin's dangerous plan sent an uncomfortable feeling swooping through the pits of their stomachs.

"Guess so," Char murmured. Her swords appeared in her hands and she lifted her chin. "Let's go."

"I'll set the town's defense mechanism to high alert so that you won't have to fight too many Heartless," Merlin said. As he spoke, he was walking over to the large computer screen and typing some password into it; the strange characters appeared on the screen as he typed them, along with some confirmation method.

The four of them left with their weapons drawn, but not without some trepidation in their hearts. Even Char, who knew the least about Maleficent's power, felt a tremor of anxiety.

_Why couldn't the Heartless have gone through that stupid portal thingy? _she thought in half-hearted anger – trying to block out the danger of the situation by doing what she always did: shifting her thoughts to something else. _At least then we wouldn't have to fight a crazy Heartless-controlling witch who wants all the worlds under her rule!_

The sunset cast their shadows in a garish, almost ominous way, while the sun's dying glow turned the clouds grayscale. Sora watched his own shadow out of the corner of his eye as it twisted about, following the somewhat jerky movements of its owner. If the Keybearer hadn't already known how to get to the castle, the walk would be even longer and more nerve-wracking, so there was at least one bright side of all this.

He sighed and looked up at the sky. Around him, people were bustling about, trying to get some last-minute shopping in before night fell and the shops had to be closed. A small group of young children raced by the solemn group, failing to pick up on the mood as they giggled and chased each other around the marketplace. Sora wished he could join them, but as it was he had a castle to save.

But that was just the way it was, wasn't it? Ever since he had obtained the Keyblade – rather, since his home had disappeared – it felt like Sora was always carrying some burden or another, a burden that just kept getting heavier and heavier. Ansem's attempt to shroud the worlds in darkness had been bad enough, but now the brunette had the Organization to worry about.

This time, though, things were different, he tried to tell himself. The wind caught his unruly spikes of hair and gently pulled them to sway; he glanced at Char. The redhead was staring straight ahead from her position at the rear, following Sora as they entered the bailey. He had another ally to help him – not the most enthusiastic of him, sure, but her skill with the sword was undeniable.

And she was coming around. Sora felt himself warm for some reason at the memory of earlier, when she had come to him and asked if they could go on as friends. In fact, that was what he had wanted from the beginning, since he had tried to talk to her at Yen Sid's tower and she had all but ignored him. It seemed like this time, she was genuinely trying to change. In his opinion, it was probably a good decision on her part – Sora wasn't sure if he would have been able to handle her cold attitude of blind hatred throughout the rest of the journey.

By this time they had gone down the broken stairway that led down to the ground level – Donald had tripped and fallen over the steps several times, hampered by the added weight of his staff, but Goofy had helped him up in time. In front of the group lay the plain strip of land that encircled the ruins of Maleficent's castle.

_I just hope she's still there,_ Sora thought. It was ridiculous, considering that at first everyone had rejected the idea of fighting Maleficent, but it made sense. If the witch wasn't operating things from her old hideout, then Minnie and Disney Castle were, for lack of a better term, screwed.

The brunette blinked. Char was definitely rubbing off on him.

He suddenly realized how quiet it was. The orange rings of the defense mechanism were blinking on and off rapidly, annihilating the potential enemies before they could even show up. No one apparently came to this part of town, because it was so close to what was practically Hollow Bastion's local haunted mansion. As the small group trekked silently across the plain, the only sound was the wind whistling softly.

Another thing that hit Sora abruptly was how close the castle had become. Anxiety quickened his companions' strides, causing the journey to become considerably shortened from what it normally would have been.

He swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat. _If this is really the only way to save the castle,_ he told himself, _then I'm more than ready to fight Maleficent again._ The least he could do was protect others' homes, even if he no longer had his own.

They halted in front of the once-magnificent castle and got a good look at how decrepit it had become. The parapets had crumbled, the debris of which was still scattered around the castle. Moss covered the walls in dark green mounds, hanging down around the balconies, and what looked like caricatures of skulls surrounded the area in a foreboding ring. The one things that felt familiar to Sora were the tall towers that rose up within the circle.

Char took a deep breath, breaking the silence. "So, we're going in there." It wasn't really a question so much as an acknowledgment.

Sora nodded. "Yeah. Guess so."

They all stood around a little awkwardly, wondering who would be the courageous one to go inside first. Donald finally spoke up. "Well, let's get going!" he squawked, puffing his chest out and heading for the nearest entrance: a rather inconspicuous hole in the wall.

"Donald, wait up!" Goofy raced after his friend.

Char and Sora followed a little more sedately. As the group headed up the winding staircase, Char found herself gripping the hilts of her blades tighter in anticipation; while part of her dreaded the upcoming battle, another part was soaring with exhilaration at the prospect of an actual _fight_, something she felt she hadn't experienced since the battle with Shan-Yu. Sora brought his Keyblade a little closer to his body, hoping fervently that they wouldn't have to face many enemies in here. The memory of the enemies he, Donald, and Goofy had faced in this castle still made him shudder.

_But if I'd had dual Keyblades, it would have been so much easier,_ he reflected. Then he frowned. _Now, how do I know that?_

His thoughts were interrupted when Char nudged him in the side; he stiffened, half-expecting a jab in the ribs, but surprisingly, she had merely tapped him. He angled his head to look at her. "Yeah?"

"I was thinking earlier," she began, almost hesitantly. "You guys have been in here before, right?"

"Yup," Goofy said, pushing aside some moss that was protruding into the room from a hole in the wall. "There were lots of Heartless." He shivered. "We almost died lots of times, didn't we, Donald?"

The duck shrugged. "It wasn't that bad," he muttered.

Sora stared at him in shock. "Are you kidding, Donald?! That's gotta be the understatement of the year!"

Char chuckled. "Heh. Guess Maleficent didn't fall back on her 'big bad witch' duty, did she?"  
Before Sora knew it, the stories of the past had carried them up the stairwell, past the old library, and down the hallway that led to where Sora had battled Riku.

"…and then I bashed that stupid dog Heartless over the head, and –" Donald broke off abruptly when he saw where they were. He scratched his head with his free hand. "Huh. Are we that close already?"

"Donald, we don't even know where Maleficent is," Goofy reminded his friend.

The mage rolled his eyes. "I know! But it would make sense if she was in here!"

"Hm, you have a point." Sora put a hand to his chin in thought. He glanced at Char and gestured with his free hand at the room ahead. "That's where I fought Riku, the last time we were in this place." He stared at the ground almost guiltily. "And where I…"

"…first turned into a Heartless," Donald finished.

Char's eyes widened slightly. "You turned into a Heartless before?" Sora opened his mouth to reply, but she shook her head. "Eh, never mind. You guys can tell me _after_ we've defeated Maleficent."

"Right!" Donald said. Without another word, he pulled the door open, straining with effort at opening the huge gate, and rushed into the room.

"Donald, wait!" Sora called.

"I guess _he'll_ never learn," Char muttered.

Goofy followed the mage, keeping his shield up in case Maleficent chose to appear, leaving Char and Sora outside.

The redhead sighed and pushed her bangs back. "Damn. Joining armies, saving Keybearers, fighting witches… I can't quite decide which one sounds more appealing."

Sora couldn't hold back a small laugh. "Yeah, me neither." He suddenly realized something. "Hey, Char?"

"Hn?" she replied.

The brunette hesitated. "We're… friends now, right?"

Char blinked. "Uh, yeah. Why?"

Her ice-blue eyes seemed to pierce into his, so that he suddenly had to look away. "Nothing," he answered. "Just… you're trying a little too hard." (2)

Char snorted and crossed her arms. "And just what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

_You don't have to pretend you're not who you are,_ was what Sora was going to say. _Just do everything you can and that'll be enough. Stop being something you're not._

He would have said these things, if a sudden cry hadn't interrupted him.

"Sora! It's Maleficent!"

* * *

(1) Thus begins a rather plot-twisty story arc. Plus also I don't feel like writing the entire Timeless River thing. (is lazy xD)

(2) And so was I - writing this chapter. --

Me: Well, the only reason I made things turn out like this was because A) I need to find some way to stall until Anxclof has her post-Roxas angstfest, and B) I REALLY want to write some more action.  
Char: So, this is the part where you all review flaming Saf for mutilating the plot of the game and making me become actual friends with Sora way too fast.  
Me: ...you're so mean...


	25. Chapter XXV

Me: DAMN... ALMOST to 40 reviews...  
Char: (sigh)  
Me: And just what are you sighing at?!  
Char: Oh, no particular reason... I just find it rather interesting that you're review-whoring without even realizing it.  
Me: A... am not! D: Well, anyway, no, I am not dead, from what one reviewer apparently gathered from the gap between updates on the last chappies - my life is just... REALLY fuckin' hectic right now, for lack of better phrasing.  
Char: Oh, also! Saf wants me to tell you readers, whether you are reviewing or not, that if you haven't figured out who Anxclof's Other is by the end of this chapter, you're officially a flipping oblivious moron who doesn't know how to read between the lines.  
Me: I DID NOT SAY IT LIKE THAT!  
Anxclof: (eyeroll) Roll the disclaimer!

**_Disclaimer-_** IDK, my BFF Sora?

* * *

Quick as lightning, without even glancing at each other, Char and Sora summoned their weapons and rushed into the room. The redhead's first instinct was to charge toward the center of the room, her blades out and intending to tear into the first bit of witchy flesh they touched. But Char had to slow to an ungraceful stop when she realized there was nothing there.

She narrowed her eyes at Donald. "This had better not be a trick."

Donald returned the glare in earnest. "Would we joke about something like this?"

Char's only response was to raise an eyebrow.

"But she was just here, honest!" Goofy protested.

"Well, I don't see…" Char trailed off as she got a better look at the room.

If Sora and Riku truly had fought in here, then the room failed to show any signs of combat. It appeared to be a distinguished room, back when the castle had played host to a number of nobles; Char could almost see the ruins unraveling, to be replaced by the chandeliers and light of the past.

What truly caught her eye was the machine in the center of the room. Patterns of light danced and tumbled about inside the heart-shaped portal, thin as lightning bolts and relatively the same shape.

Sora's eyes widened as he stepped closer. "I can't believe it's still here," he murmured, reaching out to touch it.

"Do you like it?" a sudden voice questioned. The group all jolted in shock and whirled around. There, with her dark staff held nonchalantly to one side, stood their very reason for coming here in the first place.

Maleficent.

"I told you she was here," Donald hissed in a show of anger. Char felt his feathery body trembling from where he stood close behind her.

"I've been doing a little refurnishing since I returned," the witch went on casually, sounding almost as though she were speaking to a realtor. "This room was so filthy." As she spoke, she ran a finger along the wall, coming closer to them all the time.

"Maleficent, you have to stop terrorizing the castle!" Sora blurted, and Char winced. It would have been better if he'd kept his mouth shut.

One slender eyebrow rose up over a dark eye. "And why should I do that?"

The brunette stared at her in disbelief. "Well… because… because…"

"Because lives hang in the balance?" A smirk crossed the thin face. "Because it was your fault in the first place?"

"What?" Sora cried, raising his Keyblade.

Char put a firm hand on his shoulder, holding him back. "Don't," she murmured.

Maleficent's grin widened, almost sharp-toothed in its amusement. "Your lady friend has the right idea, Keybearer. Besides, the sheer idea of redemption is so foolish. Why would you want to undo something you had wrought?"

"Maybe because it was an accident?" Char couldn't help but suggest. An edge of savage anger found its way into her voice and gave it a slight tremor. "Because it wasn't even your own fault!"

"I remember you, Char," the witch said. "You were always running around with your master and those friends of yours, gathering information to open the door. Did you have any idea whatsoever that you were actually helping me?"

Char's eyes widened. All at once, she realized what she was truly dealing with.

"Char, what's she talking about?" Goofy asked.

"Oh, you mean you three don't know?" Maleficent "tsk"ed. "What a bad companion she's been to you."

"I know she's been keeping a few secrets from us," Sora said slowly, raising his head and looking at Char. The redhead in question was so startled that she lifted her hand from his shoulder.

_Please,_ she prayed fervently, _please don't let him egg her on…_

"But isn't that the way it should be sometimes?" he went on. Char could have cried with relief at his next words. "Shouldn't everyone have a few secrets? Stuff they don't want to tell anyone else?"

Maleficent gazed at Sora for a moment. Her expression was unreadable, though her fist tightened almost imperceptibly around her staff.

"Yes," she answered at last, but in a way that suggested that she didn't agree at all. "I suppose you're right."

"Okay," Char cut in, trying to keep the tremor of relief out of her voice. "So, philosophical discussion aside…" She put her hands out and summoned her swords, bringing them in front of her so that her arms criss-crossed and her blades were next to each other.

"I'm gonna get to the point right now. Either you take all those Heartless out of the castle, or we fight you – and beat your ass from here to the End of the World." Char's voice was a low hiss that at the same time sounded with as much force as a snarl.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy took up their battle stances and nodded in agreement, though in reality Sora's heart pounded a rut against the inside of his chest. _I really hope she knows what she's doing…_

"My, my, how frightening," Maleficent laughed, delicately bringing a hand to her mouth. "What makes you believe that, with your skills reduced as they are, defeating me now will have the same difficulty it did then?" She directed this question at Sora.

He felt the words hit him like a slap to the face or a punch to the gut. In his sinking heart, he knew she was right. Sure, they had Char on their side, who had more than enough strength of will; but even now, she was probably just putting up a brave front for Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Yet another way she was forcing herself nowadays.

"Maleficent!" The hoarse voice brought everyone's attention to the door.

"I put all the Heartless in Mickey's castle like you told me to," the voice went on nervously, getting closer all the time, "but are you really sure it's gonna work? That Cornerstone could destroy 'em all as soon as they get in, now that Sora –"

The owner of the voice cut himself off abruptly as he entered the room, merely gaping with shock at the sight of the group. It was none other than Pete, Maleficent's loyal minion.

"What're you guys doing here?" he spluttered, pointing at them.

"What does it look like we're doing?" Donald shot back belligerently. "We're stopping you guys from putting more Heartless in the castle!"

Pete swung his massive head from one person to another, and then his eyes finally came to settle on Maleficent. "What's the big idea, letting these guys in here?" he demanded.

Maleficent's eyebrows rose, as though asking why he would dare defy her. In response, his ears went back and he quickly stared at the ground.

The witch looked at Sora. "How about I offer you a proposal? In exchange for defeating my minion and his Heartless, I'll take all the Heartless out of the castle."

Pete's head jerked up at once and he opened his mouth to protest, but Sora beat him to it. "How do we know we can trust you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

She shrugged. "But dear Keybearer, that's the only problem. You don't."

Sora stared at her for a moment, his dark blue eyes widening in shock. Donald and Goofy watched their friend, wondering if he would actually agree to this.

But it was Char who spoke. "Well, it's the only chance we've got," she pointed out, shrugging and crossing her arms. "I say we take it, if it will mean saving the castle." She directed her glare to Maleficent. "If, that is, you'll actually go through with it, instead of picking us off while we're exhausted."

Maleficent bowed elegantly. "Do not worry; I'm a witch of my word."

Pete was still sputtering in shock and anger as his mistress vanished in a cloud of black and green smoke; probably to watch the battle from the parapets.

Sora moved first. He raised his Keyblade into his battle position. "Well, Pete, guess we have to fight you."

"B-but… it's four against one! That's hardly fair!"

"Neither is…" Donald pretended to count it off. "A whole lot of Heartless and you against four."

"She did say 'him and his Heartless'…" Char reminded him with a sigh.

Pete perked up at once. "Oh, yeah!" Without further ado, he snapped his fingers, and a group of bat Heartless materialized around him.

The opposing groups rushed forward to battle. Sora could hear his heart pounding in his ears as one of the bats moved to claw his arm, but Goofy hit it aside with his shield just in time. His grip tightened on his Keyblade. _I won't let you get away with this, Maleficent… especially since it was my fault in the first place._

This thought lent him a surge of new energy and he leaped up to slash into the nearest Heartless. Damaged severely by the Keyblade, it fell back and disappeared.

"One down, about a bazillion to go…" he heard Char mutter.

In the meantime, Pete was not idle. Sora had half expected Maleficent's minion to just sit back and laugh and expect them to get torn apart by the Heartless; but to his surprise, Pete must've realized that they were a force to be reckoned with. He was, even now, throwing a circle of small bombs to detonate around Donald, which knocked the mage backward. However, he quickly got back to his feet and began casting furiously to make up for his damage.

At last, all the Heartless had been defeated, and all that was left was Pete himself. As Sora darted over to help out, Char was slashing at the large dog furiously, apparently wanting to get this over with. The brunette noticed a few open cuts on the redhead's arms and a small gash on her shoulder – nothing severe, but maybe he should have Donald look at it when they got out of this.

_If_ they got out of this, he corrected himself. Knowing Maleficent, she probably had a trap set up for them somewhere…

He willed himself firmly not to think about that, and instead focused on the task at hand: trying to get Pete to stop running away. The dog raced about the room, clearly wanting to flee but unable to; the witch had placed a shield around the room. (1)

The relentless onslaught soon proved to be too much for Pete. He held up his hands from where Char's blades had pushed him back against the wall. "Gah, okay, okay! You guys win," he muttered almost grudgingly.

Char lowered her swords from his throat and raised an eyebrow. "And your mistress will really get all the Heartless out of there?"

"I hope so," Pete murmured. Clearly he didn't want to suffer another beating at the hands of Sora and his companions.

Char growled under her breath and looked away. Sora could understand her feelings; if Maleficent didn't keep her word, then they had suffered all this dread and anxiety for nothing.

"Don't worry," the witch's voice suddenly sounded. Even though this was the second time she'd startled them like this, everyone still jumped all the same. Char realized after a moment that, in her surprise, her hand had instantly jumped to the nearest object. Which just happened to be Sora's own half-gloved hand.

They stared at each other before Char abruptly came to her senses and jerked away. She glanced away, not wanting to see the inevitable hurt in Sora's expression, and felt her cheeks heat up. This was so stupid, she thought viciously.

Maleficent appeared in the same green-and-black smoke that had taken her away. She snapped her fingers. "There. The Heartless have disappeared from your castle, as promised."

"And how do we know we can trust ya?" asked Goofy, giving Maleficent a skeptical look.

Maleficent raised her eyebrow. "Do you have any choice?"

Pete stared open-mouthed at his mistress, while Donald sighed. "Grr… she's right."

"Yeah, let's get back to you guys' castle," Sora murmured.

They set out down the stairwell, but not before hearing Pete's voice sounding in vehement protest, which was muffled by the closed door.

"He must have no clue why Maleficent did that," Donald remarked.

"Come to think of it, neither do we," Goofy pointed out.

"Yeah, things just seemed a bit too easy," Sora mused.

Char shrugged, putting a hand to her wounded shoulder and wincing. "Probably just to mess with our heads. That just kinda seems like the sort of thing she would do."

When she took her hand away from her shoulder, Sora saw with a flash of alarm that a few lines of blood dotted the green fabric of her glove. "Char, shouldn't you fix up your shoulder?" he asked, not without a bit of hesitation.

Char blinked in confusion, which turned to realization in an instant. "Oh! Um…" She glanced down at the injury. "It's nothing, really. Just a scratch."

"A scratch wouldn't be bleeding that much," Donald said, craning his neck to get a better look.

Char rolled her eyes. "Whatever – the point is that it's not that bad."

"I guess it doesn't matter anyway," the duck grumbled. "I think my magic needs to recharge." He waved his staff for emphasis and a few pathetically small sparks shot out.

"Hm," Sora said, tilting his head to the side. "Actually, I have an idea." He summoned his Keyblade and pointed it at Char's wound.

The redhead narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Would you mind telling me what the hell exactly you're going to do?"

The brunette merely gave her a look of rebuke and then closed his eyes in concentration; the entire group had to stop on the bottom step to watch. A barely visible beam of light suddenly fired out and Char fought the urge to jolt back in her surprise; when the light cleared, however, the broken skin of the wound was whole again.

She put her hand to her shoulder again and squeezed it lightly, partly in shock and partly to make sure the Cura spell had worked. Not even the slightest stab of pain shot through her as she touched the once-injured area. "Wow, it works," she remarked, and gave the Keybearer a small grin. "Thanks."

Sora smiled back, and she swore she could see his muscles relax. "You're welcome!" He took his place back at the lead. "We should probably get back to the Gummi ship."

"Yeah, and see Minnie too," Goofy added.

The group left the dilapidated castle, and Char let out the breath she didn't know she was holding in relief. She hadn't realized how much nighttime added to the area's foreboding aura, but now that a black-and-white-speckled blanket coated the sky and chilled the air, she realized how frightening the entire ordeal had been.

She remembered that, in the past, DiZ had visited Maleficent's castle frequently to make arrangements to go through the building on data-collecting missions; missions that she had never been a part of, but that Braig and Even had talked about often enough. _Did he think that just because I'm a girl, I would find it too scary?_ Char thought, feeling a small kernel of anger form at the memory.

She restrained a bitter chuckle. _If only he could see me now… Fighting off Heartless, avenging children, saving castles…_

It occurred to her now that Riku's request might be a double-edged sword for her: heralding more experience and knowledge, but at the same time heavy and laden with drama and worry.

But since it was so early on, Char shoved that thought to the back of her mind. Right now, all she could think of was getting to Disney Castle and then sleeping for about a week.

* * *

First the gang stopped by Merlin's house, and he congratulated them heartily, especially on Sora's acquiring the Cura spell. To their puzzlement, Leon and the others were nowhere to be found; but Sora saw no reason to worry.

"They're probably just beating up some Heartless in another part of Hollow Bastion," he pointed out. Donald and Goofy saw the logic in that and promptly forgot the whole thing, but Char couldn't help but feel a pang of unease. In the past, _another part of Hollow Bastion_ meant anywhere near the area leading to and around where she had lived and worked. She just hoped that everything was all right and that her home was still intact.

After that, they headed back to the Gummi ship. Sora had to drive it back to the castle because Donald and Goofy, who normally took turns piloting, had fallen asleep in the back room, their exhaustion finally having caught up to them. Char decided to forsake the awkwardness of what she had done in Maleficent's castle and asked Sora to tell her more about his old home on Destiny Island. For some reason, the ten minutes that it took for them to reach Disney Castle seemed to pass faster when she was listening to the Keybearer reminisce.

She couldn't help but notice the way his eyes sparkled and the way he sat up straighter when he talked about Kairi and Riku. Riku had told Char that Sora had always had an obvious crush on Kairi, but until now, the redhead hadn't really realized the depth of Sora's feelings. The combined tone of pleasure and wistfulness in his voice revealed how much he missed his friends.

They touched down in the Gummi shed through an opening Chip and Dale had created for them. Almost as soon as the four of them stepped out, with Donald and Goofy rubbing their eyes sleepily, the chipmunks were on them, squeaking with happiness and gratefulness.

Char finally managed to push the eager pilots away and they made their way toward the throne room, which was much easier to reach now that the Heartless had gone. Maleficent had kept her word, much to Sora's surprise.

When they reached the throne room, Minnie was sitting on the elaborate chair, smiling at them. "The thorns are gone!" she informed them happily. "Because of your bravery, the castle is safe and protected again. Thank you so much for everything!"

Sora rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, while Goofy just shrugged. "Aw, shucks, Your Majesty. It was nothing."

Donald nodded in emphatic agreement.

Char copied Goofy's gesture, though she felt uncomfortable being the center of attention. "You're welcome, Your Majesty…"

She trailed off when she saw a certain female duck, clad in royal clothing, peering through the entrance, undoubtedly looking for a certain someone. Char smirked and nudged Donald. "Hey, don't look now, but I think your girlfriend's here."

Donald narrowed his eyes, but as he followed Char's gaze, they widened again and he rushed toward Daisy.

Goofy glanced at Char questioningly as the two ducks embraced. "How didja know about Donald and Daisy?"

Char shrugged. "It wasn't too hard to figure out. He says her name in his sleep almost every night, and she was looking around here so desperately that I figured she definitely wasn't looking for Sora."

The brunette in question giggled. "Yeah, that makes sense." He looked back at Donald, his amused expression turning to a teasing one. "Hm… so our buddy's got a very special sweetheart…"

"Donald, I can't believe you forgot our date again!" Daisy said, pulling away and holding Donald by the shoulders so she could glare at him properly.

Donald cringed. "But… I…"

"You'd better have a good excuse this time!"

_He's so whipped,_ Char thought, and her smirk widened. (2)

The mage looked pleadingly at them, but Sora and Goofy just looked away, trying to hide their growing amusement. Char just gave him a look that said he was on his own.

"Guys!" Donald shouted plaintively.

The group laughed, all except for Donald himself, who was cowering away from Daisy's wrath. Sora's own chuckles petered off when he noticed that the Hidden Dragon – somehow having appeared in his hand throughout all this – was glowing, as was the Cornerstone of Light that was directly behind the throne. Everyone else stopped in their merriment as well as they, too, noticed what was happening.

Sora lifted the red Keyblade up to the ceiling, and like the other worlds, a beam of light shot out, creating a rift of dark clouds in the sky. He stared at the clouds for a moment before taking a deep breath and making his Keyblade disappear.

Char turned to the couple. "Eh… Daisy, was it?" At the female duck's nod, Char went on, "Sorry, but we're gonna need Donald for just a while longer."

"How much longer?" Daisy asked, looking pointedly at the mage.

Sora hesitated. "Er… well…"

"I'll be back soon, Daisy!" Donald interrupted.

"We should probably get goin'," Goofy said.

Minnie shook her head. "Oh, no! Aren't you all tired from today?"

All four of them instinctively flinched at remembering their long day, especially Sora. Not everyone had the privilege of annihilating Heartless and Nobodies; getting turned into a Heartless and brought back; and then bartering with a deadly witch all in one day.

"Well… maybe we _do_ need to rest," he murmured.

"In that case," Minnie said, turning to Daisy, "have the servants prepare the dining room and bedrooms!"

Char started. "Oh, no, Your Majesty," she said, even though her aching muscles screamed for her to forego the whole hospitality bit and just collapse onto one of the castle's beds. "We can't impose on your hospitality."

"Oh, nonsense!" Daisy waved a dismissing hand, though her eyes were on Donald. "You all can afford to stay here for just one night, can't you?"

"Yeah, one night won't hurt," Sora said.

Char huffed and folded her arms across her chest. "Tch. Excuse me for trying to be polite."

Minnie inclined her head. "I appreciate it, Char, but it's really not necessary. You all look like you could use a good rest."

The rest of the evening passed in the smooth, seamless way of a fun time. The dining room of Disney Castle was half again the width of the throne room, though it wasn't nearly as long. The servants – seemingly inanimate objects, like at Beast's castle – passed around delicious platters of turkey, cheese, rolls, peaches, and various other gourmet foods: no duck, of course, even though Donald with his mouth full couldn't exactly complain anyway. Everyone, including the queen and Daisy, ate together, with Minnie herself at the head of the table. Sora, Donald and Goofy chatted amiably to each other like this was nothing new, but Char herself was getting the best meal she could eat without looking like an ungrateful pig. DiZ had taught her better than that, after all. And besides, she knew that they might not get a meal this magnificent for a while.

Afterward, everyone was escorted to their bedrooms. A broom-like servant took Char to hers, and the redhead found herself shocked at discovering how elegant the room really was. For a guest room, the bed was of a large size and the finest fabric, fitting of a royal home such as this.

After going through the tiring business of cleaning up and turning off the lamp, Char fell – not _on_to the bed, but rather _in_to it – and was asleep almost at once. (3)

* * *

"_Hey, Char," the gray-haired boy says, giving the fourteen-year-old girl an expectant look. "I have a question."_

_She glances over at him, finally managing to surface from the heavy book that has currently taken up residence on her lap. "This had better be important, Ienzo. That assignment for Master Ansem is due tomorrow and I still haven't done it." _

_Ienzo shrugs, but he looks a little guilty. "Sorry Char. But I just have a _really_ quick question."_

_Char raises one eyebrow, her topaz eyes gazing at him from behind her glasses._

_"Do you know what Xehanort's been doing lately?" _

_"In reference to what?"_

_"I mean, like…" Ienzo fidgets, as though he is telling something he promised to keep a secret. "You've seen how he keeps running off without telling Master. He's obviously up to something."_

_"And I say you're paranoid," Char murmurs – but her voice is half-hearted, like she doesn't really believe it. Her eyes flick back down to the book page, skimming over the words like a water bug across the surface of a pool. "Xehanort's always done that, and it's just now bothering you?" _

_Ienzo blinks, and then a grin spreads across his face. "Yeah, you're right."_

* * *

"_I know what I saw, Master," Char gasps. Her eyes are wide and glazed with fear and the exhaustion of running all the way through the Postern from the bailey. "Xehanort was walking with Braig and the others, and then those Heartless came along, and then they –"_

…and then they…

…they…

_Her breaths come in fast, desperate little gulps: almost of someone who wants and needs to cry, knows the situation merits crying, and yet they cannot muster the energy for tears._

_Her master's amber eyes survey her almost calculatingly, as though weighing his only female apprentice's trustworthiness against the other six. For him, it's clearly no contest. He looks away, his eyes downcast in shame._

_"If that is the case, then we are already too late."_

* * *

"_So, who's this kid that your friend wants us to meet?" Char asks, pushing her hair out of her eyes with a glove-clad hand. The glasses are gone, revealing the true icy color of her eyes._

_Her master merely gives her a reproving look, which somehow seems amplified through his single visible eye. "His name is Riku, and they will both be coming here soon enough."_

_"Tch," Char grumbles. "Sounds like a rip-off if you ask me."_

* * *

"_Tell me everything," Char demands, giving the silver-haired teen one of her illustrious glares. "How you got to Castle Oblivion, what you're fighting inside your heart… I'm so tired of secrets."_

* * *

That night, as Anxclof slept, she too dreamed.

After Roxas had vanished, she had curled into a small, pathetic ball and cried in the no-restraint way of one who has just lost the only person that could ever comfort them. As night had gathered above her, so had the clouds, and so eventually her tears were hardly visible among the hammering raindrops that plastered her hair to her sides.

At last, as her tears ebbed, Anxclof had realized that if she didn't get to a shelter soon, she would probably catch a cold out in this rain, or worse. She found herself unable to summon the mental energy to conjure a portal, so in the end she had crawled under the awning of one of Sunset Terrace's shops and curled up in an attempt to keep warm. Somewhere in the back of her mind her core of steel was screaming about how pathetic and stupid this was and how she should get out of this pity party_ right now,_ but as of now, the pity party overwhelmed that voice.

Now, she had thought, she knew she had a heart, because it was breaking.

Somehow, even though every once in a while her shuddering breath was still interrupted by the hitch of a hiccup or sob, Anxclof had managed to close her eyes, lay her head on the wet ground, and go to sleep.

But, as Roxas had said, Nobodies didn't truly dream, as Anxclof discovered. Not really. These dreams were not of herself, but instead, of another life; a life that clearly was not her own.

* * *

_The brunette stands in the middle of a circular, stained glass platform, emerald eyes wide with confusion and fear. "Where am I?" she murmurs, looking from side to side._

_Almost in reply, a flash of light rends the darkness, and vanishes to reveal a slender, iridescent pale blue blade, with a square shaft at the end. The girl stares at it, mystified._

* * *

"_Copperhead, for the last time, would you just leave me alone?" she snarls, glaring furiously at the long-haired blond boy. They stand alone in front of a deserted castle; despite the slits that her eyes have become in her anger, she looks no older than twelve. In sharp contrast to her enraged features, the boy's violet eyes give an impression of deceptive naïveté, although his strong jaw and broad shoulders makes him look about fifteen or sixteen at the most._

_He simply grins in response, which only serves to infuriate her more. "It's not funny."_

_"Falcon, I beg to differ," Copperhead answered loftily. "It's quite funny how you insist on thinking that you don't like me –" here he leans forward, his honey-colored locks brushing against Falcon's shoulders; she attempts to meet his eyes with her glare, but fails miserably – "when I _know_ you do."_

_For a moment the fury in her face dulls, to be replaced by shock. However, almost instantly, her composure is back. "Don't believe everything you hear, _Nigel," _Falcon snarls back, in a way that belies the redness tinting her cheeks._

_Copperhead leans back, eyes widening. Before he can make a retort, Falcon has deliberately pushed past him and started back to town._

* * *

"_Don't you think it's strange," Falcon remarks, tucking the violet scarf closer around her neck, "how our home's called the 'Shadowed Desert', and yet we can still get snow out here?"_

_They stand at the fence of a frozen ranch, watching the cattle move about inside. Falcon looks to be about fifteen now. Her head is tilted thoughtfully to the side so that her shoulder-length dark hair sways in the slight breeze. _

_Next to her, Copperhead, who looks almost the same as before, shrugs. He reaches out a black-gloved hand to catch one of the thickly falling snowflakes, which promptly tangles itself in the wool, and brings his hand back to gaze at it. "Well, you know what Jenkins said in bio – we tend to get some pretty extreme temperatures out here. Freezing in the winter, and hot enough to fry a polar bear in summer."_

_Falcon giggles, putting a hand over her mouth to half-muffle the sound. "Yeah. That's a pretty accurate comparison."_

_For a few minutes they stand in comfortable silence, arms braced to lean against the rail of the fence. Beyond them, the cattle stare longingly at the frost-clad grass._

_Falcon finally speaks. "I feel so bad for them."_

_One dark blond eyebrow lifts over a violet eye – a violet that is the exact same shade of Falcon's scarf. "Who? The cows?" _

_"Well… yeah!" Falcon turns to give him a condescending look, a look that says this should be obvious. "They want to eat so badly, and yet they can't get anything until their master comes out to feed them."_

_Copperhead surveys Falcon oddly as she says this. By the time she's finished, a glitter has entered his gaze, a glitter that wasn't there before._

_"Hn," he remarks. Falcon's face falls briefly, but then her eyes flick down at the brush of warmth against her mitten-clad hand. She watches almost anxiously as, with his thumb and forefinger, he takes hold of the cloth on the finger of her mitten. Carefully, in the way one would handle a broken-winged bird, he tugs the glove off; she feels the icy air hit her hand at once and nearly cries out at the cold._

_"You feel a lot for a bunch of cows," he continues, not taking his hand from her now-bare one. Falcon doesn't have to look down to know that his thumb is now lightly stroking her hand._

_She shrugs almost defensively, despite the fact that now her hand is tingling madly and turning warm despite the wintry air. _Stop that,_ she orders mentally. "They're animals with wants and needs just like the rest of us."_

_"'Wants and needs'? Interesting choice of words."_

_Falcon opens her mouth to speak again, but is cut off by the feeling of something laying itself against her cheek. She hadn't noticed Copperhead moving to take one of his own gloves off as she had spoken. His hand is cold and trembles slightly against the side of her face, but she's absolutely certain that it's warming itself up through her blush._

_"So," Copperhead whispers, reaching up to push her bangs back out of her eyes, "am I your cow?" _(4)

_Falcon can't hold back a laugh, a laugh that is muffled by his lips as he kisses her._

* * *

"_Yes," she whispers against his chest, her arms tightly wrapped around his broad frame, his chin resting on the top of her head. "You are so absolutely my cow."_

_Around them, the snowflakes swirl and combine in the night wind._

* * *

"_You're… you're kidding, right?" Falcon's voice nearly breaks. "Aren't you, Copperhead?"_

_In response, he only stares at the cold glass floor, and he sees the pathetic, sorrowful look in his eyes reflected back at him._

_Falcon's voice turns harsh. "Answer me!"_

* * *

"_You don't just do that kind of thing and hope to stay with someone," the brunette snarls at the blond; but the intended effect is hampered slightly by the sound of her tears coming through her voice. "Things don't work that way, damn it, Copperhead! You're such a whore that you should know this by now!"_

_She turns on her heel and runs, back through the forest, back through the fields, back to town, while Copperhead stares after her with a look like a deer in the headlights and his long hair plastered to his cheeks by the driving rain._

_A flash of lightning briefly illuminates his face, and he seems to finally realize that the moisture flowing down his face isn't the rain after all._

* * *

Anxclof awoke with a start. The sun was in the exact same spot it had been last night, being that this was Twilight Town, but from her internal clock, the Nobody managed to gather that the sun should just be peeking above the horizon.

She sat up, groaning at the stiffness of her limbs, and pushed the stringy hair out of her eyes. The dreams, unnaturally vivid for what Xemnas had described as "dreams", whirled through her mind like a camera playing on an endless loop.

In that moment, Anxclof knew what her true name was.

* * *

(1) This is an allusion to that ANNOYING fight you have with him in the cavern in the Underworld. Did anybody else think that he was a pain in the ass there?  
Char: Isn't he a pain in the ass everywhere?  
Me: YUP! ...but ESPECIALLY in the ass.  
Char: --;

(2) Lol. That was actually the exact thought that I had the first time I saw that cutscene.

(3) Thus begins the shiny flashback sequence that, I think, fully redeems the crappier beginning and middle of this mostly-filler chapter!

(4) Gahaha. I really have no clue what I was thinking when I wrote that line. xD Seriously, try it, guys; it's a great pickup line.  
Char: For suckers like Falcon, anyway...  
Falcon: ...(twitch)

Me: I HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO SAY.  
Char: Except that everyone should know who Anxclof's Other is by now... Seriously, could you have made it ANY more obvious in those flashbacks?  
Me: Well, at least I didn't give away why Falcon was yelling at Copperhead at the end!  
Char: ...  
Me: I rest. My. Case. :P Also, is it bad to be infatuated with your own character? (shifty eyes)  
Copperhead: Oh, Saf. You don't have to pretend for me. (wink)  
Me: (swoon)


	26. Chapter XXVI

Yes, I'm still alive. Actually, before this weekend, I only had up to the part where Char sees the letter written.  
Char: She's gonna have plenty of time to work on it now, because this week is spring break for her school district.  
Me: Agh, why'd you go and tell them that? Now they're gonna pressure me to work on it even more!  
Char: (sarcasm) Whoops.  
Me: Well, Char's bitchiness aside, here's Chapter 26. It's more of a filler than anything, but at least now they're leaving Disney Castle and heading to the Olympus Coliseum.  
Char: (sigh)  
Me: ...where something extremely painful is going to happen to Char... (smirk) Also, I'm going to try and stop doing author's notes altogether, since I think they distract from the plot and it's a pain to write them anyway.

**_Disclaimer-_** Don't look at me. I'm just the sane one among the sea of yaoi fangirls.

* * *

Char woke the next day feeling surprisingly refreshed, having not remembered any of the nightmares that had plagued her. She had a vague sense that her dreams had been haunted by the same specter of a memory that had followed her for so long, but when she tried to remember what exactly had happened, she found she could not.

But she figured it was probably just as well she didn't recall it; she was trying to suppress it in the present as it was.

The events of yesterday all seemed to crash on her at once – danger, awkwardness, more danger, and more awkwardness all rolled into one. The fact that she had hardly spoken to Sora last night – especially after saving him the way she had – felt like it was eating at her guiltily.

_All right, all right,_ she thought irritably, trying to ignore the feeling. _I'll go talk to him._

She attempted to push herself up from the bed, only to find that her body wasn't willing to leave the pristine comfort of the mattress just yet. Minnie had truly gone all the way with this guest room, despite the fact that she barely even knew any of them. Char made a mental note to thank the mouse queen as soon as they could get back on the road.

After many failed attempts to get out of bed, the redhead settled for retrieving her jacket from the desk and putting it on. As she put her arms through the sleeves, something sticking out of one of the drawers caught her eye – something white that fluttered in the breeze the fan picked up.

_Hm?_ Blinking the sleepiness out of her eyes, Char managed to get out of the luxurious bed, aided by her curiosity. She pulled the drawer open with one hand and picked up the note with the other. Closing the drawer, she turned around and took a few steps forward into the light of the lamp in order to get a better look. Nevertheless, she still had to squint in order to read what it said:

_My dearest Minnie,_

_How's everything going back at the castle? You know how things are out here: lots of Heartless, dangers that have to be vanquished and all that. I betcha Daisy's going nuts now that Donald's gone, haha! _

_Things are surprisingly good on my end. I've gotten Riku to a safe place like I said I would, and I'm still going to visit him every so often. Sora… well, he's been moved as well. In his current state, he didn't have much say in the matter, but I just hope he rises to the challenge when it revisits him, whether he remembers it or not._

_My friend said he'll keep watch on both Riku and Sora – do you remember when I told you about Ansem? Well, now he's calling himself DiZ, supposedly to hide from his enemies. He had a girl with him – Char, he said she was called – who looks about Riku's age, so it's not like he'll be bored while waiting for Sora to wake up. From the looks of things, they're getting along pretty well already!_

_Anyway, I just thought I'd write, since I haven't had time to for a while and I don't want to make you worry. Trust me – though times may be dark now, there will always be a light at the end of that shadow._

_Your beloved king,_

_Mickey_

Char's eyes widened as she read, especially the part that mentioned her and Riku. It was ironic, because at the start they hadn't gotten along well at all. She knew that Riku had half-expected her to be a sort of "replacement" for Kairi, and Char herself hadn't taken very well to that idea. However, by the end of the sixth month together, he had gotten past that and they had become close. It had been so much better for the both of them to get along, because they had both desperately needed a friend at that time.

Carefully, Char put the note back in the drawer and eased it closed. Somehow, she didn't think the queen would take very kindly to some stranger having read a letter to her.

Now… where was she going again?

_Oh yeah… to talk to Sora,_ Char remembered. The surprise of finding Mickey's letter had somewhat thrown off her train of thought.

She donned her green gloves, noting with some dismay their ragged state, and moved off down the hall. Since there had been a view of the courtyard right below her window, Char found that she didn't need a guide.

She remembered that Sora had been led out of the door and across the courtyard to another part of the castle. The way she saw it, if she didn't recognize the area when she entered the other side of the castle, she could just find a servant to tell her where Sora's room was.

It turned out that she didn't have to bother, because the first thing she saw when she stepped outside – apart from a dew-soaked array of grass statues and blinding sunlight – was a bushy brown head.

Sora was leaning against a shaded, stool-shaped formation, his chin resting against his arms and his eyes half-closed. The pleasant breeze pulled his spikes almost teasingly, and in one hand he held something Char couldn't see. As she watched, he raised his hand, took a bite out of what he was holding, and put it down.

He suddenly seemed to come to awareness, and he turned his head. "Good morning, Char!" he greeted, his mouth clearly still full.

She rolled her eyes as she approached. "Hey, Key-boy," she murmured. Sora's face fell slightly, but he swallowed his food and grinned all the same.

She realized that she had hurt his feelings by not replying as enthusiastically, and for some reason this made her annoyed. _What, does he expect me to be Little Miss Sunshine all the time?_

To make up for it, she gestured at what he had in his hand. "What are you eating?"  
Sora blinked and stared down at the food. "A croissant. The servants were making some of them this morning and offered me one."

"Ah."

"Do you want a bite?" he asked, holding it out to her.

Char shrugged. "Hm, sure, I guess." She took a bit off the end that didn't have a bite taken out of it, and popped it into her mouth. The croissant was delicious and eased some of the hunger that caused her stomach to growl, but she didn't say anything other than, "Pretty good."

She took up a position identical to Sora's next to him, and he duly scooted over to give her room. The two of them sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. After a bit, it came to Char that five days ago, she would hardly have called any silence with the Keybearer "companionable". She supposed that the trouble they had suffered together had brought them a little closer, somehow.

"Hey, Char?"

Sora's quiet words startled her, and she glanced at him. "Yeah?"

"Um…" The brunette was staring at the grass formation that was straight ahead, which happened to be a rabbit. "I just wanted to say thanks for yesterday," he finally said, managing to meet her eyes. His own eyes, wide and dark blue, seemed to bore into her own.

She suddenly came to. _What is wrong with me!_

Looking away, she shrugged, though she could still feel Sora's gaze on her back. "It was nothing. What could I have done – left you there as a Heartless?"

Sora laughed. "Yeah, you're right." He hesitated. "It's just that… I had a thought."

Char looked back and gave him a look that said she was listening.

"Yen Sid mentioned that when a strong-hearted person is turned into a Heartless, a Nobody is created too." He glanced back down at his hands. "So… does that mean that before, when I was turned into a Heartless at Maleficent's castle, a Nobody was created?" Softly, he added, "Or is my heart not strong enough for that?"

Char's eyes widened, but she hastily suppressed her instinctive reaction, which was to gasp. Oh, but Sora had gotten the idea more quickly than she thought he would.

In that moment, for some reason, she wanted to tell him everything. The way he was looking at her now, eyes wide with anxiety and naïveté, she would look back and marvel at her self-restraint.

In the end, however, all she said was, "If you do have a Nobody, he's most likely fodder by now. Even though they have a basic idea of survival from their Others, Nobodies come into the world almost like babies." Firmly, she added, "And who said your heart wasn't strong enough? I've only known you for five days and I know damn well that a lesser man would have killed himself by now. You've been wandering around for so long looking for your friends and haven't given up. I consider that strong at any rate."

Inadvertently, the mention of Riku and Kairi brought the memory of Braig, Ienzo and the others back into her mind. _And I didn't even try to get them back, regardless of the friendship we had,_ she thought guiltily. _Because DiZ said it was too late._

But what else could she have done at the time? It had all happened so fast.

Sora stared at her for a moment, half in disbelief, half in embarrassment. Char suddenly noticed that his cheeks were turning a rosy red.

"Thanks," he muttered, but there was an obvious grin on his face.

Trying to recover some of her front, Char gave him a light punch on the shoulder, unable to keep back a smirk of her own. "Hey. What did I tell you about being obvious?"

"Oh! Right." The smile vanished at once to be replaced by an overly-exaggerated look of seriousness, his brows drawn down in a deep frown and his eyes half-squinted. It reminded her of when they had gone to Hollow Bastion and he had tried to do an impression of Leon.

The redhead rolled her eyes, but she laughed as well. "You're so weird."

Sora's mock-serious face dissolved into an indignant pout. "Am not!"

They laughed together for a bit, before Sora's own chuckles petered off into silence. He looked at the rabbit formation for a moment, still smiling as he finished off the croissant. Then his gaze fell on Char again, his grin fading. "Can I ask another question?"

Char sighed in mock anger. "What now?"

"Um… you know how back home I had Kairi, right?" Sora's face turned bright red just mentioning the name Kairi, causing Char to giggle.

"Yeah, yeah. What's your point?"

"Well… at Hollow Bastion, did you have somebody?"

The question caught Char off-guard. Unbidden, the image of a gray-haired boy flashed through her mind.

_"Hey, Char, wanna do this project with me?" _

_"Sure, whatever. DiZ said we need partners anyway…"_

_"You and I are buddies, right, Char?" _

_"Of course. Why wouldn't we be?..."_

_"Um, Char? I… I brought a flower for you…"_

She suddenly realized that Sora was still watching her, waiting for a response. It felt like resurfacing from boggy water as she replied, "Somebody? In reference to what?"

"Well… you know…" Sora fidgeted. "…_romantically…"_

"Oh." Char found herself unable to look him in the eye. "Um, no. I mean, I liked my share of guys, but none of them were actually serious."

Actually, she hadn't. But she wasn't supposed to tell Sora everything on this journey, anyway.

"Oh, okay." Sora sounded relieved that they were finally getting away from this awkward topic. "I was just wondering."

Char shrugged, still not looking at him.

"Hey!" Goofy's voice made them glance over. The dog and the duck were walking toward them from Sora's side of the castle; the former grinned welcomingly at them, while the latter merely waved.

"Guess you didn't get a good night's sleep, huh, Donald?" Sora laughed.

Donald glared at the brunette. "Of course I did!"

"Of course he did," Char agreed, unable to resist her own little jab at him. "Daisy was there, right?" She smirked as Donald let out a "hmph". "Thought so."

"Well, um," Goofy broke in before a fight could break out, "we've already had our breakfast, right? So, let's get goin', a-hyuck!"

Sora glanced at Char. "Did you get anything to eat?"

"Other than that bite of croissant, no. But I'll get something on the way out; we should probably be going."

"Are you leaving already?" Minnie's voice sounded from just beyond. The queen and Daisy came forward from the other side of the castle. Daisy looked vaguely annoyed that her lover was going so soon, but Minnie just seemed resigned. "In that case, good luck to you all. And Char?"

The redhead, who had turned away with the others at the queen's alleged dismissal, looked back over her shoulder. "Hm?"

"If anything should happen to Donald and Goofy, I want you to take care of Sora," Minnie explained, a grave undertone lurking behind her words. "You proved to me yesterday that you're more than capable."

Char jerked a bit in surprise, but then stared at the ground. "Er… it was nothing. Really. Anyone would've done the same in my place."

Minnie gave her a look that said she begged to differ, but merely said, "If you see the king, tell him we all miss him."

The word "king" brought back the memory of the note Char had found in the drawer. She considered briefly telling Minnie how much she knew, only to decide against it. The last thing this frightened, shaken monarch needed was the knowledge that a total stranger had found a small piece of access into her privacy.

"Donald!" Daisy wailed. "Are you leaving again?"

"I promise," the duck said, "the next time I come here it'll be for good!"

"Are you absolutely sure?" She narrowed her eyes at Donald, causing him to cringe.

Goofy had to step in. "Yup, Daisy, I'm sure of it. And, if we're lucky, we'll have the king with us too!"

"Oh, thank goodness." Minnie's entire body seemed to relax with her sigh of relief.

"Alright, see you later!" Sora called over his shoulder, waving and walking backwards toward the Gummi shed. Char stifled a giggle when he nearly ran into one of the grass formations, which caused him to turn around and walk straight again.

She looked back at Daisy and Minnie once Sora, Donald, and Goofy were out of earshot. "Really, thanks: the meal, the bed, everything – they really helped." She nearly winced at the memory of yesterday; before, Char never would have guessed that so much danger could be packed into one day.

Minnie nodded. "Any time."

"Also, one quick thing." Maybe it was just Char's imagination, but the two of them seemed to lean forward to hear well. "I used to live in Hollow Bastion as a researcher, and every once in a while, King Mickey would come see my master. They were quite close, in fact, before… before I had to leave."

To Char's relief, Daisy and Minnie didn't ask _why_ exactly the redhead had had to leave.

"Ask the king about 'Ansem' when he gets back," Char finished. Without waiting for a response, she turned away and headed toward the Gummi shed.

Daisy looked worriedly at her queen. "Do you think they'll be all right? It's so dangerous out there…"

Minnie sighed. "All we can do is hope, and place our trust in them that they'll come back." She gazed up at the sky; a flash of light caught her eye, and she watched in wonder as the beam of white light pushed aside some of the pale blue to make room for a contrasting slit of murky-brown clouds.

"Sora has the Keyblade," she added. "And Char, Donald, and Goofy to support him. I believe that they will find whatever they may be looking for."

Daisy lifted her own gaze to the dark rip in the sky, and together, the two friends watched the Gummi ship lift off and sail through the gap just as it closed.

The queen looked back down at her shoes and clasped her hands.

_Mickey… I just hope you're all right._

* * *

"So, where to next?" Sora asked, kicking back in his chair with his feet up on the dashboard.

Donald frowned at that, but replied anyway. "I saw a world on the map that looked a little like the Olympus Coliseum." He walked over and pointed at the dome-like symbol on the map.

"Well, at least it's familiar territory. Let's head over there and see how Herc and Phil are doing," Sora agreed.

"Wait just a second," Char suddenly said. Everyone turned to look at her. She pointed at Donald, who was currently piloting the ship. "Um… I know it's a really stupid request, but…"

"Spit it out," the duck growled.

An embarrassed grin crossed the redhead's features, and Sora blinked. _Embarrassment? That's not like her at all._

Yet he wasn't complaining. In these rare moments when she allowed the shell to crack, just a little, Char was strangely… cute.

_Wait a sec, _what! Sora shook these thoughts out of his head at once. _It's just pointing out facts,_ he told himself. _You can say a tiger is cute, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're in love with it._

_Yeah, a tiger's definitely what Char is,_ he thought dryly. _But at least you can pet those._

In his thoughts, Sora had almost missed her question, but he caught it just as she voiced it.

"Can I drive?"

Donald blinked, and his brows furrowed in a frown. "What?"

"Can. I. Drive?" Char repeated, leaning over and closer to Donald's face to emphasize her point. Now the grin was starting to resemble a smirk. "Come on. Just once."

"But…" Goofy interrupted. "Didn'tcha say once that you were a bad driver?"

Char simply shrugged.

"I think we should," Sora said. Donald and Goofy stared at him like he had just grown an extra head, but Char just straightened and smiled wider.

"Thanks, Key-boy." She looked at Donald. "I think that requires you to move over," she remarked, making a finger motion at the words 'move over'.

Donald did so, grumbling all the way about how they were going to regret this. Char plopped down in the pilot's chair and then looked down at the map on the screen. "Okay, so we're going to this world, right?" she asked the others, pointing at the symbol that they had classified as the Olympus Coliseum.

They all nodded.

"Alright then, full speed ahead!" Char laughed and yanked the steering wheel to the left, which was where the actual Olympus Coliseum was in front of them. In response, the Gummi ship veered sharply forward, and a mist of pale green cloud briefly obscured the view before the clouds cleared away.

"Oh, no." Sora groaned.

The grin on Char's face was growing wider as she steered directly into the swarm of whirling asteroids that served as a barrier. "Oh, yes."

"She's gonna kill us," Donald moaned.

* * *

Now the only question in Anxclof's mind was: _What the hell am I supposed to do?_

She had decided right after waking up that she would put Roxas out of her mind as much as possible, but of course that was rather difficult, considering how she felt about him. Whenever he did pop up in her head, though, the memories of the past and what could have been brought the irritating warmth of tears to her eyes and a lump in her throat that made it hard to breathe. So, Anxclof had decided to stop thinking about him altogether. If anything, that was even more painful, but at least now she could sort of think without the impediment of grief tempering her decisions.

She suddenly felt, rather than heard, the insistent rumble of hunger resonating from her belly, and she winced. Of course – the three human needs, or at least Anxclof's essential three: shelter, company, and food.

She tried to remember if Roxas had told her about any good restaurants here. While they had been wandering the tunnels below the subway, Roxas had mostly told her about his exploits with his friends during the short time he had lived in Twilight Town, so that couldn't be it.

The thought of that inadvertently brought the image of Roxas talking animatedly, his ocean-blue eyes shining bright with nostalgia: eyes that had reflected the darker part of the sea when he had vanished.

Anxclof found herself furiously rubbing her hand over her cheeks in an attempt to head off her tears before they could fall down her face. _Stop it. Think of what to do next. You're hungry. Find food._

She shivered as she realized how bedraggled she must look. She had been standing in the rain for a while, crying, after Roxas had… vanished.

The glitter of the sun on a nearby puddle caught her eye, causing Anxclof to peer into it. What she saw was a young woman with stringy, dark brown hair and tired emerald eyes that had crimson veins curling off the edges of the iris. She winced and unconsciously pushed her hair behind her ears. It wasn't as bad as she had assumed it would be, but it was still gapingly obvious that she had been out in the rain for a long time.

She got to her feet and looked around. A sign next to the building she had sheltered under read "Sunset Terrace."

_Sunset Terrace,_ she repeated mentally. She and Roxas had taken the tunnels to get here from the main area of Twilight Town, but he had mentioned something about the tunnels being "more fun than the train".

_More fun…_ she thought dryly, remembering the terrifying shock of feeling the trains directly above her head. _Sure, and sitting on an angry porcupine is fun too! Barrels of fun!_

Briefly, she dug through her pockets for munny for the train. It turned out to be a fruitless search, however, and Anxclof felt a sigh whoosh out of her as she plopped down to lean against the building. She rested her head against the wall, a sense of despondency spreading through her. No munny, no company, no food…

She just thanked the gods and Kingdom Hearts that it was too early for people to come out to Sunset Terrace, which was evidently the shopping area of Twilight Town. If anyone saw her looking like this, there would undoubtedly be some negative results on both parts: hers for being noticed, and the other for having a Keyblade wound on the back of their head.

A smile twitched across her face at that part. It made her think of another memory of Roxas, and yet this time, she managed to keep back her tears; for this was of the somewhat happier time, back in the Organization.

* * *

"_Are you absolutely sure that Xemnas was right about this place?" Axel complained._

_Roxas glanced back at him; the blond had been named the leader of the small group because he usually took these missions seriously. "Look, Axel, I don't even know myself. I just know that disobeying the Superior usually leads to negative consequences."_

_The redhead winced, clearly remembering something along those lines, as he rubbed the back of his head. "Eh, yeah, you're right, I guess."_

_The three of them were exploring the world known as the Olympus Coliseum, where, supposedly, Xemnas had sensed a huge gathering of Heartless. The Superior had told them to go to the sub-world within the Coliseum, which was aptly named the Underworld, in order to eradicate the Heartless and strengthen Kingdom Hearts. _

_The Underworld wasn't exactly the ideal vacation spot, though. Falling rocks, mud that sucked at their boots, and winding corners that often had Heartless hiding behind them made things difficult for the group. _

_As for Anxclof, she was situated at the rear, behind Axel, which was almost where she preferred to be. This was her first mission for the Organization, however, so that meant that when danger appeared, she would have to make the first move to take care of it._

_She had heard Xemnas and Xaldin, numbers I and III of the Organization, talking earlier when she had passed the lower Hall of Empty Melodies. Even though she had been walking in the hallway on the other side of the dark platform, she could still hear every word her superiors were saying._

_"She doesn't control any lesser Nobodies, nor does she have the strength to keep a Heartless under her command for longer than five minutes!" Xaldin was saying to Xemnas. "How do you expect Number XIV to hold her own if she cannot accomplish even these small tasks?"_

_Xemnas had chuckled. "All in good time, Number III; all in good time. Have you considered that Number VIII and Number XIII took almost as long to merely discover their weapons, whereas Number XIV has had quite a while to adapt to hers?"_

_Xaldin opened his mouth to reply, only to growl softly and look away, his dreadlocks swaying slightly with the movement. "I suppose you have a point."_

_"Besides," Xemnas continued, "like Number XIII, Number XIV is the Nobody of a Keybearer. Together, they could prove to be a valuable asset."_

_Thinking of what they had said, Anxclof sighed. She raised one dark-gloved hand, clenched it into a fist, unclenched it again. _

_Was that all she and Roxas were destined to be – just weapons for a "cause"?_

_She also just _loved_ how Xemnas kept addressing them as their numbers. It made her feel less like, well, at least the remnants of a human being and more like a package getting ready to be shipped._

_"Anxclof? Hey, Anx!"_

_The brunette looked up at the sound of Axel's voice. The redhead had put his hand on her shoulder, and his green eyes were now looking worriedly into her darker green ones. "You doing okay? You're kinda spacing out."_

_Anxclof lowered her hand and grinned. "Nah, it's okay. Just thinking."_

_Axel straightened in mock surprise. "Anxclof thinking – what an oxymoron!" he commented sarcastically, causing the girl to punch his arm playfully._

_Roxas raised an eyebrow. "Are you two done goofing off?"_

_"Yeah, yeah," Axel replied nonchalantly, turning to face his friend. "Honestly, Roxas, do you even know what the word 'fun' means?"_

_"Of course I do," Roxas answered. "But I, unlike you, actually believe in priorities."_

_"And just what is that supposed to mean?"_

_Roxas was about to reply, but then gasped, his gaze suddenly on the cave ceiling. Without waiting for a response, he ducked to the water-sheathed ground, rolling forward so he stood directly in front of Anxclof and Axel. A white-and-blue Keyblade appeared in his left hand in a flash of light, and as Roxas' body uncurled from the roll, the Keyblade jerked up, blade out._

_Axel and Anxclof looked up and realized what was going on. The huge boulder, about to fall on them, had smashed harmlessly to pieces on the Oathkeeper's blade._

_Roxas stood up and looked over at them, one eyebrow cocked over a dark blue eye. "Now aren't you glad that I was paying attention?"_

_"Yeah," Axel muttered._

_Roxas stared at his friend for a moment, and then raised his Keyblade and tapped Axel lightly on the back of the head with it. The redhead blinked._

_In response, Roxas smiled one of his subdued smiles. "Use your head."_

* * *

The harsh clarity of what was going on in the present hit Anxclof like a fist – or a Keyblade – as the memory came to an end. She put a hand over her mouth in an attempt to stifle her sob and put her head against her arms, which were propped up on her upraised knees.

_Roxas… I miss you…_

"Hey!" a voice suddenly came from above her.

Anxclof's head jerked up at the abrupt interruption. She glared at the wild-haired blond who had spoken, not even trying to disguise her tears. Even if she had, her sorrow was audible in her voice. "What the hell do you want?"

The boy blinked in response, surprised. He wore a dark black shirt under a gray jacket and camouflage-colored pants. Behind him stood a girl with long brown hair and green eyes, who was clad in an orange shirt and khaki pants, and a dark-haired boy in a red jersey.

"Are you okay?" the dark-haired boy asked, his brown eyes wide. "We saw you crying over here."

Anxclof raised an eyebrow, reaching up to push the hair out of her face. "And who said it was any of your business why I'm sad?"

"Geez, touchy, aren't we?" The blond glared at her. "Look, we just wanted to see what was going on. Don't get so mad about it."

The girl, however, touched both boys' shoulders. "We should leave her alone," she said quietly.

"But –" the blond began.

_"Hayner,"_ the girl said warningly. She smiled a little hesitantly at Anxclof. "Sorry about these two. They're really nosy."

"Am not!" Hayner squawked. "Are we, Pence?" he asked the other boy.

Pence shrugged, holding his hands up in surrender. "I'm not getting involved in this."

Anxclof stared at them. For some reason, the boys' names struck an odd chord within her.

And then she realized where she had heard their names before. It was when Roxas had told her about his friends, back in the tunnels.

Even though this was the _real_ Twilight Town – not the virtual one, with the virtual friends that Roxas had had, with the virtual nature Roxas had attained – Anxclof still found herself wanting to ask Hayner, Pence, and Olette if they actually knew a boy named Roxas.

"You okay?" Hayner's voice cut into her thoughts, sounding as though he were a long way away.

Anxclof shook her head to clear it. "Yeah…"

"Are you going to tell us why you were crying?" Pence pressed.

Anxclof frowned. The anger from before pricked at her stomach with his words. She turned her head away almost indignantly. "No, I am not."

"Have it your way, then," Hayner muttered. He straightened. "C'mon, guys."

He turned away. After a tentative, almost apologetic look at Anxclof, Olette and Pence followed suit.

Anxclof glared after them, but then she heard the pleading grumble of hunger coming from her stomach. Apparently the others did as well, for they looked back and stared at her: Pence and Olette with amusement, and Hayner with a raised eyebrow.

The Nobody gave them a small, embarrassed smile. "Um… I'm hungry?"

* * *

Me: Whoo. That's over with. Lots of AkuAnkuRoku friendship fluff to keep my flashback-writing side polished, AND Char gets to drive the Gummi ship.  
Sora: Oh, no...  
Me: Yeah. (puts her hand on his shoulder) May God have mercy on your soul.  
Char: (demonic grin)  
Me: ALSO! FANGIRL MOMENT! Signal Fire by Snow Patrol should be the Char/Sora theme song, I swear to God.  
Char: She's fangirling over her own couples... NOT a good sign... And didn't you say it fit better with Haseo/Atoli, anyway?  
Me: It can do two couples at once, because it's just that awesome!  
Char: (sigh)


	27. Chapter XXVII

Char: (muttering to herself)  
Falcon: o.O (to me) What's HER problem?  
Me: Oh, she just hates what happens to her in this chapter.  
Char: And could the ending have been ANY crappier?!  
Me: (shrug) It was nine pages. I thought you deserved a break.  
Char: You could've gone to Anxclof's POV, or something!  
Me: Yeah, but I thought that'd be good to start NEXT chapter. Keep my nonexistent audience worrying...  
Char: Oh yeah, are you gonna start bitching about the lack of reviews for this one compared to worse stories? Because if you are, then I'm outta here.  
Me: Uhhh... why not.  
Char: Tch.

**_Disclaimer-_** If I owned KH, then do you really think I'd be as obsessed with .hack/G.U. as I am now?

* * *

"Thank goodness…" Donald gasped; the skin on his knuckles was clearly white beneath the feathers with how hard he had been clutching the armrest of his seat.

Sora shakily got to his feet from where he had fallen on the floor. "Is it over?" he asked, hoarse with relief.

Char rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut up, you two. It wasn't that bad."

"I beg to differ!" Sora replied, eyes wide.

"I don't think Char should pilot the ship again," Goofy panted.

After a bumpy ride – with "bumpy" being the understatement of the century – through the Asteroid Sweep, Char had managed to land them on the new world without _too_ much pain. It didn't help that Heartless and Nobodies had been coming at them in all directions, to the point where Char had nearly thrown the ship into one of the Heartless pirate vessels that had shot at them.

Donald had a look on his face that suggested he wholeheartedly agreed with the knight as he sighed. He casually glanced out the window, then gasped and jolted in his seat.

"What's going on, Donald?" Sora moved to follow the duck's gaze.

From what he could see, they had landed in what seemed to be an ominous dark cavern. Two paths wound from their position in different directions; one of the ornately-decorated doors had glowing emerald patterns winding about its rough-looking surface, while the other was a shade of blue that was slightly paler than Sora's eyes. A murky lake surrounded the area, and as they watched, a distinctly serpentine shape darted upward from the water before disappearing back down into its depths.

"Where are we?" Goofy gulped.

"Leave it to her to land us in the wrong place," Donald remarked, glaring pointedly at Char.

She just raised an eyebrow at him in return, not giving him the satisfaction of a biting retort. Eventually, the mage glanced away, still grumbling about Char's piloting ignorance.

Sora, however, noticed the flight of stairs along a third path, lit by the light from what he guessed was the Coliseum. "Hey, guys, we weren't too far off," he said, jerking a thumb toward the stairway. "It looks like the coliseum's just over there."

"See?" Char growled, staring at Donald in the same way he had looked at her. Donald only snorted indignantly in reply, pushed the button that allowed the hatch of the Gummi ship to open up, and headed toward the exit to the cavern.

"Well, we should probably get goin'!" Goofy chirped, setting off after the duck.

Sora looked at Char, who was now suddenly digging around in the drawers for something. He blinked in confusion. "Uh… what are you looking for?"

Char ignored him, and he was about to open his mouth to ask again when she abruptly straightened. "Found 'em," she announced, waving around something that glowed light blue against her fingers.

Sora tilted his head. "Found what?"

In response, she gave him a look that suggested this should be obvious. "The ethers and potions," she explained, her voice sounding more like she was asking a question. She opened her fist and showed him the small plastic vials. "I just thought that since we were almost out, we might need to go buy some more." She shivered. "I've got a bad feeling about this place."

Sora nodded in understanding. "Okay; that makes sense." He turned away and said over his shoulder, "Let's go."

Char didn't answer, just put the items in a pocket of her jacket and followed him outside.

The cave seemed even more frightening now than it had from within the Gummi ship. From within the Gummi ship, the eerie doors and slightly nerve-wracking lake that housed gods only knew what had been the only sources of fear. Without the windows blocking it, the two of them could properly hear the faint, goosebump-inducing howl of the gale that undoubtedly waited just beyond either of the doors. The general dankness of the air did not help matters; it conjured up a pale mist that hung around them like poison wisps of cloud.

Sora felt his skin crawl and shuddered to himself. "I see what you meant about a 'bad feeling'…"

At that moment, the almost-peace was suddenly shattered by a scream of fear. Donald and Goofy whirled toward it, their weapons of staff and shield appearing in their hands. Sora and Char summoned their own blades instinctively, with the crimson Hidden Dragon coming to the brunette.

A young woman with long brown hair was casting her eyes about frantically for help; a group of small shadow Heartless surrounded her, golden eyes gleaming. Sora raced toward them and they turned; upon seeing the Keyblade master, the Heartless squeaked and, like a pack of rats, scattered all at once.

"Hmph; cowards," Char muttered, coming to stand at Sora's side along with Donald and Goofy.

Sora leaned down and offered his hand to help the woman up, but she turned her face away. "Thanks, but… I'm fine," she muttered, standing up by herself.

She let her eyes take in the entire group, and Sora realized what a strange bunch they must seem like: a spell-casting duck, a shield-bearing dog, a boy wielding a key, and… well… Char. "And you're supposed to be…?" the brown-haired woman asked dryly, putting a hand on her hip and raising her eyebrows.

"I'm Sora," Sora said. "This is Donald, Goofy, and Char."

"We came to see Hercules," Donald added.

The woman's eyes widened. "You know Wonderboy?"

"Yeah! 'Cause we're heroes too!" the duck explained, puffing his chest out for emphasis.

_"Junior_ heroes, Donald," Goofy reminded his friend, who growled in annoyance.

The woman smiled. "Looks like we have a friend in common. Name's Megara; call me Meg."

"How's Herc been, Meg?" asked Sora, and Char admired his immediate ability to use the woman's name right after learning it. The redhead had never been able to directly address acquaintances until getting to know them better, for some reason.

The strength of will seemed to go out of Meg at the mention of Hercules, and her shoulders slumped in a sigh. "He's been duking it out at the coliseum every day – you know, 'a hero's work is never done' and all that." She emphasized this last point by doing air quotes with her fingers, and continued bitterly. "He's about ready to drop, but he keeps on fighting. These opponents are bad news – directly from Hades himself."

"Hades?!" Sora, Donald, and Goofy blurted, eyes wide with horror and shock.

Char could understand their feelings. From what she'd seen of Sora's memories, the Lord of the Underworld had given the group a lot of trouble while they'd been in this world. And from what Char had read of Greek mythology, Hades was the type not to let his enemies get away unscathed.

Meg misunderstood the group's tone. "Yeah, he's the Lord of the Underworld," she explained. "I was actually just on my way to see him. Maybe I can get Hades to give Wonderboy a breather." Looking away, she murmured, "If anything ever happened to that kid…"

Char raised an eyebrow. She wasn't sure, but she swore she caught a tinge of pink on Meg's cheeks. "Heh. Sounds like you two are more than just friends."

Meg's head jerked up, her blush growing. "No!" she answered, a little too quickly.

Sora chuckled and crossed his arms. "Well, how about this? We'll go have a little talk with Hades. I'd hate for anything to happen on your way to see him." The fire that was starting to kindle in the brunette's eyes suggested that a "little talk" meant a little physical persuasion.

"Yeah, that's a great idea!" Goofy agreed.

"Well, it looks like you know what you're doing," Meg murmured, a small trace of doubt in her voice. "I guess… I'll take you all up on your little offer."

Sora grinned, thumping a fist against his chest like he had with Leon. "You can count on us." Behind him, Donald and Goofy nodded for emphasis.

The slight hint of a smile crossed Meg's face, then she continued more seriously, "But let's keep this little chat-with-Hades thing our little secret, okay?"

They all nodded, and Sora turned toward the blue-glowing door. He shivered. "We have to go in there?"

"Guess so," Char muttered. She met Sora's gaze with her own and shrugged. "But… isn't it for your friend?"

Her voice sounded brave enough, but Goofy noticed her hands tightening around the hilts of her swords. He decided not to let on that he'd seen her fear, and instead patted Sora on the shoulder. "She's right, Sora! Let's go."

Donald grunted in assent, but his eyes were wide as he stared at the door.

"Don't tell me you're scared, Donald?" Char asked, raising an eyebrow at the duck.

Donald seemed to realize that he was showing his fear so blatantly, and abruptly whirled to face Char. "Of course not!" he growled.

"O-kay," the redhead replied, her tone suggesting that she wasn't entirely convinced.

Donald simply snarled in reply and stomped toward the large door. He turned when he had reached it and glared impatiently at the others. "Are we going or what?"

They followed him and were about to open the door when something suddenly hit Sora. "Uh… how are we going to get this open?"

"Isn't that obvious?" When Sora didn't reply, Char sighed. "You've got a giant _key…"_

Sora's eyes lit up. "Oh yeah!" In a flash of light he had summoned the Star Seeker and pointed it toward the door. Char noted the change from the crimson Hidden Dragon Keyblade, but said nothing.

The door opened from the power of the Keyblade, and the four of them stepped inside. Sora looked back at Meg. "Are you coming too?"

Meg shook her head. "Nah, I think I'll leave this to you all. Wonderboy had another battle today."

"Checking to see if he's still alive?" asked Char. "Eh, understandable. Leave it to us."

Meg nodded gratefully, even as the door was closing behind the group.

"We don't even know where Hades is," Donald suddenly realized.

Char growled under her breath. "Damn, you're right. That might've been a good thing to ask her…"

"Well, we're not gonna know till we look around a little!" Goofy suggested.

He and Donald glanced at Sora for approval. Char thought that the two of them weren't really doing a good job of disproving the "Sora's lackeys" theory.

The brunette seemed to have the same thought, because he glanced briefly at Char before replying to his friends. "Yeah, you guys have the right idea." He looked around the area – cave-like, ominously lit by blue torches – and shivered. "But… I don't really like the idea of splitting up in a place this…" He groped for the right word. "…creepy."

"Perfectly understandable," Char murmured. "I mean, yeah, we've got our weapons, but who's to say that there won't be Heartless down here… or worse?"

Donald and Goofy were starting to look a little crestfallen. Sora tried to cheer them up. "B-but hey! We can still look around as long as we stay together, right?"

They looked up and nodded.

Before they set off on their _lovely_ exploration of the tunnels, Char brought out some of the potions and ethers she had gotten from the Gummi ship and distributed the healing items among the four of them. "We still don't know what we're going to find down here," she explained. "So, we should be prepared."

Watching her, Sora couldn't help but wonder why Char, who as far as he knew had only been traveling dangerously for six days – unless her research had entailed that as well – had such foresight when planning these things: foresight which, he remembered guiltily, he had forsaken earlier in this journey. Sora thought of himself as a full-force kind of fighter, but now it seemed like everything would have to change sooner or later.

With a sigh, he took his place at the front of the group with the distinctive feeling that Char was undermining him.

They fought their way through the cavern and into the next area, which turned out to be a winding path that twisted off into two different directions. Donald sighed, blinking the sweat out of his eyes; for some reason, being in this cave was making him feel weaker by the minute. "Now which way do we go?"

Sora shrugged, though he was fighting the urge to shudder at the feeling of the shallow water lapping past his shoes. "I guess…"

He was suddenly cut off when Goofy gasped, pointing at something ahead of them. The others craned their necks to follow his gaze. Char couldn't keep back a muted gasp as a figure that was clad in black darted out in front of them, stopped for a moment and looked around. For a moment the person's hooded eyes landed on the group; then they whirled around and raced off in the other direction.

"The Organization!" Donald cried.

"Yeah," Sora agreed. He summoned his Keyblade. "Let's go."

As they walked down the path and into a more open area, their pace just a little more brisk than before, Sora looked at Char, who was keeping pace beside him. Was it just him, or did she look a bit more exhausted than before? And even so, she would be trying to hide it; she would be far ahead of him if that were the case, but as it was she was having trouble keeping up with Sora's stride.

Come to think of it, even Donald and Goofy seemed a little more drained than usual. Suddenly a pang went through his chest, and Sora put a hand to his heart. He couldn't keep back a groan of exhaustion.

"Sora, are you okay?" asked Donald, looking worried.

Sora looked at the group – even Char looked a little concerned – and knew he had to fake it, if only to get their morale back. "Yeah," he replied, grinning. "Must be the wound where that girl stabbed me."

Char eyed him doubtfully. "I… don't think that's just the wound." She looked at the others, stopping abruptly in her tracks so that Donald almost ran into her back. "You all feel it too, don't you? This… power drain that this area has?"

"Yeah," Goofy murmured. Donald stared wide-eyed at his comrade, as though not believing that Goofy could admit his weakness.

Then the duck winced. "Grr… yeah, I feel it."

Char raised an eyebrow at Sora. "Well, Key-boy? Are you just immune to this?"

Sora didn't know why, but a spark of anger flared within him at her condescending tone. "Of course not!" he snapped back. "I felt it just now, you know that!"

Donald and Goofy stared worriedly at him; even Char herself took a step back.

Sora sighed and ran his hand through his unruly spikes of brown hair. "Sorry. Just… this Underworld is making me a little nervous."  
"Let's try to find Hades as quickly as we can, a-hyuck," Goofy suggested.

At that moment, however, the same flash of black caught Char's eye. She put her arm out as if to shield the others; at the same time, her swords appeared in her hands. "Watch out!"

The others got into their battle stances, fully ready to take down the Organization member if they had to. However, if anything, the cloaked figure all but ignored them; he raced past them, shouting, "Run! Run away!" as he went. A portal of darkness appeared in front of him and he promptly vanished into it.

Sora stared bemusedly at the place where the portal had been. "Okay…?" he muttered.

"Wow," Char said. "Uh… wonder where he went?"

"He's probably still here," Donald said.

"Yeah, even a Nobody has to feel the same energy drain that we do," Goofy added.

"You're probably right," Sora said. "He won't get too far."

The group entered the next chamber, in what was at first an effort not to get impaled on the stalactites and stalagmites that barred the way, but which was instantly solved when Char swung her swords at the rock formations and broke them in half. The cave was lit by a swirling emerald light that wavered against the wall, as though the light was reflecting off of water under the path. The narrow path led uphill, toward yet another giant door. They could hear what must have been a whirlpool purring far below, and shuddered.

"Hades doesn't skimp out on his ceremony, does he?" Char murmured, staring at the large door at the end of the pathway.

Donald shivered from behind the humans and stepped a little closer to Goofy, as though seeking comfort from his old friend.

"I'm scared too, Donald," the dog said.

Sora cast a glance toward the edge of the path and instantly looked away, shivering. That was something he definitely didn't want to think about.

He thought of the time that had given him his fear of falling a long way; it had been a windy, cloudy day, and Riku had dared him to get a paopu off the tree for Kairi. Sora had eagerly taken that dare. He had almost reached the top when a sudden gust of wind had nearly thrown him to the ground below. The experience had left him with embarrassment for himself and smugness from Riku.

And he had never gotten the paopu fruit for Kairi.

He shook his head to clear it and looked at the others. "Just… don't look down," was all he could manage.

Thankfully, no Heartless showed up, so there was no chance of being pushed backwards off the edge. The group trekked up the path in silence until they had reached the door. Sora pulled out his Keyblade and unlocked it, so that a flight of stairs going upward was revealed.

"Shall we?" he said extravagantly to the others. Donald and Goofy giggled, and Char cracked a smile.

"Save the enthusiasm for Hades," she reminded him.

"You're no fun," Donald said, once his laughter had subsided. Char just rolled her eyes.

They headed up the stairs and were met with a strange scene. On one side of the room stood Hades, his skin turned crimson in his fury and his normally cold-fire-colored hair ablaze in orange and yellow; on the other side stood a red-clad man, who looked like some kind of warrior, with his broadsword unsheathed, clearly ready to take down the lord of the dead. Between them stood a cauldron that swirled and bubbled. The unmistakable bulk of Pete was pressed against the wall, and the minion in question looked terrified.

Donald glanced at Pete, decided to ignore him, and turned back to Hades. "Hades!" he snarled, whipping out his staff.

The lord of the dead glanced over, and his eyes widened when he saw who was there. He turned back to his normal blue color in his confusion. "You again?"

Seeing his chance, the warrior across the room let out a roar and charged at him. The slice from his blade knocked Hades back.

"Fight!" the warrior shouted. He raised his sword above his head and brought it down on Hades' head, but Hades reached up and blocked it just in time. He threw the man across the room, using his hand on the broadsword as momentum. The warrior was trying to get up as Hades conjured a fireball in his hand and threw it.

Char gasped and made as if to block it, but Sora beat her to it. The fireball turned to ashes against the Star Seeker, and he looked frantically down at the red-clad man on the floor. "Get up," he muttered worriedly.

Donald, Goofy, and Char ran forward to help out, but found that their blows couldn't even touch the lord of the Underworld. Char struck out in a spinning motion with her swords, but Hades just chuckled and darted easily out of the way. Donald raised his staff to cast a few spells and found that only a few sparks shot out; Goofy himself could barely even hold up his shield.

"What the hell's going on here?" Char grunted, falling to one knee but managing to hold herself up with one sword.

Even Sora felt the now-familiar pangs of exhaustion, and put a hand to his forehead. "I feel kinda funny…"

Hades laughed. "See, that's the thing! In this place, heroes are zeroes – comes with the territory."

Char raised her head and glared at Hades. "We're not finished yet!"

"But that's the problem, Red." Char snarled at the pejorative. Hades gave them all a sharp-toothed grin as he made another fireball appear in his hand. "I think you _are."_

He shot the fireball at Char. Sora gasped and tried to rush over to help, but found he couldn't even move and clenched his teeth against the pain. Char herself could only put out the sword in her free hand and hope against hope that that would block it.

But the warrior leaped forward just in time, his broadsword slicing the fireball and causing it to vanish. Char stared at him in shock. _What kind of person can just get rid of fire with his sword?!_

As the ashes from the fireball rained down around them, the man glanced at Char. "Are you all right?"

Char realized she was gaping, and quickly closed her mouth. "Yeah, I'm fine."

He nodded and looked at Sora. "Go, now!"

"But I've gotta talk to Hades!" Sora protested, even though his muscles were screaming at him to listen.

Hades put his fingers in his ears mockingly. "I'm sorry – what was that?"

"We can't fight him here," the man grunted, blocking another one of Hades' blows. "We have to go! Now!"

Sora stared at him, and then nodded, following the warrior out the door just as one of the fireballs hit the ground where he had been.

The five of them raced down the stairs, and Donald and Goofy quickly pushed the door closed. Sora looked around, leaning over and putting his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. "Think we lost him?"

The warrior narrowed his single eye. "Don't count on it."

Sora looked up, eyes widening. "Huh?"

He was about to ask more when suddenly he heard an all-too-familiar sound. He turned and saw Hades standing behind him, smirking. "Leaving so soon?" he asked casually. He snapped his fingers, causing Heartless to appear all around him – some that resembled flowers, and some that were the dogs that had attacked Meg earlier.

"So we are. What's it to you?" Char growled, staggering to her feet and putting her swords out.

"We don't have time for this," the red-clad man said to Char. "Don't taunt him – we have to leave!"

"I'd say he's got the right idea," Donald muttered, and raced down the path. He let out a yelp as more Heartless appeared, surrounding him. However, the warrior sliced through all the Heartless in a single bound.

The five of them fought their way down the passageway, with Donald and Goofy put on healing duty so that they could conserve their energy. As for Sora, Char, and the still anonymous man, they were hacking and slashing through the mass of squealing Heartless as quickly as their blades could move. At one point Char nearly got buried completely under a mass of the dog Heartless, but Sora had ripped them apart just in time.

Hades was not idle, though: even now he was wreathing himself in fire, rendering all their attacks against him useless. The walls of the cave glowed with the shadows of the fireballs Hades kept throwing at them all.

"Damn it," Char finally snarled, putting her hand against the door at the bottom of the path. "We're almost there…"

She turned around.

Sora had his back to Hades, his Keyblade making quick work of a Heartless that had gotten in his way. Behind him, the lord of the dead was grinning as he readied another fireball, but a fireball unlike the others: this fireball was bluish-white, the hottest of all; the kind that actually hurt when it hit; the kind that left the scar of a burn.

_And Xehanort turned around and stared at her – pleadingly? resignedly? – even as the Heartless were heading hungrily toward him._

Why aren't you getting out of the way? _she screamed silently. _Get out of the way!

_But fear had glued her mouth shut, and she couldn't do anything as the Heartless set upon Xehanort; ripping that coat that he had always kept so clean to blood-clotted ribbons; tearing at his exposed throat and arms; until a glowing pink heart floated off into the distance and all that remained was an empty shell._

Get out of the way…

_No._

Before Char realized what she was doing, she had leaped forward and pushed Sora out of the way.

The fireball barely grazed the side of her leg, but it was enough. She snarled in pain and fell to her knees, the sword in her free hand flying out of her hand and disappearing. The rational part of her mind noted that it would reappear, and so she didn't have to worry about losing her weapon in this stupidly impulsive rescue attempt –

The flash of white-hot agony shot through her with the force of a blade ripping through flesh, and it might as well have been.

_Damn Hades…_

And then she laughed, because it was such an obvious statement. Damn Hades… Underworld… haha.

But the laugh came out sounding more like a strangled cry, and for all intents and purposes, it might have been.

Time distorted with the pain, and she thought she felt the leather of someone's gloved hand – Sora? the warrior? Gods, she didn't even care anymore; just get _out of here,_ Sora, we can't stay here any longer – dragging her through the doorway into the cave that had been blocked by the formations, and she was aware of Sora shouting at her to wake up, to say something.

_Sora, I'm okay,_ she wanted to say,_ I'm fine, let's get going, you have to help Hercules, and don't you have Kairi to protect? You don't need to worry about me; it's the other way around, you know that…_

But all these thoughts petered off into the murky bubble that her mind had become, and she knew the soft pull of sweet unconsciousness taking her hand, with the temptation of relief from this fiery agony.

She yielded to that temptation.

* * *

Me: I _like_ that last part D:  
Char: Well _I_ don't!  
Me: You don't exist. Your opinion doesn't matter.  
Char: ...damn you...


	28. Chapter XXVIII

Me: As promised, here's the next chappie!  
Char: I think this is a rather crappy follow-up to what you considered one of your better chapters.  
Me: D: You're mean.  
Char: I'm not mean, I'm brutally honest.  
Me: ANYWAY! I would've had this up yesterday, but my swimteam was having a banquet, and so I spent the entire day getting ready and running errands. (Saw a movie, went to the bookstore, got a haircut, tried on my dress... you know, the works)  
Anxclof: Enjoy!  
Me: You're suspiciously happy...

**_Disclaimer-_** God, I wish... (stares at Sora)  
Sora: I don't think I even WANT to know.

* * *

Now, Anxclof thought to herself, she had some semblance of understanding why Roxas felt so attached to this town.

After her embarrassment in front of Hayner and the others, they had promptly taken her to one of Sunset Terrace's restaurants, which apparently specialized in breakfast. Currently the five of them were all sitting at a table outside, the faded light from the sun shining on the circular table and creating a glare. The shade from the awning over the outdoor section of the restaurant, as well as the cool breeze of early morning, cast a small chill through the air.

Upon getting the table, Olette had immediately told Anxclof to order the chocolate chip pancakes, as they were the specialty here. Hayner had complained that this was only because the pancakes held the cheapest price on the menu, but one glare from his female friend promptly silenced him. Anxclof had had to hold back a giggle, as the scene reminded her of her – as of yet – rather strained relationship with Axel.

Now they were waiting for the waiter to come back with their change. Anxclof wondered briefly why Olette had had to get her own munny to pay for the breakfast, but then decided that this must be how they always did things and dismissed it. _Men,_ she thought to herself.

She flinched as that thought brought back the image of a certain blond, spiky-haired Nobody, translucent as he had faded. While Anxclof, having grown up mostly in seclusion – first living by herself for two years and then with the Organization – was a little less socially adept than others, she welcomed the diversion of listening to Hayner, Pence, and Olette's enthusiastic conversation; it distracted her from the reason why she was still in Twilight Town in the first place.

Pence and Olette chatted to each other about something Anxclof couldn't hear, though she caught the word "struggle" a few times and wondered what was going on. As for Hayner, he chose to sit at Anxclof's side of the table, his brow creased in a slight frown as he stared out over the town hedges at the train tracks. Anxclof welcomed the reprieve from conversation, however brief, and followed Hayner's gaze. A vibrantly-colored train wound its way around a corner, leaving wisps of smoke in its wake. The blond boy's eyes were rapt as he gazed at them.

Pence and Olette's laughter finally petered off, and the former turned to look questioningly at Anxclof. "Hey, what did you say your name was?"

Anxclof blinked. "Um… Anxclof."

Next to her, she heard Hayner make a sound of contemplation, and narrowed her eyes at him. "What?"

"Nothing," he muttered, returning the glare. "It just… sounds a little familiar."

It was all she could do to keep from gasping. If her name sounded familiar, then could the virtual Twilight Town have ties with the real one?  
_  
No, it's stupid,_ a voice inside her head insisted, and reluctantly, Anxclof dismissed the idea.

"You're not from around here, are you?" Hayner continued.

Anxclof winced. "Is it that obvious?"

"Then you should stay for a while!" said Olette, eyes widening. "Come on. You need someplace to go until…" She wrinkled her brow, probably realizing that she didn't know too much about Anxclof's purpose.

The other brunette couldn't hide her surprise, and quickly darted her eyes away before it could get too obvious. She found herself unable to fathom why the hell these people were so interested in her – probably because of Roxas' influence in the virtual Twilight Town; she mentally cursed Char and Riku yet again.

"I… can't stay," she murmured at last. Pence tilted his head of unruly dark hair to the side, while Olette just looked bemused.

Hayner lifted his head from where it had been resting on his propped-up hand and looked skeptically at Anxclof. "Why not?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

Anxclof hesitated, realizing that it probably would have been better to keep the truth to herself.

So, she just shrugged in awkward response. "I just can't. I'm… I'm looking for someone," she finished pathetically. For all intents and purposes, though, that was true. Only now that Roxas and Sora were one again did she realize that that brief taste of being with her friend again, that one kiss, wasn't enough. Anxclof's stubbornness wasn't going to let her sit by and be satisfied with that one all-too-short glimpse of paradise; she wanted to see it all, know its ecstasy forever, and for that to happen, Sora had to be out of the picture for good.

"And that someone's not in Twilight Town," Olette concluded.

Anxclof nodded, keeping her eyes on the shiny surface of the table. As she watched, a fly darted in halting steps across the surface, and she followed its path with her eyes. It was about to reach the piece of leftover pancake on Hayner's plate when the boy reached out a hand and swatted it away. (1)

"Well," he muttered, "I guess you could still stay for a bit, if you wanted."

Anxclof raised and lowered one shoulder. "Yeah, sure, why not."

* * *

"Char?" Sora shouted at the unconscious redhead, shaking her. "Char!"

"It's no use," the red-clad man murmured, causing the Keybearer to jerk his head up and stare at him. The warrior himself met the clouded blue eyes evenly. "The pain must have been too much for her. She won't wake up if you yell at her."

Sora growled to himself and looked back at Char. Her eyes were closed and her mouth slightly open, almost as though she were dreaming; had it not been for the blood staining the ground beneath her leg, it could have been that way. Sora didn't even want to think about how the burned flesh itself must look.

He shook his head furiously. "It's just…"

Donald and Goofy stood wordlessly nearby, eyes wide with horror and surprise, watching as the Keybearer pushed a hand through his messy brown locks.

"She could be dead, and it'll be all my fault," he finished. To his complete and utter shame, his voice broke at the thought. Ever since the destruction of his island, Sora had vowed never to let someone – or something – be destroyed for his sake; yet now here he was, after all this time, breaking that vow.

In response, the warrior walked over and knelt beside the two of them. Sora, Donald, and Goofy looked on, wondering what he was going to do.

When the man pulled out his broadsword, Sora gave a start, putting a hand to the Hidden Dragon Keychain, ready to take action if need be. He watched tensely as the impressive blade was hefted to lay right below Char's nose.

A thin fog ghosted over the blade, creating brief little misty spots against the sword before vanishing and, a few moments later, being replaced by more. The man carefully pulled the broadsword away and sheathed it. "She's alive, but barely."

Sora's shoulders slumped with relief. "Thank goodness…"

"You're really good," Donald said to the man. "Are you some kind of hero?"

The warrior sighed. "I'm no hero… I'm just an…"

The three of them waited for a response. Sora could almost hear Char's voice in the back of his head asking, _You're just an…?_, and had to swallow to hold back the lump in his throat.

"Auron," the man murmured at last, getting to his feet and turning away.

Sora blinked. "Huh?"

The older man looked back. "My name."

The brunette jolted in realization. "Oh!" He looked at Donald and Goofy, then back. "Well, I'm Sora."

"Donald," the duck added.

"And Goofy," finished the knight, his voice awkwardly happy considering the circumstances.

Auron stared at them, then his eyes roved down to the unconscious girl in Sora's arms. "And her?"

"Oh, that's Char," Sora said, feeling that stupid choking feeling build up inside him again. He swallowed hard to keep it back and grinned weakly. "I… she always said she didn't like me…"

Auron shook his head. "If that were true, would she have done what she did back there?"

"That's the problem," Sora muttered, clenching his fist. If it hadn't been for the fabric of his gloves, he was sure that his fingernails would have been making little, red half-moons on the palms of his hands.

Auron chuckled. "People can do strange things… to protect others."

Goofy glanced at Donald, who shrugged, equally lost at the warrior's meaning.

"Well," Sora said awkwardly at last, "either way, we have to get out of here, right?"

"Yes," Auron agreed. "The Underworld has a curse placed over it, to weaken anyone who might come inside."

"So that's why we were so weak," Goofy said.

The man nodded. "I don't know if there's a way to get rid of it."

"We're just gonna have to find that out from Hercules," Donald suggested.

Sora nodded. "Okay, let's go." He glanced down at Char, currently unconscious in his arms, and had to try hard not to blush when a few strands of red hair moved over his arm as she moved her head. "Um…"

Auron raised an eyebrow, and the faintest semblance of a smile flickered over his face. "Clearly, you three have no idea what to do with an injured woman."

Donald glared brazenly at him. "Are we supposed to?"

Auron shrugged almost innocently. "If I could help you out, I would." When the others looked confused, he signaled to his left arm, which was held immobile in a sling that seemed to be part of his coat. "A one-handed man cannot do much with a human burden. And you will need a guardian to help you all out." His mouth twitched in a small smile. "Perhaps we were fated to meet."

Sora huffed. "A guardian? Thanks, but no thanks."

Auron's smile widened, but not by much. "Heh. Have you ever considered that such pride could be your downfall?"

Sora was caught off guard by the other's words, and stared at the ground. "Well…"

"How do you expect to defend yourself if you're toting a dead weight?"

The realization of what he would have to do hit Sora like a sack of bricks, causing his cheeks to heat and a gasp to escape him. He groaned. "Oh, no… don't tell me…"

He looked pleadingly to Donald and Goofy, but they were both smirking and laughing to themselves.

Auron raised an eyebrow. "I suggest we get going, unless you want a mark exactly like hers."

Sora shivered at the thought of Hades coming after them, and nodded in reply. He hesitated, staring awkwardly down at Char. Unconscious like this, she almost looked approachable; the flex of her fingers reminded him that she was indeed still alive, and if she were conscious she wouldn't permit this at all.

And he felt a sudden rush of rebelliousness at the thought. _It doesn't matter what you think right now, Char, because you risked yourself for me, and I'm bringing you back._

With that thought, he found himself suddenly lifting her up in his arms, getting rather clumsily to his feet. He could see Donald and Goofy's grins widen, and cast a glare in their direction. As he shifted to make Char's weight more comfortable, he realized that she was lighter than he expected.

"Well?" he said to Auron, triumphant at fulfilling the warrior's expectations. "Let's go!"

The smile had reappeared on Auron's face as he nodded and started toward the other side of the cave. His free hand went to the hilt of his broadsword, ready to use it if any Heartless appeared. Donald and Goofy followed close behind, with a few looks back at Sora, straggling along at the rear; their amusement had turned to worry for both their companions. Sora tried not to think about the barely conscious girl in his arms or what she had done for him.

He just hoped that they could leave the Underworld as soon as possible.

* * *

The four of them raced toward the blue-and-gray door that led toward the Underworld "crossroads." Sora sighed in relief at the sight of the door, and his aching legs seemed to sigh with him. While Auron had, as predicted, been immensely helpful in intercepting Heartless – Heartless, no doubt, that Pete had sent into the tunnels to stop them – even his immense broadsword held no comparison to the power of the Keyblade. Sora made a mental note never to walk around with an injured person in such a dangerous world ever, ever again. The pressure of holding the life of someone in his hands was an unwelcome feeling, one that he should have gotten used to way back when he had become the Keyblade master; yet it still filled him with dread.

Donald panted and pushed uselessly against the door, trying to get it open. Sora suddenly remembered what Char had said earlier, and, carefully freeing one of his hands, summoned the Star Seeker to it.

Auron eyed the lavender blade. "Will that work?"

Sora nodded with more confidence than he felt. "It was how we got in here."

He gingerly set Char on the ground, his arms screaming with relief as he did so. The redhead shifted slightly and moaned softly, and Sora's heartbeat spiked; but her eyes still didn't open.

_Is she dreaming?_ he wondered.

He started to raise the Keyblade to the door. Suddenly, a roar rang through the air, causing him to stumble and whirl around.

"Oh, no," Auron muttered. He hefted his broadsword into his battle stance just as the immense, three-headed dog burst into the room.

Sora nearly groaned at the memory of fighting Cerberus, the "pet" of Hades. Before, the situation had been bad enough, because the arrival of the dog had put everyone watching the Olympus tournament in danger. Now, with their all-too-unstable surroundings, Sora realized that fighting Cerberus in this small of a space could cause the cave to collapse on them; knowledge reconfirmed by the sound of the trembling stones in the cavern.

"Hurry!" Auron shouted.

Sora figured that he should comply. Stepping next to Char's body, he lifted the Keyblade and concentrated. After a few heart-stopping moments, during which Sora heard the sounds of Auron grunting as he drove Cerberus off to the side, the telltale beam of light shot out of the blade, and the door parted to let them through.

"Get Char out of here!" Sora yelled to Donald and Goofy. Quickly, they nodded, and, hooking their hands under each of her arms, started to drag her away from the scene. When they had gotten through the opening, Sora started to follow, but something made him glance back. Auron's sword flashed silver as it made several impressive feints, along with its owner, nearly suspended above the ground.

"Sora, wait!" called Donald, reaching out a hand.

The Keybearer ignored him, his temper rising at the sight. It wasn't right that Auron should fight alone against that monstrosity; the least he could do was help him.

Without another thought, he rushed back and came to stand beside Auron just as the door closed.

"What are you thinking?" Auron growled.

Sora shrugged. "Thought you could use some help."

Cerberus abruptly cut off whatever other witty banter might have followed by snarling and leaping forward. The two fighters felt the ground rumble beneath them even as they darted away.

Auron grunted. "Right. But take him down fast, or the cave might collapse on top of us."

Sora got into his battle stance, feeling the familiar surge of excitement rush through him at the fight. "Piece of cake."

* * *

A few moments after the door had closed – moments that were filled with panic for Donald and Goofy – the smallest groan caused them both to turn. Char's green-gloved hand went up to the side of her head, massaging her temples. "Ugh… I have the biggest headache." She pushed herself up with her free hand, and muttered a bit to herself about stupid fireballs, before seeing Donald and Goofy.

"Hey guys," she muttered, and looked around. Her initial annoyance turned to puzzlement as her eyes came back to rest on the others. "Where's Sora?"

Goofy stared at his shoes, while Donald shrugged. "He's fighting Cerberus with Auron."

"Auron… is that his name?" Char mused. Suddenly, the first part of Donald's statement seemed to hit her, and she gasped. "Wait just a damn minute. He's _fighting_ this bloody three-headed dog with almost no backup?"

"Pretty much," Donald muttered, his tone revealing his anger at not being able to help.

"Donald," Goofy said warningly.

"Well, what? You obviously weren't going to tell her!"

Char's eyes widened. "That idiot! I'm going to kill him if he makes it out!" She abruptly transferred her glare to Donald, and even the stalwart mage flinched back a little at the fire in her eyes.

"Where are the supplies?" she demanded.

"They're back with Sora; but –"

"But you guys must have some of the Keychains for his Keyblades, right? I need one – right now!"

Neither of the others bothered to question how she knew the names for the objects that let Sora use certain Keyblades; they were too shocked and bemused at her sudden forceful behavior. _Aren't people who wake from being unconscious supposed to be all drowsy and… not so aggressive?_ Goofy wondered.

Char looked from dog, to duck, to door, and back to dog again, her chest heaving with her ire. Then, abruptly, she attempted to push herself to her feet, only to crumple to the ground, face twisted with pain. "Stupid wound!"

Without waiting for a response, she summoned her blades. Donald and Goofy could only watch as she dragged herself over to the door and began beating at the solid material with her swords: slashing first with one blade, then the other, and then both. Ordinarily the sight would have amused them, but now it surprised them more than ever. For someone who claimed to dislike Sora so much, Char was going through a lot to make sure he was all right.

_She's hiding something,_ Donald thought.

After a few minutes of this, Char let out a final snarl of frustration and dropped her hands, letting her swords disappear in the process. One hand went to her injured leg in instinctive response to the pain, and her eyes fell to the ground. Her hair fell to the side so that Donald and Goofy couldn't see her face.

Char could have screamed at that moment. When the same hand that had guided her to unconsciousness and relief had buoyed her back toward the surface of reality, the agony had almost instantly returned: in a smaller degree than before, of course, but it was still enough to make her wince. And now, the same idiot she had risked her life to protect was possibly in there getting ripped apart by three-headed doggy fangs.

If she had been asked right then and there why she felt so strongly, Char would have said that she would be severely annoyed if she had saved Sora, only for him to die right after. But she would never admit that another feeling lurked behind that statement. Friendship? That had to be it.

Char stopped that train of thought at once. _Becoming friends with Sora? That wasn't what I promised to Riku._

Like or not, though, it was how she felt. _If Sora were killed, I would be sad,_ she decided. That was a start. (2)

At that very moment, the door burst open. Char's head jerked up, and she heard Donald's pleased squawk of, "Sora!" before she even saw the bushy brown head. Sora grinned, and then his eyes flicked down to Char. Was it just her imagination, or did they soften slightly in relief?

"You're awake," he noted. "You okay?"

Char realized she was staring at him with her mouth slightly open, and raised an eyebrow, trying to regain her composure. "What do _you_ think?"

"Okay, stupid question," Sora laughed. His amusement vanished as he stepped aside to let Auron through. Through the gap, everyone could see Cerberus shake his massive body and start toward the door, the footsteps of which they could more feel than see.

As the door started to close, Sora, Donald, and Goofy made faces at Cerberus and laughed in triumph just as the gap closed, hopefully, for good.

"That was too close," Sora laughed, turning to where Auron had been. His eyes widened when he saw no Auron.

"Hey, where'd he go?" Donald wondered.

Sora shrugged, though a spark of worry still remained in his eyes. "He can take care of himself, right? We have to go tell Meg… that it didn't work." His shoulders slumped in disappointment.

He looked back at Char with concern etched on his features. "Um… are you okay to travel?"

Char scoffed. "Please – I've been through worse." It was a pathetic excuse, but unfortunately it also held the not-so-prestigious honor of being the only thing she could think of at the moment.

She attempted to push herself up, and agony shot through her leg like white fire. She bit back the cry of pain that was aching to escape her, and chewed her lip instead. It felt like she was going to draw blood on her lip. "Okay… maybe not."

"All we have to do is go up them stairs," Goofy offered somewhat weakly, pointing up the massive stairwell that led into the light above.

Char took a deep breath. "You're right," she muttered, putting out a hand to steady herself. "It's not that far away. I can do that."

She was also seething on the inside: because of her stupid little rescue trick, she would most likely be bed-ridden and totally useless to Sora for at least two weeks, even with the best healing magic applied.

As if reading her mind, Sora glanced at Donald. "Donald, can you try casting healing magic on her?"

The duck sighed. "Sora, even if I cast, it's like any other burn. It'll take a while to heal."

Hearing what she knew spoken aloud only served to anger Char even more, to the point where she snarled under her breath, muttering a few words she had only heard Braig use when he stubbed his toe.

When she looked up, she saw Sora's hand held out to her. She blinked. "Uh… what…?"

"Come on, I'll help you," the brunette said; but he didn't meet her eyes.

Char narrowed her gaze. "Sora. Why aren't you looking at me?"

"I _am,"_ he protested almost instantly, jerking his head back and looking wide-eyed at her. "Now let's go. We have to tell Meg what happened."

After a few more moments of contemplation, Char sighed in defeat and took Sora's hand. He pulled her up to her feet, which proved to be a mistake: the pain nearly crumpled her, and to her complete and utter shame she had to lean against him for support. He stared intently at the waters of the Underworld sea as he pulled her arm around his shoulders.

"Are you sure that Cura can't help her?" he asked Donald, and Char noticed Sora's free hand clench. She assumed he was aware that he knew the average healing spell, and hated that he allegedly couldn't do anything.

Donald shrugged helplessly. "Mickey found a burn victim once, and I tried to heal him."

"Donald tried real hard, but even with that, it took a long time," Goofy added, his eyes filled with sympathy. It rankled Char, that she now deserved sympathy. "The spells helped a lot, but they couldn't heal it all the way."

Sora inhaled and exhaled deeply. "Okay, well, it was worth a shot…"

Without another word, he started – slowly, so as not to cause Char's leg to flare up again – toward the stairwell. Donald and Goofy exchanged an anxious glance and followed.

As the light from the Coliseum reached Sora's darkness-impaired eyes, he had to shield them with his free hand and squint. He sighed in relief at having left the dank caves of the Underworld; the warmth of the sun on his face was a welcome feeling.

"Gawrsh, this sure brings back memories!" Goofy said, looking around.

Char grunted noncommittally, which reminded Sora abruptly of the other reason why they were here. "We have to go find Hercules and see what he can do about…" Sora's words trailed off, and he glanced helplessly at Char, who just stared evenly back at him.

Almost on cue, the door to the coliseum's lobby creaked open, causing them all to turn. The warrior Hercules' shoulders were slumped and his eyes on the ground, but his eyes brightened when he saw Sora and the others. Sora winced as he saw that Hercules' eyes were shot through with obvious crimson veins.

"Sora, Donald, Goofy!" he greeted them, smiling. "When'd you get here?"

"A little while ago," Sora answered cheerfully. Despite the austere situation, being with one of his old friends was lifting his spirits.

Hercules fully took in the group, and his grin faded when he saw Char. "Who…?"

"Oh, this is Char," Sora said, smiling weakly. "She… got hurt in the Underworld…"

To Char's credit, she seemed to be suffering silently. He could tell that the wound on her leg pained her, because the hand she had around his shoulder was holding him in an almost-painful death grip.

Hercules growled under his breath and turned away. "Hades giving you trouble again, huh?"

"Yeah," Char muttered through clenched teeth.

"Well, we need to get you somewhere you can lay down," Hercules offered.

Char shook her head. "I'm fine, really…"

"Don't be stupid," Donald interrupted sharply, causing everyone to look at him in shock. "You need to rest, otherwise you'll just drag us down."

Char snorted. "Love you too, duck boy."

Hercules had a look on his face that suggested he was trying very hard not to laugh. He motioned to where he had come from. "Let's just take her in there – the closest quarters are pretty far away from the coliseum."

Sora tilted his head to the side, causing Char to growl softly as his hair briefly obstructed her vision. He'd never really thought about it before, but what else _was_ there to this world besides the coliseum?

They headed into the lobby, and Sora's cramped muscles screamed in relief when he let Char release his shoulders. She stumbled briefly and then managed to settle on the floor, her features still slightly twisted with pain. Donald and Goofy took their places flanking Sora.

"So, you guys on another adventure?" asked Hercules.

Sora smiled. "Yeah – tracking down some friends, meeting some new ones, wiping out some Heartless."

Hercules nodded. "Junior heroes, always busy."

Donald looked indignant at the term "junior heroes", but didn't say anything. Char noticed this and smirked to herself.

"So, did you find those friends of yours?"

The happiness faded from Sora, to be replaced by the homesickness he'd gotten all too used to. "Still working on it," he sighed. He looked up from where he had been staring at the ground. "When we got here, we ran into Meg –"

Char reached out with her elbow and rammed it hard into his side, giving him a you're-not-supposed-to-tell-him look. Sora caught it at once and corrected himself, fighting the urge to rub his ribs where she had hit him.

" – meg-mega trouble, I mean! So we had to go help somebody out. We tried to go teach Hades a lesson, but…"

"This is what happened," Char interrupted, pulling her pant leg back a little ways.

Normally Sora would have shut his eyes instantly and looked away, but as it was the injury was so grotesque that he couldn't help but stare. The flesh all along the bottom part of her calf was an angry crimson, with a few extra specks of dirt from where Sora had set her down in the Underworld.

"Ouch," Hercules murmured.

"Ouch," Char agreed, covering it back up.

"And the Underworld drains our strength too," Goofy added sadly.

"Got any ideas?" asked Sora, looking helplessly at Hercules.

Hercules thought for a moment, then lifted a finger in realization. "Got it! There's a stone that guards against the Underworld's curse. The gods on Olympus use it whenever they have to go down there."

"Awesome! Think we could borrow it?"

Char sighed. "Sora, you can't just go around borrowing tools of anyone's gods whenever you feel like it."

Hercules gave her a hearty pat on the back of the shoulder, causing her to wince. "It's fine; I'm on good terms with them. I'll go get the stone for you."

"Thanks," Sora said, and Goofy added, "That's real nice of you."

Hercules' face turned serious. "But Hades is no pushover, even _with_ the Olympus stone. I have a match today, so I can't go with you… and there's no way that she'll be able to fight with you…"

Char's eyes widened. "What's that supposed to mean? I can fight just fine!"

"It's like Donald said: you're just going to hinder them even if you go along." Hercules looked sympathetically at her. "I'm sorry."

Sora could almost see the veins pounding in Char's forehead. "Che," she muttered, looking away. "I don't need your sympathy." (3)

Sora, Donald, and Goofy exchanged nervous glances.

"But hey," Hercules said, trying unsuccessfully to break the awkwardness. "Know what you guys need? Training."

"Good idea!" Sora brightened.

Then he glanced at Char. "Are you gonna be okay just sitting in here?"

The way her eyes narrowed served as enough of an answer.

"Just one thing." The brunette stepped forward and summoned his Keyblade. Donald and Goofy looked bemusedly at each other.

"Heal," Sora murmured, and the slender purple blade glowed softly green as a beam of light shot out onto Char's wound. When the light had vanished, she sighed and lifted a hand to push her bangs back.

"That feels a lot better," she murmured in relief. Without looking at Sora, she muttered almost grudgingly, "Thanks."

Sora shrugged, feeling a little crestfallen. "Don't mention it." He looked at Donald. "You said healing spells couldn't take it away completely, but at least we can make the process a little faster, right?"

"Huh, good idea," Donald conceded.

The three trooped on out into the Coliseum, and Hercules turned to Char. "I'm gonna go on ahead to Olympus and get the stone. Will you be okay here by yourself?"

"Yeah," she said. "It's not like any Heartless are going to be able to get in here."

"Good point," Hercules answered, and left.

* * *

Yes, I know I said I was going to forego the author's notes, but I have a few things I want to say.

(1) The fly on the table - along with Hayner's swatting it away - is symbolic. Points to anyone who figures it out.

(2) I know you people are probably all annoyed that it's nearly 30 chapters in, and Char is just now warming up to Sora. But, Char being Char, she doesn't make friends too easily. And also, think about it. They met in about chapter 8, right? So they've only known each other - _really_ known each other - for about fifteen chapters. Not to mention I'm a sucker for fleshed-out romance and plot. :D (Don't worry, though - the fluff will intensify in the week-and-a-half it takes for Char's leg to get better.)

(3) D.Gray-Man reference.


	29. Chapter XXIX

Me: (singsong) Almost to 50 reviews... almost to 50 reviews...  
Char: You're awfully happy.  
Me: I _am!_ I did well at my swimmeet today, and I'm confident that I'll do better tomorrow. And - big surprise - I've almost got 50 reviews for this fic, which is much more than I expected given that most people in this fandom are yaoi fangirls with the attention spans of a chicken nugget!  
Char: o.O If it weren't for that insult at the end, I would've asked who you were and what you'd done with Saf.  
Me: ANYWAY! On with it!

**_Disclaimer-_** In the words of Sora, this is really getting old. I don't own this game and we all know it.

* * *

When Sora and the others got used to the glow of the sun outside, they saw a certain satyr standing with his back to them. Without turning around, Phil began to speak.

"Hey champ, how you feeling? Better rest up for tomorrow's match. Nobody's gonna pay to see a worn-out hero… capiche?"

Sora glanced at Donald and Goofy and stifled a giggle. Phil had the habit of mistaking them with Hercules, but it was just too amusing to let the satyr ramble on and on.

"Remember what I told you," Phil went on, and they could see his finger lift as if in admonishment. "Winning the games comes down to two simple words: Eat, bathe, sleep!"

Goofy blinked and lifted his hand, counting the words off on his fingers. He chortled when the amounts came out to be uneven, and Sora and Donald joined him.

Phil stiffened at hearing the laughter and turned to properly punish whoever was laughing at him. "Heeeeey, what's so –" He cut himself off upon seeing who he was talking to. "Well, if it ain't the Junior Heroes!" he greeted, trotting up to them with a smile on his goat-like face.

Sora grinned back. "Looking good, Phil."

"Have you earned your 'true hero' wings yet?"

Sora and Goofy hesitated, but Donald instantly opened his mouth to reply. Before he could, Phil waved his hand in dismissal. "Nope, you ain't got what it takes."

Donald growled and looked away, crossing his arms indignantly, but said nothing.

"So, what's up? What brings you guys back here?"

Sora sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He thought of Char, sitting back in the lobby trying to stand the pain, and spoke. "It's… kind of a long story."

Phil shrugged. "Hey, I've got time."

"I'll just cut to the chase, I guess. Hades hurt our friend and she needs someplace to stay while we go take him down."

At the first part, Phil's eyes had widened in sympathy, but by the time Sora had finished his sentence, the satyr was roaring in laughter, clutching his sides. "Hahaha! You three are gonna take down Hades?"

Donald put his hands on his hips and quacked angrily. "What's so funny?"

At last, Phil sighed, wiping his eyes. "Well, you got nerve. I like that. And hey, if it's for a friend, I guess I'll help you all the way. You never know; stranger things have happened, right?"

Sora thought of him and Char, shaking hands back on the Gummi ship, and realized that he wholeheartedly agreed.

"Better get cracking, then!" Phil said, and gestured to the golden pots behind him. "Alright, so you wanna train, huh? I'm gonna work you all hard!"

"Like we'd expect anything less," Sora smiled, taking out the Hidden Dragon.

Phil suddenly made a sound of realization. "Oh yeah, speaking of your Keyblade…" He reached behind one of the coliseum's columns and withdrew a shining silver chain that glittered in the afternoon sun. The charm attached to the end of the chain, casting an almost blinding light, was shaped vaguely like a coin.

"I found this while going with Herc to Olympus," Phil went on, while Sora stared at the Keychain. The satyr handed it to the Keybearer, who continued to look at it, his head tilted slightly to the side and a look in his blue eyes. "Think it'll help?"

The brunette looked back at Phil and nodded gratefully. "Yeah. Thanks a lot."

Phil rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "Alright then, Junior Heroes. Let's see what ya got!"

"I wish he'd stop calling us that…" Donald muttered, readying his staff.

As the training began, Donald and Goofy dashed off in different directions, the former lifting his rod and crying out as lightning struck the pots and scattered orbs everywhere; the latter rushed head-on through the sea of yellow, bashing his shield up against the pots and grunting in triumph when he scored successful hits. Sora readied his blade and raced forward, slashing and whipping the flame-colored sword through the arrangement of pots. He remembered vaguely how, the first time he had trained like this, he had been worried that Phil would have nothing else to train Hercules with; but then the satyr had informed him that he had an infinite number of supplies, and even if they ran out, the gods were more than willing to give more.

_Must be convenient, to be able to be so sure of that. _Sora hadn't been sure of anything in what felt like eons. Again he reminded himself that this time, he had a third companion, fiercely loyal and ready to stand by his side forever if need be. For some reason, this made him feel warm.

He dodged the pot that was rotating slowly toward him, using the momentum to strike out with the Keyblade. The golden object smashed into bits with a satisfying crunching noise. Outside the training area, Phil was nodding approvingly and scribbling something down in a tan-papered notepad.

A flash of red from his peripheral vision caught Sora's eye. Without even looking, he knew it was Char, because no one else had quite that shade of dark crimson hair. He maneuvered himself into a part of the training area where no pots were so he could see what was going on. Char was grimacing in pain and limping heavily, with one hand pressed against the wall for balance, but she was walking all the same. Sora felt a mixture of pride and disapproval at seeing this, pride that she could stand the pain of the burn, and disapproval that she was undoubtedly irritating the wound. When Char had come to stand near the middle of the training ground, she plopped heavily on the ground, carefully holding her weight away from her injured leg, and watched, her elbow propped up on the upraised knee of her other leg.

Sora didn't know why, but he suddenly felt an odd urge. He whirled around and whipped his Keyblade in a circle, smashing several pots in the process. In the same motion, he rolled under the remaining pots and lashed out into them, leaving none remaining.

"Not bad, kid," Phil said, coming up and writing something else on his pad.

"Thanks," Sora answered breathlessly.

"Yeah, you did a pretty good job," Char conceded. Sora looked over and saw an expression of unmistakable jealousy on her face. He couldn't hold back the grin that took over his countenance, and Char narrowed her eyes in response, promptly masking her anger at being left out of the action.

Donald and Goofy eventually came to stand beside Sora. The duck glared at Sora, clearly angry at him for having finished first, but then his gaze landed on Char.

"Char, are you sure you should be walking around?" he asked, raising a feathery eyebrow.

Char rolled her eyes in response. "I wanted to watch you guys train. Is there a problem?"

Phil looked somewhat amused at the exchange between Char and Donald, but he just turned to Sora. "Meh, well, you still haven't become a 'true hero' yet. Keep workin' on it."

At that moment, the doors to the coliseum opened, and there was Hercules. Sora knew with a feeling of dread what had happened before the hero even spoke, because Hercules' shoulders were slumped and his gaze on the ground.

Phil turned away. "Listen, I gotta take off for a bit."

"Where to?" asked Sora.

"None of your beeswax." With that, the satyr strode off into the lobby.

"Geez, what's _his_ deal?" Char muttered.

They all looked to Hercules, even Char, who undoubtedly held no part in whatever he was going to say.

"Sorry, guys," he said, lifting his head to look helplessly at them. He raised and lowered his shoulders. "The Olympus stone has been stolen."

"What?" Donald and Goofy cried.

"By who?" Char demanded.

Hercules looked dubiously at her, but promptly glanced back to Sora, clearly preferring to exchange glances with old friends than an angered Char Nightblaze. "I'm not sure," he said. "All we're sure of is that it was a guy in a black-hooded cloak. And he had accomplices – a bunch of creatures in white."

Sora couldn't hold back his gasp, and he looked at Char, who nodded firmly in response. _The Organization._

"Someone you know?" asked Hercules, seeing their unease.

"Something like that," Char muttered, staring at the ground.

"Hey, um…" Sora hated to take advantage of someone's hospitality, but unfortunately it was all they had to go on at the moment. "If we retrieve the Olympus stone, can we borrow it for a while?"

Hercules nodded. "Sure. By the way, um… have you seen Meg around lately?"

Sora felt a pang of guilt as they all shook their heads. Hercules sighed and stared determinedly at a beetle crawling on the ground.

"What's wrong, Your Hero-ness?" came a sudden voice, causing everyone to jump. "Feeling a little under the weather?" These words were followed by a sardonic cackle that echoed around the arena. Sora recognized the voice immediately as that of Hades, and unconsciously reached for the Keychain Phil had given him.

The lord of the dead appeared in a burst of flame next to Hercules and smiled in supposed welcome at the others, nonchalantly placing a hand on the hero's shoulder. "You know," he remarked, examining the nails of his free hand, "I thought staying in perfect shape was part of the hero job description… you know what I'm saying?" Hercules jolted and ducked away from Hades' cold hand.

"I came to share a bit of mildly interesting news," the lord of the dead went on, glancing briefly toward Sora and the others. His smirk widened when he saw Char, who could barely hold herself up as it was.

"Huh," he commented. "Looks like my little gift to Key-boy here left a mark on his little princess." His lips quirked wider. "How romantic."

"Shut up," Char snarled, calling her twin blades. "I'm not his damn princess and you both know it."

Hades tsked. "Temper, temper, now. Gosh, what is _with_ all you people insulting me today?"

Sora narrowed his eyes and approached him, not without a feeling of trepidation. "Hades, we need to talk."

The lord of the dead looked uninterestedly over at the Keybearer, who clenched his fist and glared back evenly. With a single flick of one blue finger, Sora was knocked to the ground.

"Manners," Hades said chidingly. "Oh, and by the way, you might want to hide your trembling hand next time."

Sora lifted his head and glared at him, holding his fist closer to his side.

"Sora, you okay?" Char asked, giving him a sidelong glance. "You know… aside from the whole 'male pride' thing."

"Yeah," Sora muttered in response.

Hades looked back at Hercules. "Seems your dear, sweet little Nutmeg went and got herself lost in the Underworld."

"You mean you kidnapped her!" Hercules growled in reply.

"Well, maybe… But why get caught up in the details?" Hades shrugged.

Hercules' face twisted briefly into a look of pure anger; then he whistled loudly. Within a matter of seconds, a magnificent winged horse came soaring over the coliseum and landed at the hero's side, beautiful azure mane fluttering slightly in the breeze.

"Uh-uh-uh!" Hades chided, as Hercules stepped up to Pegasus' side. "You can't leave now, okay?"

"And why shouldn't he?" Char couldn't help but ask. Even though this called his intimidating gaze back to her and made her cringe a little, she still continued, "I mean, come on. You've kidnapped his girlfriend, attacked his friends, and, um, let me think – _crippled_ someone else!"

The word "crippled" was spat out with such anger, such aversion, that even Hades took a step back. "Whoa, calm down there, girlie," he said, putting up his hands in mock surrender. "He's got a match against the bloodthirsty Hydra, is all. I mean, if he doesn't stick around…" He smirked at Hercules. "Who knows what other 'accidents' might happen."

"Accidents _you_ cause," Donald cut in angrily.

"Again – details? Who needs 'em?"

"Bloody coward," Char spat.

"Ah, well," Hades replied loftily. "We can't all be heroes." With that, he snapped his fingers and was gone.

The redhead clenched her fist and stared furiously at the ground. "Man, I hate him."

Sora put a hand on her shoulder, but she just jerked away. "Look," the brunette tried to reassure her, "we'll go put him in his place, get Meg back, and take care of that Organization guy, too."

"Thanks, guys," Hercules smiled in relief. "I owe you all big time."

Char let out another "che" of resentment, crossed her arms over her chest and looked away, off into the clouds. Goofy noticed the muscles of her jaw flex in anger and felt a surge of sympathy for her. (1)

"Yeah, leave it to us!" Donald added. "We're heroes!"

_"Junior_ heroes," Goofy reminded his friend.

"You take care of the Hydra," Sora said to Hercules. "And keep Char safe. We'll take care of the rest."

Char muttered something under her breath about how she didn't need protection, but otherwise said nothing.

"I'm counting on you," said Hercules.

"But no pressure," the redhead added.

Sora suppressed a chuckle at Char's never-failing cynicism. Hercules turned to Pegasus. "You gotta find Meg," he said urgently to the horse. Pegasus nodded and, flapping his wings, rose into the air and over the coliseum.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy turned and headed for the Underworld entrance, but not before Sora had cast another Cura spell on Char's leg. He looked back anxiously and saw Hercules helping her into the lobby.

_She'll be fine,_ the Keybearer reminded himself. _She's Char; she can take care of herself._

But something else still nagged at him, something he couldn't put a name to.

What _was_ it?

* * *

Char stared absently at the walls of the lobby, trying subconsciously to put a name to the color. Saffron, cream, gold… hell, even yellow would do. Or maybe orange?

She suddenly groaned and pressed against the wall, hitting her head against it in the process; she reached up and pushed her bangs out of her eyes, wincing at the pain that had shot through her head. But, as Braig would say, _at least it distracted you from your leg, right?_

_My leg… damn Hades back to the hell he came from._ Just remembering how the lord of the dead had talked to her made Char clench her fist even tighter and let out a snarl. She looked down at her hand and noticed that her fingers had turned practically white with her anger. Slowly, she let them uncurl, not willing to relinquish the feeling just yet.

The last time she had been this angry was not long after Riku had joined her and DiZ. After saying something unsavory to her – oddly she couldn't remember what it was; she only remembered that it had had something to do with Kairi, not being like her – Riku had avoided Char like a plague for what felt like years, and she had gladly returned the favor. She remembered wondering what was wrong with her; wanting to talk to Riku again but having the memory of what he had said as an obstacle; sitting lonely and shivering in her too-big bed in her too-big room in that too-big mansion. Just remembering it made her sigh and put her chin against her knees.

_Riku… Man, I miss him…_

But this wasn't comparable with what had happened with Riku, she knew. Before, things had been petty, easily patched up with time. Now, she realized she faced losing the use of her leg even with Sora's eager application of Cura spells, and even if she was lucky she would walk with a slight limp for the rest of her life. Just thinking about it ripped another furious cry from Char's throat and caused her to hit her fist against the wall.

She could hear the cheering outside and knew that Hercules must be facing the Hydra right now. Part of her wanted to go out and watch, as she had never seen any sort of coliseum match, other than the vivid simulation her novels had put into her mind. Yet the more rational part of her told her to stay put. That was exactly what Hades wanted, was for her to go outside and get provoked by the sight of battle.

So, as it was, the only choice she had was to stare at the ground, face pressed against her upraised knees, and torture herself with wondering what Sora and the others were doing.

_Sora._ For some reason, the thought of that stupid Key-boy, getting his strength sapped and taking down Pete's Heartless and doing gods only knew what, made Char's chest grow tight. She recalled what she had told herself back in the Underworld cavern, that she would be sad if Sora died. She felt a surge of rebellious anger at realizing that that was true. While she wouldn't call them _friends_ in the truest sense of the word, socializing with Sora had been inevitable either way, and, planned or not, it looked like that socializing was starting to take a sharp U-turn to friendly. Char knew that, at the moment, she desperately just needed a friend, someone just to talk to and be with when things got rough.

She realized that her fist had started to clench again, and surfaced briefly from her thoughts to feel a jolt of pain shake her leg. For what felt like the umpteenth time today she wished that she had some healing magic, even if it was the weakest kind.

The dull roar of cheering outside grew to an almost deafening crescendo, causing Char to wince and put her free hand to her ear. Hercules must have defeated the Hydra.

She stared at the wall, anger pulsing through her in hot waves as she reflected that she was the only one of the group with _nothing_ she could do. It made her want to scream, to rip her hair out, to hit her head against the wall until she couldn't feel the pain of that stupid wound anymore. But, like many times before, she held herself back. It wouldn't do, to get this far with Sora and his group, only to succumb to her own temper.

For no particular reason, the subject of the wall color went through her mind again, causing her to stare intently at it. Living with DiZ had taught her not only scientific things, but linguistics and reading as well; while she may not agree with her master's methods, she could not deny that he was a damn good teacher. Not only had he taken her in as a lost child, wandering disoriented with no parents to speak of, but he had also introduced her to the concept of family.

_Family… and other stuff, too._ Char sighed inwardly, thinking of Ienzo, the student closest to her own age and formerly her best friend. The knowledge that turning into a Nobody had undoubtedly ripped his friendly, eager nature to shreds left a hollow feeling in her chest.

She looked back down at the ground as she remembered the last memory of him before he turned into a Nobody.

* * *

_She tapped a pencil idly on the desk, sighing to herself and staring at the clock. Tick, tock, tick, tock… the hands almost seemed to refuse to go forward. The tapping of the pencil rang through the air and she concentrated on keeping up the rhythm._

_"Hey Char!" Braig suddenly came through the doorway, causing the redhead to let out a shriek of surprise. She twisted toward him so rapidly that she almost fell over on her desk. Braig ignored this – in fact, if anything, a pleased smirk hovered on his face at seeing his fellow apprentice so flustered – and continued, "How're you doing on that paper Old Man Ansem assigned us?"_

_Char glared at her self-proclaimed rival. While both Master and Aeleus believed in the policy that everyone should get along, with Braig and Char, that concept was totally foreign. Their relationship consisted mainly of throwing pencils at each other, doodling Heartless all over each other's work, and insulting one another. "First of all, don't _do_ that while I'm trying to think; you nearly gave me a damn heart attack, and contrary to what you seem to believe, no one likes that. Second of all, to answer your question, I was trying to start it when you so rudely barged in here and scared the living crap out of me."_

_"Aw, did I touch a nerve?" Braig tapped a gloved finger against his temple in mock contemplation, causing Char to narrow her eyes. "Stupid me."_

_"Damn straight." Char looked back down at her work, then abruptly raised her pencil up. "Aha! I know what I'm gonna write about. I'll give a grueling, biting analysis of how just because two people live together, that doesn't mean they have to get along."_

_Braig shrugged, pretending not to understand the jab. "Ansem said it's not a persuasive paper, so we can't do that. Besides, you know him: he'd just scribble down some crap about how 'biased' and 'immaterial' that kind of thing is, and maybe something about how he can take a hint."_

_Char growled and lowered her pencil. "Why do you enjoy shooting me down?"_

_"'Cause it's fun." Braig smirked._

_The redhead rolled her eyes and, adjusting her glasses, looked back down at the still-blank paper. "How did I know."_

_"Well," Braig said, turning away, "I think I've had my fun." Before Char could seize him by his ponytail and demand what the hell was going on, he had stridden out of the room._

_She gripped her bangs in an angry fist and sighed, lowering her hand so the hair fell rebelliously back over her eyes again. "Man, I hate that guy."_

_"Hi Char!" Once again, Char jumped in shock, but this time she restrained a scream like the previous one. She glared over her shoulder, fully ready to dismember whoever dared interrupt the results of her procrastination. Her eyes softened and her muscles relaxed when she saw the mop of gray hair._

_"Hey, Ienzo," she sighed._

_Ienzo tilted his head to the side. He was holding something behind his back and had had a broad grin on his face, but at the tone of her voice it faltered slightly. "What's wrong?"_

_"Nothing," she muttered, tapping her pencil again, this time to the beat of one of Xehanort's favorite songs. "I-it's not that I don't want to see you or anything…" She lowered her head slightly, trying to cover the reddening of her cheeks with her hair._

_Ienzo blinked. "Oh, I know that." He looked sympathetically at her. "Braig bothering you again?"_

_"Isn't that always the problem?"_

_"Good point," Ienzo laughed, but he sounded a little nervous._

_Char dropped the pencil on the desk. She pivoted around in her chair to face him, raising one eyebrow. "Ienzo…?" she asked, in an anticipative kind of way._

_Realizing his mistake, the boy blushed and then looked away. Char could still see the crimson on his face through his bangs. "Um, what?"_

_"You want something. Spit it out." She regretted the harshness of her words the instant she had finished, because Ienzo cringed a little before meeting her eyes again. His blue-gray eyes were wide, as though even looking at her was an effort._

_"W-well…" He brought his hand out from behind his back, and Char's eyes widened when she saw what he held. There in his trembling fist were three stems of pure white flowers, still dripping with water, with tendrils of white curling off to the sides of the petals._

_"Ienzo?" she asked quietly, feeling her pulse kick up. "What are those?"_

He met her eyes evenly, though his own eyes were hesitant. For some reason, that annoyed her; she wanted to grab him by the shoulders and repeat her orders for him to just tell her, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to move.

_"Um, Char? I… I brought a flower for you…" he mumbled._

_"Wow," she managed at last. "W-where did you get those?"_

Ienzo shrugged and gave her one of his rare smirks, if not a little tentatively. "Let's just say I have my sources."

_He held the flowers out, looking insistently at her. After a few moments of staring at the flowers and gaping like a dying fish, Char finally regained her composure long enough to lift herself from her chair on leaden limbs. Reaching out, she took the flowers from him, her fingers briefly brushing his as she moved away. Ienzo stared determinedly at a fixed point on one of the action figures on the shelves._

_"Thanks," she murmured, still in shock. At this point, her mind had almost completely shut down but for the part that let her form speech, too in shock at what was happening. It didn't help that her stupid heart was still hammering away at its position in her chest._

_Before either of them could say anything, Braig had burst into the room again. "Char, have you seen the…" His voice trailed off as he looked from Char, to Ienzo, then back again. A lecherous grin was already starting to form on his countenance._

Crap._ Char hid the flowers behind her back. "Look, Braig…"_

_"Dude!" the older apprentice cackled. "Ienzo brought you _flowers?_ And, hang on a sec…" He craned his neck to look behind her, then threw his head back and laughed even more._

_Char snarled at him, "What's so funny?!"_

_"Oh, just that Ienzo got you _honeysuckles,_ of all things." Braig shook his head. "Damn, dude – you've got it _bad,_ haven't you?" _(2)

_Ienzo hung his head, which apparently was answer enough. Braig raced off into the hallways of the Postern, probably to tell everyone else._

_Char looked confusedly at Ienzo. "What's so special about honeysuckles?"_

Ienzo just looked away. "I-I… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that…" He smiled weakly at her. "Now he'll be telling everyone in Hollow Bastion that we're…"

_But his voice trailed off. Char stared at him. "We're?"_

He was already gone.

* * *

Char remembered that later that day, she had asked DiZ what exactly honeysuckles symbolized, though not exactly in as eloquent of terms. He had merely laughed and said – and she recalled this most vividly of all – "I'm surprised you're the only one who does not know what it symbolizes!"

She had looked it up and been shocked at the meaning of those beautiful flowers Ienzo had given her. Even now she felt a sharp pin prick her heart and her throat become obstructed when she remembered seeing those words in print. _Devoted Affection._

A sardonic laugh made its way past the choking feeling. Ironic, because not long after that, she had discovered the Heartless setting mercilessly upon Braig, Ienzo, and the others.

She slammed her fist into the wall again and clenched her teeth. _And I just stood by and watched._

Suddenly she realized that the cheering outside had died down, to an almost deafening silence that, in a way, was worse than when they had been roaring in excitement.

_Guess everybody left already… _She put a hand against the wall and got slowly to her feet, her breathing becoming ragged at the pain it caused her leg. "I wonder if Hercules is back yet…" she wondered aloud.

At that moment, a roar suddenly rang through the air, rending it with its cacophonic quality and – Char couldn't quite catch the tone – triumph?

Her heart sank as she recognized it. _Oh no._

Ignoring the agony that shot through her, she ran unsteadily outside, nearly getting crushed between the lobby doors in her haste to get through them. What she saw made her gasp in shock and, for some reason, guilt.

* * *

(1) I really will stop doing that Kanda thing, I swear.

(2) Yet again, one of my subplots is ganked from .hack/G.U.


	30. Chapter XXX

Me: Capitulo Treinta!  
Char: Wow, it kind of surprises me that you remember that far back in Spanish 1...  
Me: (gives her a dry glare)  
Char: (returns it) Look, just because you want .hack/Outbreak so badly and have to go swim this morning, doesn't mean you get to take it out on me.  
Me: Actually, you're a PART of me!  
Char: So that makes you a masochist.  
Me: ...I hate you... Anyway, I was going to make this chapter longer, but A) it was already about the length of my previous ones (9-10 pages on MS Word) and B) 51 is such an ugly numberrrr )':  
Char: You're review-whoring again...

**_Disclaimer-_** Not now, not ever.

* * *

"You!" Sora gasped, staring in shock at the black-hooded figure. He realized only after saying that that this could be any member of the Organization – not necessarily the guy from before. However, as the person jolted, startled, and turned to face them, Sora became certain that it was the same one. His grip tightened around his Keyblade when he saw the golden stone standing out against the black glove. _That must be the Olympus stone._

"Ah! You!" the Nobody parroted back. One hand flicked up to his hood and let it fall, revealing dark blond hair and large green eyes.

Sora suddenly felt a pain in his head and put his hand up to it. He didn't know why, but this man seemed familiar to him.

"Sora, are you okay?" asked Donald, looking worriedly at him.

Sora knew he had to at least pretend to be brave for his friends, and smiled back at him. "Yeah," he answered, slowly taking his hand away from his head.

The Nobody stared at Sora intently, and then raised a finger, as if in realization. "Roxas?"

Sora blinked. "Excuse me?" _That girl called me that, too, at the Land of Dragons. Is… is she in league with the Organization?  
_The man sighed. "Oh yeah, I forgot it's no use."

"What the heck are you talking about?" Sora demanded, readying his newest Keyblade, which he had christened Hero's Crest. "What's going on?"

Even now, a familiar situation was unfolding in his head: a blond, spiky-haired boy was standing in front of a red-clad man and what looked like an Organization member; standing in a white room with the Kingdom Key held defensively in front of him.

If anything, the Nobody ignored Sora, taking out a piece of paper. "Let's see…" he murmured, scanning the note intently. " 'Demyx – If the subject fails to respond, use aggression to liberate his true disposition'… right…" He sighed. "Did they ever pick the wrong guy for this one…"  
"You're kidding, right?" Donald muttered.

At that moment, Demyx – if that indeed was the Nobody's name – held up the Olympus stone. Goofy gasped and pointed at him. "He's gotta be the thief!"

Demyx's eyes widened, offended. "Now that's just plain rude!" he complained, holding the stone up higher. A few tendrils of golden light snaked around him, glowing green as they completed their journey around the dark-clad body, as if healing him.

In a burst of bubbles, a silver-and-blue sitar had appeared in Demyx's hands. "Dance, water! Dance!" he chanted, his fingers dancing over the neck.

Sora got into his battle stance. He thought of Char, waiting up above, and felt a new surge of resolve. _I have to get done here soon,_ he mused.

* * *

Char could only stare despondently up at the once magnificent coliseum, now in ruins in a gaunt imitation of what it used to be. The crackling of fire all around her reached her ears only dimly, and she felt a burst of nausea inside her as she caught side of all the smoking corpses of the audience. The image of Ryou at the Land of Dragons went through her mind.

_And you were right inside the lobby while it all happened._

As she looked on, a surge of violet caught her eye. A long, reptilian tail was knocking one of the coliseum's golden columns to the ground – a tail that was attached to a gargantuan, many-headed body. Slitted pupils met Char's own eyes, then narrowed. The Hydra threw its main head back and roared.

She stared numbly at it, ignoring the pain that was building in her leg at standing there for so long. The pain, however, was accompanied by a flame of frustration, slowly kindling inside her until it reached a boiling point.

And the Hydra was the direction of that boiling point.

_You're always too late,_ the voice inside her head taunted. _You sat by and let it happen. Again. _

One would think that, after two times of failing to protect, that one would take the hint and be in time. But apparently Char was too dense to realize that.

The Hydra roared again, but this time it was accompanied by a snarl from the injured human below. Char summoned her twin blades and charged at the Hydra, her anger at the situation eclipsing the pain.

If it truly was her fault, then it was her responsibility to take care of things.

* * *

"Well, if it isn't everyone's favorite hero washout," Hades greeted, ignoring the glares sent his way. He took a few steps back, looking out at the ominous lake. "You really blew it this time," he chuckled.

Sora crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "No one likes a sore loser, Hades."

"Can it, Key-boy!" Hades snapped, whirling around.

Sora realized that Char used to call him that, and bit back the impatience to get back that was gnawing at him. He simply directed his gaze at Hades, and if looks could kill, the lord of the dead would have probably been fly fodder.

"Then let me," Hercules cut in. "No one likes a sore loser, Hades."

"Yeah, yeah," Hades muttered. "Styx and stones and all that." He looked at them like he had just remembered something. "Hey, maybe – just maybe – you should go and check on that Hydra you failed to finish off. I hear things are really _falling apart_ up there, champ."

Hercules and Sora's eyes widened, while Donald and Goofy gasped. "Oh no," Hercules murmured, and broke into a run toward the stairs.

"Wait up!" Goofy cried, following the hero. Donald cast a few healing spells on Sora's wounds from the fight with Pete and ran after the others.

Sora glared at Hades. "What happened?"

Hades shrugged. "Let's just say your lady friend might need some help."

Sora didn't mean to, but a gasp escaped his throat of its own volition. "You didn't – don't tell me –"

In response, the lord of the dead waved a hand and vanished in a puff of smoke. "I'd love to stay and watch," Hades' disembodied voice assured, "but I've got some business to attend to."

"Business; yeah right," Sora muttered, with less conviction than he felt. He knew that the scorn in his words was a vain attempt to stave off his growing worry; a worry that kicked his heart into high gear and sent an uncomfortable feeling through him.

He raced up the stairs, nearly tripping in his ardor. When he had reached the top, his eyes widened.

If the destruction from his first fight with Cerberus had looked unfixable, Sora thought that it had been a scraped knee compared to this. The coliseum, set aflame, was in ruin.

But that wasn't what had roused him. It was the sight of the dark purple-scaled monster, many-headed and swinging its tail about, causing even more rubble to cascade down. And near it, tiny compared to the Hydra, was none other than a certain injured redhead, dodging every attack thrown at her and whipping her swords about in an intricate silver blur.

Hercules fell to his knees. "This can't be…"

Sora stared sympathetically at Hercules, then looked at Char. Apparently she was just finishing a series of attacks to the Hydra's side, because she landed unsteadily on her feet near the massive dragon. She glanced back and snarled, "About time you idiots got here!" Threatening as her words were, heavy panting punctuated them.

"How long have you been out here?" Donald asked, raising his staff to cast a Fira spell on the Hydra. It roared in anger, but kept its attention on Char.

"A while, thanks for asking," Char grunted sarcastically.

Meanwhile, Meg, Phil, and Pegasus had come over to stand beside Hercules. "Apparently she came out here, found the Hydra, and held it off," Meg explained, looking worriedly at Hercules. She sighed when he turned away. "It's not your fault! Hades would have sent the Hydra out again no matter what!"

"And you're safe," Phil added, in an obviously strained attempt to console him.

"I failed… I left everyone unprotected… Maybe Hades was right – maybe I _am_ just a washout." Hercules shook his head.

"Aw, come on!" Sora said. "This is no time to beat yourself up!"

Inside, though, guilt nauseated him. _It's just like the Land of Dragons…_ His fist clenched. _People are still getting hurt because of me!_

"A little help would be nice!" Char roared over her shoulder, blocking the Hydra's vicious fangs with her swords. She eventually pushed the dagger-like teeth away and used the momentum to roll to the side.

"Oh, right!" Sora drew the Hero's Crest, shaking his head free of the guilt, and ran over to stand beside Char, dodging the Hydra's lashing, whip-like tail.

She glanced at him, her face twisted in obvious exhaustion. "Hey, Key-boy," she muttered.

Sora winced inwardly at remembering that that was what Hades had called him. Maybe Char and the lord of the dead weren't so different after all. The brunette just smiled weakly in reply. "Sorry we couldn't get here sooner," he said. The last part turned into a grunt as he leaped just out of reach of the Hydra's onslaught. "Pete got in the way, and the cave he was keeping Meg in almost collapsed on top of us."

"Tell her later," Goofy called, narrowly avoiding one of the Hydra's heads, as it had swung its neck toward him to unbalance him. "We gotta stop this thing!"

"No crap," Char growled under her breath. She whipped to the side and, in the same movement, flung one of her blades toward an exposed, scaly neck. The Hydra roared in agony as the head flew off of its body, bringing a string of purplish-black blood with it.

"One down," Sora said, but his smile faded when another head simply grew in its place. "Oh, geez…"

"Yeah, that's the problem with this damn thing." Char's angry comment was followed by a sharp gasp as the new head swung at her, knocking her to the ground. Donald moved to cast a healing spell on her, but she was back on her feet almost at once and glaring at him. "I'm fine," she grunted, shaking one arm and causing blood to sprinkle onto the sand. "I made it this far, didn't I?"

Without waiting for a response, she rushed at the Hydra again, if not a little ungainly in her step.

"Sora!" Phil suddenly screamed.

The brunette looked briefly over his shoulder, but gasped in pain when one of the Hydra's claws scored across it, ripping the padding on his shoulder. "Phil, we don't have time for this; we're busy trying to make 'hero' as it is!" he called, slicing in a zigzag motion up and down the Hydra's exposed torso.

"I know, I know; just listen!" Phil yelled back. "If you need some help, get on the Hydra's back!"

"Right!"

Sora scrambled out of reach of the flailing tail and managed to land just behind the five heads. Sensing something amiss, the Hydra shrieked and swung its tail about even more frantically.

"So what's the plan?" Sora asked. He felt very much like a fly as the Hydra shook violently, trying to get him off its back.

"Use this!" Phil threw one of the training pots at Sora, who slashed it open with his Keyblade. As the splintering fragments pelted the Hydra's necks, three of the heads fell wriggling to the ground, where Char, Donald, and Goofy made quick work of them.

"Now _this_ looks way easier," Char muttered.

Goofy glanced at her, even then swiping across one of the necks with the sharp part of his shield. "How long didja have to stay out here?"

Char shrugged. "A while," she muttered, glancing hatefully down at her burned leg. "Stupid Hydra ripped apart the entire coliseum while I was sitting there in the damned lobby, thinking about my _stupid life!"_

"We know it wasn't your fault," Donald said, glaring at her. "So stop complaining! We have a bigger issue right now anyway!"

"I'm not saying it was my fault!" Char hissed in return. "I'm _saying_ that it could have been avoided. I'm _saying_ that even though I was here, I did _nothing!"_ Her frustration was clearly rising; it reminded Donald and Goofy of the little boy Ryou, and the village at the Land of Dragons.

"Uh, guys?" Sora called, leaping down from the Hydra's back. "Don't we have two more heads to take care of?"

"Oh, right!" Goofy raced toward one side. "C'mon, Donald!"

"I'm coming!" the duck grumbled, and before Char could say anything, he had cast a Cura spell on her and followed Goofy into the fray.

"Oy, duck boy! I didn't say you could do that!" Char yelled, but he just ignored her.

She sighed, but Sora could tell that she felt infinitely better than earlier. "Well, let's go kill this thing!" Without waiting for a response, she charged at the Hydra and slashed at its necks with new vigor.

Sora followed a little more sedately, still wondering about her anger from earlier. He raised his Keyblade and slashed the necks, hitting them at the same time Char's blades made contact with the Hydra.

There was a moment of tense silence; then the heads fell to the ground and Donald and Goofy mercilessly attacked them.

"Please don't grow any more; please don't grow any more," Sora prayed, crossing his fingers. Char rolled her eyes at him, but her fists tightened on the hilts of her swords, as though she agreed with his sentiment.

Suddenly, without warning, one of the heads shot up from the ground and snapped at Char's hands. She jerked them out of the way just in time, but the gaping teeth closed around her swords, and with a crunching of teeth against steel, the Hydra had bitten the old blades cleanly in half.

Char stared in shock at them. Sora, Donald, and Goofy looked on in shock and dread, each knowing what was coming next. After a few moments, she glared at the Hydra with blazing blue eyes. "Damn you," she snarled. "I had those since I was _twelve!"_

Abruptly she whipped toward Sora, snatching something from him. Sora flinched away, having the odd idea that she would hit him, but then realized that she held the shining gold Hero's Crest Keyblade.

Raising the Keyblade high above her head, Char grunted, "Ceremony be damned," before bringing the golden sword down hard upon the scaly snake of the neck. The shaft of the Keyblade cut through the flesh like a knife through hot butter, and with a spray of black blood, the head fell away.

They all waited nervously, but thankfully, the body stayed still, without spawning any more new heads. Instead, a low groaning sound came from the body, and then it collapsed to the side with an unbalancing rumble and moved no more.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Sora plopped down on the rubble next to Hercules. "Whew," he sighed, calling the Hero's Crest back to him. "That was… pretty exhausting." He looked at Char, not without a bit of anxiety at what she might do. She stared evenly back at him. "Char… thanks for holding it off," he muttered at last. For some reason, he found it hard to meet her eyes. "I mean… with your condition and all…"

"Don't worry about it," Char interrupted; but as she spoke, it sounded like she was speaking past a lump in her throat. She shrugged, staring at the ground next to her. "What was I supposed to do, sit here and let the Hydra eat me alive? It already ate my weapon anyway," she added bitterly.

"Oh, yeah…" Sora blinked. He could understand her anger a little; if she had really been using those swords since she was twelve, then that made four years she had experienced with those blades. He couldn't explain it, but it was a feeling of attachment he had always nurtured toward the Kingdom Key. "I'm sorry; we'll take care of it," he offered pathetically.

Hercules sighed, breaking into their conversation. "I failed, again. I'm just… no use."

"It's not your fault," Meg said immediately. "Even a god would be exhausted."

"She's right, you know," Donald remarked. "You need some down time."

"There won't be any games for a while, anyway," Goofy offered in a vain attempt at optimism.

Meg smiled a little dryly at them. "Don't worry about it; I'll take care of him."

Phil pointedly cleared his throat.

The brown-haired girl rolled her eyes. "Fine – _we'll _take care of him." She scowled slightly at the giggles the group had to suppress. "Sora, Donald, Goofy… and you too, Char… I owe you all big time."

Char looked up in puzzlement. "But… I didn't do anything."

"You fought the Hydra until Sora could take it down, even though you were hurt," Phil cut in. "I'd say that's pretty hero-worthy." At these words, Char darted her eyes away in embarrassment.

"Hey!" Donald squawked indignantly. "What about us?! _We_ fought the Hydra, too!"

"But we weren't hurt as badly as she was," Sora reminded the duck. He looked modestly at Hercules. "Honestly, I don't want the title of 'hero.' If I can help someone, that's enough for me."

Char rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "How cheesy." Sora pouted at that.

"But hey, just let us know if the Heartless or Hades start acting up. We'll take care of it," he assured the Olympians. Suddenly he realized something. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot – the Olympus stone." He reached into his pocket and withdrew it. Hercules stood to take it, and Sora held it out. But before the hero could take it, a bright light glowed from the stone, and it lifted up into the air.

"Another gate," Sora murmured, as the Hero's Crest glowed as well. He raised it, and like the previous times, the telltale beam of light revealed the dark clouds of the area between worlds.

"We'll see you all later," Goofy told the others, grinning broadly.

"Hope that Keyblade works well for you, kid," Phil called to Sora.

"And Char?" Hercules added. "I hope you get better soon."

Char sighed, and even though her back was turned, she still repressed the urge to roll her eyes in annoyance. She hated being patted and coddled and given sympathy. "Thanks, Herc."

She glanced at Sora, feeling suddenly awkward. "Um…"

Thankfully, the Keybearer took the hint. Holding her shoulder, he guided her toward the Gummi ship.

When they were all inside, Donald sighed heavily, plopping down on the co-pilot's seat. "This world creeps me out," he grumbled. "I'm glad we're out of it."

"You and me both," Char agreed. She gently unwound Sora's arm from around her shoulders. "I can take it from here," she told him quietly. Ignoring his skeptical look, she limped over and eased herself onto a spare blanket on the floor.

"Wow, it kinda surprises me that you two're agreein' on something," Goofy remarked. Donald gave him a vicious look in reply.

"My only question is, where should we go now?" Sora wondered from the pilot's seat. He leaned his face against a propped up fist, tapping his cheek with a finger on the same hand. "I mean, we can't exactly go visit anybody else until Char gets better…"

"It's fine," Char interrupted immediately, glaring at Sora. He flinched away; she hadn't acted this openly hostile since they had first met in Twilight Town. "Just drop me off at Hollow Bastion or something, and you can continue finding more worlds."

"That's actually a good idea," Donald mused.

"But we can't do that," Sora protested fervently. "I mean…" He looked away, oddly feeling heat rise within him. "I'd feel bad if we left you behind; that's all," he mumbled.

Char blinked. "Um… thanks, Sora." She felt her cheeks starting to turn traitorously red, and ordered the blush to stop at once. It didn't help when she saw Donald and Goofy exchange glances.

"Well," she muttered, "we could still go to Hollow Bastion, I guess…"

"Yeah, that works," Sora acquiesced. "We could go wait for a little bit while you recover, and see Leon and the others, too." He glanced at Donald. "How long did you say it would be?"

"About a week, seventeen days, tops," the duck confirmed.

"Well, that's good," Sora said, but inside he felt a pang. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling like they would regret waiting. The image of Kairi went through his mind, and the feeling intensified. _One of your friends is hurt,_ he reminded himself. _It's only fair if you stay with her, right?_

"Okay, is it settled?" asked Goofy. "We're goin' to Hollow Bastion?"

"Guess so," Char shrugged. She got laboriously to her feet, taking the blanket with her. "I'm gonna go to the back of the ship for a bit."

Donald sighed in relief. "I knew you wouldn't feel like piloting after that…"

Char glared pointedly at him. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying, you're such a bad navigator that you might land us in Maleficent's castle or something…"

"Okay," Sora cut in hastily. "Let's just go, okay?"

Char grunted in response and headed to the back room.

"Sora, you're worried about her, aren't ya?" Goofy questioned, as soon as the door had swung shut.

Sora shrugged. "Well, yeah – aren't you?"

"It's just because she needs to get her strength back," Donald said defensively.

The other two stared at him. "Donald, we didn't even say anything," Goofy pointed out.

* * *

Char sighed as soon as the door had swung shut. She slid down the wall, pushing her fingers through her bangs and wincing as her leg twinged.

The others' voices reached her even though the barrier of the door. "You're worried about her, aren't ya?"

"Well, yeah – aren't you?"

The redhead stared determinedly at the wall ahead of her as she listened. Even now a lump was forming in her throat and moisture was coming to her eyes. _Stop it,_ she scolded mentally. _This is no time to cry. You have to get better for Sora._

For Sora? Since when had her mission's objective changed? She was only here to guide Sora to the path of her and DiZ's revenge.

_For Riku and Master, then,_ she corrected, a little half-heartedly.

She gathered the blanket around herself, and before she knew it she had fallen into a deep sleep; relieving herself briefly of the anger and shame she felt.

* * *

After robotically following Hayner and the others around for a while, Anxclof's internal clock told her that sunset was getting close. She felt rather relieved at a chance to get away from the trio for a while; every move they made conjured up the question of Roxas' time in Twilight Town, not to mention their annoying attempts to include her in their conversation. It took a bit, but Olette finally got the hint from Anxclof's noncommittal responses and told Hayner and Pence to leave the Nobody alone.

In reality, Anxclof was worried. She herself didn't even know why, but she felt an unmistakable concern toward this town and the people in it.

"Hey, Anxclof!" The brunette snapped out of her reverie in time to hear Hayner's words. She gave him an expectant look. "Yeah?"

Olette gave Hayner a sharp shove in the ribs with her elbow and a hard stare. The blond ignored her, though not without wincing a little in pain at the jab. "Twilight Town's annual festival is coming up," he went on, then added dryly, "I know you don't want to be here for too long…"

Anxclof flinched despite herself. Was it that obvious?

Hayner's smug glance was her answer, and he folded his arms across his chest as he continued. "But Pence and I were kinda wondering if you wanted to be here long enough to enjoy it with us."

Anxclof blinked. She hadn't felt included in something like this since her days in the Organization, when she and Axel had been the local troublemakers. She tried to swallow and found her throat constricted with ironic emotion. Again, what she had told Char went through the Nobody's mind: _We may not have hearts, but we remember what it's like._

"Hayner, she clearly doesn't want to," Pence murmured uneasily.

Anxclof directed her eyes at him. "Who said I didn't?" she asked before she could stop herself.

Hayner grinned. "All right!"

Olette only sighed.

"So," Anxclof went on, not even knowing why she was so interested, "if I'm going to be at this 'festival' thingy, what all's gonna be happening?" She lifted her gloved hands and did air-quotes with her fingers on the word "festival."

"Well, first you've got the competitive part," Hayner began. "It's kinda like a normal Struggle tournament, except there are no orbs or anything."

"Struggle tournament? Is that some kind of thing where you beat the crap out of each other for points?" Anxclof asked the question more for the benefit of the others, since all they knew was that she wasn't from Twilight Town. Roxas had actually told her about the Struggles yesterday.

She was surprised when tears didn't spring to her cheeks at thinking of her friend – partly surprised and partly relieved.

"Pretty much, yeah," the blond confirmed, grinning a little at her comparison. "So, first you've got that. It'll be a great chance to get back at Seifer and his gang!" he went on, pounding his fist into his other, open hand.

"Seifer?" Anxclof muttered to Olette, even as Hayner started on about how exactly he would defeat Seifer.

"We – that is, me, Pence, and Hayner, as well as Seifer and his friends – we've been rivals since we were really little," explained Olette in an equally low voice. "We always try to beat each other at everything. Hayner goes a little overboard with it sometimes, as you can see."

"Hey! I heard that!" Hayner barked, causing the girls to smirk slightly.

"A-anyway, after the Struggle, there's a silent auction," Pence went on, looking bemusedly at his friend's enthusiasm.

"And then there's the actual party – like, with music and dancing and stuff," Olette finished, smiling brightly.

Anxclof winced. "Ugh – dancing? Sorry, but you'll have to leave me out on that." At the others' curious looks, she continued, "Let's just say that while I don't exactly have two left feet, the two feet I _do_ have are more suited to the battlefield."

Hayner brightened subtly as she said the last part. "So, are you going to enter the Struggle?" he asked.

She shrugged in response. "I guess so." Inside, though, the bubbles of anticipation had started to rise. The last thing she had taken down by herself had been Sora, but even then, such a worthy opponent had ironically been unprepared. Her battle muscles were aching to be exercised.

Suddenly, they all heard a grumbling noise. Hayner, Olette, and Anxclof glanced at Pence. The boy grinned, a bit sheepishly. "It's almost dinnertime?"

"Yeah, I think we're all a little hungry," Anxclof conceded. The incident reminded her of earlier today, when her hunger had given her away.

The four of them started toward a new restaurant, with Hayner in the lead. Anxclof sighed once she was out of earshot of the others, dragging along at the back like before. The feeling of worry was still there, but for some reason she could not truly _call_ it "worry."

What _was_ it?

* * *

No numbers throughout the chapter! Aren't you happy? :D Although one of these days, I'll just stick a (1) in there somewhere, just to say hi.  
Anxclof: Way to be obnoxious.  
Me: Thank you! Next chapter, Sora and co. head for Hollow Bastion, and Anxclof meets the nefarious Seifer!  
Char: She's also trying to decide if she should stick Zack from Final Fantasy VII in there, but since she doesn't know much about him, she probably won't.  
Me: And in my defense - AERITH is dead too, and they put HER in KH2! (sigh)


	31. Chapter XXXI

Me: Okay, so. About the late update.  
Char: Oh, joy. Here it comes.  
Me: Well, summer league for swimteam just started, so I have to compete in Saturday meets and I feel pretty dead by the time I get home from them. As a result, I usually just spend the rest of the day reading fics or playing video games. Second, my computer got infected with spyware, and I'm pretty sure the little motherfuckers are still on here, because this thing is running slowly and most of the time the internet doesn't even come up.  
Char: So, yeah. That's about it.  
Me: In fact, today I JUST got up off my ass and finished this chapter, since I have today off from school. Originally I was stuck on the part with Anxclof's self-reflection -  
Char: Saf? They don't want its life story. They want IT.  
Me: Oh - shut up. Anyway, enjoy an extra-long filler chappie!  
Readers: Oy.

**_Disclaimer-_** I should seriously just stop doing these.

* * *

Char awoke to the feeling of a hand gently shaking her shoulder. She came to slowly, blinking groggily to clear the sleep from her eyes, and stared around, waiting to get used to the light. It took her a moment to realize that she was no longer in the back room of the Gummi ship – the surface beneath her was too pliant for that – and another moment to recognize the mussed brown spikes.

"Hey, Sora," she greeted sleepily. "Are we there already?"

Sora helped her to her feet. "Actually," he began, sounding a little sheepish, "we've been in Hollow Bastion for a little while now." He gestured out the nearby window, to an early nighttime sky that was partly eclipsed by shutters. "You were asleep for, like, five hours."

Char narrowed her eyes. "And you guys couldn't bother to wake me up and tell me we were here?"

Sora shrugged helplessly, half-cringing at the thought of Char's wrath. "Well… you were sleeping so peacefully we didn't want to wake you…" he admitted, which was true.

Char stared at him, and, when he lifted his palms in a placating gesture, relaxed. "Okay, whatever, I'll take it," she muttered. "And… where am I now?"

"Leon took you to Merlin's house," Sora explained. "There was a back hallway near Cid's computer with a bunch of rooms in it; we couldn't see it at first because you had to hit a button to reveal it. Donald and Goofy have another room, and I have one for myself."

Char nodded slowly, moving only her eyes to survey the room. For the first time, she noted the comfortable softness of the bed's sheets – fitting accommodations for someone of Merlin's station, she supposed. A desk and chair sat next to the bed, with a simple wardrobe on the other side of the room.

"Huh," she remarked. "Nice place."

Then Sora's previous words hit her. _Leon took you to Merlin's house…_

"Oh, gods," she moaned, falling back on the pillows.

Sora blinked. "Um…" _Bipolar much?_ he thought, for perhaps the fiftieth time since they had met. But, for perhaps the fiftieth time, he left the words unspoken.

"You let Leon _carry_ me?" Char demanded, glaring at Sora in open mortification.

He flinched away. "Well… yeah… the rest of us were tired and you obviously weren't gonna wake up anytime soon…"

He half-expected her to lose her temper and call him a wimp for being so "tired." But her next words startled him.

"So _you_ couldn't have done it?" One slender eyebrow cocked over a slitted blue eye.

Sora hesitated, then spoke, tentatively, like one approaching a temporarily-bipedal bear. "Would… would you rather I had done it?" Even as he spoke, that treacherous flush seemed to go through his whole body.

Char groaned, as though annoyed at his obliviousness. "N-no," she replied vehemently. "Hell, no! I mean – geez, how the hell did you get me out of the Underworld if you didn't – Oh gods, can we just drop it?" she finished pathetically, glaring at one of the bedposts.

She could feel Sora's stare on the side of her face and didn't dare look back for fear of seeing hurt in his eyes.

"Yeah," he answered at last. "Well, we're here now – that's all that matters, right?"

His voice was that of someone trying and failing to be optimistic, and for some reason that made Char sigh inwardly. Of all people, the Keybearer shouldn't be the one who was unable to put heart in people – he had the exact _opposite_ of a personality.

_Dampening people's spirits is _my_ job,_ she thought sardonically.

She managed to look back at him, but as soon as their eyes met, he promptly glanced away. The previously-raised eyebrow arched up even further, but she said nothing.

"Well, what've we got to eat around here?" she asked, even as she felt the stings of hunger in her belly. "I'm starved – I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast!"

Sora met her eyes again, his own brightening at the prospect of food. "Oh, yeah – Donald and Goofy already ate, but I waited, because I wasn't that hungry."

Char scoffed. "More like you thought you'd feel bad for not waiting for me."

Sora's eyes widened. "No, seriously – I wasn't hungry!"

"Somehow I find that hard to believe."

Sora opened his mouth to speak, but then he closed it briefly before opening it again. "Don't be so quick to think something that's not true."

"Whatever," Char grumbled in response, though her conscience was nodding in agreement. "I thought we were gonna go get some food?"

Sora's face lit up again. "Of course!" He helped her back up again, noting how she grimaced in pain. "Is the leg not getting much better?" he asked sympathetically.

"Guess not," she murmured through somewhat-gritted teeth, glaring furiously at her wound. "I think the Cura spell Donald put on it wore off."

"Well –!" Sora started to raise his other hand, apparently to reapply the pain reliever of a healing spell. The emerald glow only visibly tinged his hands when it reached his fingers.

Char reached out and, using a surprisingly careful grip, lowered his hand. "It's fine," she assured him gruffly. "You don't need to waste your energy on me. I can make it through dinner without a painkiller; just cast it on me right before I go to bed or something."

Sora looked doubtfully at her, but otherwise said nothing.

They made their way back out to the main chamber of Merlin's house, where they saw Goofy and Yuffie watching Cid type something at the computer. The dog's ears pricked at hearing their footsteps, and he turned toward them. "Hey look, Char's awake!" Goofy cried, causing Cid and Yuffie to glance over. Char winced at being the center of attention, but at the same time, she moved away from Sora and supported herself against the wall.

"Hi Sora!" Yuffie greeted brightly. She looked sympathetically at Char, though her eyes were wide. "He told us what happened – did you really stand up to Hades like that?"

Char shrugged in a show of modesty, but she was really feeling a kind of smugness in addition to embarrassment. "It was nothing – he was going to kill Key-boy. I just acted."

"Doesn't sound to me like you _just acted,"_ Cid growled, raising his voice an octave on the last two words. He fixed his squinted gaze on the brunette. "Sora – you should be thankin' the lady, don't ya think?"

Sora laughed nervously. "I… um…" Finally he gave up on thinking of a witty comeback and just looked at Char, saying, "Thanks for protecting me." _Again._

Char rolled her eyes. "Um, instead of going on about how great I am, can we get some food on board?"

She and Sora ended up having some pizza that Donald's uncle Scrooge had prepared. As they ate, Sora decided to tell her a little more about his previous journey, like his other visits to the Olympus Coliseum and how he knew the Beast. As he spoke, he realized that Char was actually listening. Not rolling her eyes and saying "yeah" every few sentences and shoveling food into her mouth like he'd expected – but _listening._ He hadn't realized this aspect of her personality even existed, other than anger and stubbornness. But no – this was just confusing. She nodded sympathetically, asked questions to clear points, and when he mentioned finding Kairi on Hook's ship, Char even widened her eyes and said, "That sucks – didn't expect that."

About an hour passed like this, with the two of them still talking long after Cid and Yuffie had gone off to their own homes for the night. Goofy bid them a good night a few minutes after the others did, and ambled off to his own room. The conversation was mostly one-sided on Sora's part, which really worked for both of them, because Sora got to vent and Char got to relax her mental energies for a bit.

At last, though, the redhead stifled a yawn with her hand. "It's late," she murmured, getting strenuously to her feet. "I'm gonna go to bed." She refused Sora's offer of help, saying that it wasn't that far to go, and limped back to her room.

She hadn't been in her room for longer than five seconds when a knock came at the door. For a moment she debated just ignoring it, but when the knocking became a tad more insistent she called, "Yeah, yeah – it's open."

The door creaked open and Sora stood there, looking around awkwardly. "Um… do you need some healing before you go to sleep?"

Char could have hit her forehead; she had totally forgotten in her conversation with him, but the memory of her request came flooding back when the damned wound sent a prod of harsh agony. It was all she could do to keep from crying out at it. "Yeah; thanks for reminding me," she muttered.

When the Cura had been cast and Sora had left the room, the brunette gently closed the door behind him. As he turned away, he murmured, "Gods," under his breath. Char was most definitely rubbing off on him.

Fighting within him were two very different emotions, and which one took over depended on his mood. Earlier, when he was talking with Char and trying not to gobble down Scrooge's pizza too fast – because he knew how much she hated it when he talked with his mouth full – worry had been grappling with impatience. Currently, the latter was itching at him and putting even the normally happy-go-lucky Keybearer on edge.

"Hey, Sora," Goofy called. "Are ya going to sleep?"

Sora looked back at the dog and felt a sting of self-conscience at his own feelings. It wasn't right, that he should feel this anger toward Char for sticking a detour in his plans to find Riku and Kairi; the feeling of how ungrateful he was intensified when he realized that Char had just been protecting him. And that was perhaps the worst part, because he didn't understand why.

"Earth to Sora!" Yuffie waved a hand in front of his face.

Sora jerked up in surprise and leaned back slightly. "Eh, yeah, I'm gonna go to bed." He grinned a little sheepishly. "It's… been a long day."

"How long do you think you'll be stayin' here?" Cid questioned.

Sora hesitated. In all honesty, he hadn't the faintest clue. Donald had said a week, and seventeen days at the most; but even with the frequent application of Cura spells, it was still a _burn._ From actual _fire._ From _hellfire,_ no less.

So, in response, he just shrugged helplessly. "I don't know," he answered truthfully. "I don't think we'll be here longer than two weeks, though."

"Well, Merlin said he'd be happy to have us," Goofy pointed out.

Sora sighed. "I know," he muttered. "I'll see you all in the morning."

With that, he turned around and trudged back to his room. Normally he would have paused and looked around a little more, but at the moment, the only thought in his mind was of sleep.

He cleaned himself up, hung his jacket on a hanger in the wardrobe, and was asleep almost as soon as he had snuggled into the warm covers and pillows.

Meanwhile, worlds away, Anxclof was restless. Since Hayner and the others had insisted on her staying, she had found shelter in the Usual Spot. Olette had offered to let Anxclof spend the night at her house – three times, in fact – but the latter had declined; she had wanted to be alone for a while. Now, the Nobody half-wished she were sitting in Olette's bedroom, playing truth or dare and whispering conspiratorially so as not to awaken the sleeping parents. At least that would have distracted her.

Roxas' last words before vanishing wouldn't get out of her head. _It's like DiZ said… it's the fate of a Nobody._

DiZ… was that the name of the man who had ordered Roxas' kidnapping? For some reason, it sounded familiar to her. Anxclof racked her brain for the memory that was undoubtedly the source of the feeling, but she couldn't get a good grasp on it. She sighed and shifted uncomfortably on the couch, noting dimly the luxurious quality of it. _Guess even Twilight Town has to get shipments from another place…_

And then the worry from before came rushing back, because Anxclof was beginning to get a sense that there _was_ no other place to get shipments from.

She told herself to relax. This was the real Twilight Town; not the glitch-riddled caricature that DiZ had most likely created to imprison Roxas in. Then it occurred to her that perhaps the reason why she was so wary of this place was _because_ of the identical nature of Roxas' former prison. Once again, tears failed to reach her eyes at the thought of her friend, making her wonder whether or not she had cried her eyes dry.

_Just wait until after the festival,_ she told herself. _After that,_ _you_ _can try to get Roxas back for good._

Anxclof shook her head and buried her face in the couch's cushion. She didn't notice because her eyes were shut so tightly, but moisture had begun to soak the fabric.

_I'm going insane,_ she thought, and slept.

* * *

Sora awoke the next morning to the sound of voices coming from the main room. He sat up abruptly, only to groan and plop back down at the dizzying feeling of moving his still-sleepy limbs too quickly. He yawned and, more slowly this time, brought himself up so his upper body was being supported by his hands.

_I wonder how Char is doing…_ he wondered. The last time he'd seen her, she had been pulling the top covers of her bed back, being careful to keep her weight off her injured leg.

He finally got out of bed and walked down the hallway into the main chamber, untangling his hair with his fingers as he did so. He had just finished straightening a particularly unruly knot when he saw who all had disturbed his slumber.

The entire Hollow Bastion group – Cid, Yuffie, Aerith, Merlin, and a particularly suspicious-looking Leon, along with Donald and Goofy – stood in front of a dark-clad, blond-haired figure, whose back was to Sora. The Keybearer took one look at the gravity-defying golden hair and realized who it was.

"Cloud?" he blurted before he could stop himself. Everyone's eyes instantly looked from the stranger to Sora, and the man turned. Upon closer inspection, Sora's assumption was confirmed; though Cloud's outfit differed significantly from their previous encounter, the haunted blue eyes gave it all away.

"Sora," Cloud greeted stiffly.

"Good morning!" Yuffie chirped. "Sleep well?"

Sora nodded to the girl. "Great, thanks." He glanced back at Cloud. "Um… what's Cloud doing in Hollow Bastion?"

"He _supposedly_ just came for a visit," Leon muttered. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was glaring pointedly at Cloud, clearly wary of the newcomer.

Cloud raised an eyebrow. "I already told you – I'm searching for someone."

Sora tilted his head to the side. He remembered Cloud talking about not losing sight of his light and searched his memory for anything else important. However, he couldn't come up with anything pointing toward looking for a person.

"Morning," Char's voice half-yawned, half-called from the hallway. The redhead in question came limping into the room with her brown coat in hand, her eyes bright despite the sleepiness in her voice. She winced as she accidentally put a bit too much of her weight on her injured leg, and promptly slumped down into an empty chair. "Not much of a 'good' morning, if you ask me," she grumbled, beginning to pull her arms into the sleeves of her jacket.

"I take it you didn't sleep well, Charisa?" asked Merlin.

Char finished up, sighed, and leaned her arm against the table, reaching up with her hand to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. Sora noted that Merlin was possibly the only one who could call Char by her full name and get away unscathed. "More or less. Sora cast Cura on me right before I went to bed and it wore off a little while ago."

Then her gaze lighted on Cloud, whose frown deepened as he only moved his eyes to acknowledge her appearance. She glanced at Sora. "Who's the blond kid?" Cloud looked a bit ruffled at being referred to as a 'blond kid'.

"Oh, right. This is Cloud – did I tell you about him? We fought him at the coliseum." Sora gestured from one to the other. "Cloud, this is Char. She just joined us a little while ago."

"You visiting too?" the redhead asked. Cloud shrugged in response.

"Guess so," he muttered. "At least until I find who I'm looking for."

"Who is this person, exactly?" queried Aerith in her soft voice. Cloud's expressionless face turned to her, warming only a little as he did so. "If we know, then maybe we can help you."

Cloud narrowed his eyes at the girl. "I don't need help. Besides, you're better off not knowing."

Looking from one person to another, Sora suddenly understood why Leon felt so paranoid about the blond's purpose. Cloud certainly was going through a lot to keep his reasons a secret…

Aerith sighed and addressed Sora and Char. "He's been dodging us like this since he got here."

Char shrugged one shoulder. "I say if he wants to keep it to himself, let him. We all have secrets." A flicker of discomfort crossed her gaze as she said it, as though she agreed with her own words more than she let on.

Yuffie gave an exaggerated sigh. "Well, geez – all this secrecy stuff is making me hungry!"

Sora felt his own stomach give a grumble of agreement, and nodded. "Me too. What's for breakfast?"

"Pancakes," Leon muttered, without moving from his stiff posture. Were it not for his mouth moving, he would have seemed like a statue. "Cid made them."

"Oh, boy!" Donald squawked in pleasure, hopping into the chair next to Char's.

"Cid makes some wicked pancakes," Sora told Char.

As the man passed out their breakfast, Aerith suddenly glanced over at Cloud, who, like Leon, still stood awkwardly off to the side. "Why don't you two eat with us?"

Cloud stared down at the floor, so that his mouth briefly disappeared beneath the top part of his tabard. "I'm not hungry."

"Neither am I," Leon echoed. He took his Gunblade off a rack on the wall and swung it down at his side. "I'm going to go check on the Heartless."

Without another word, he stalked out of the house.

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "That Squall… he can be so impossible sometimes," she complained through a mouthful of pancake.

"Well, can you blame him?" Cid growled. "Somebody else comes along with no real purpose – kinda suspicious, eh?"

Sora couldn't help but think that Cloud didn't enjoy being talked about as if he wasn't there, and glanced at the blond for confirmation. One eyebrow had disappeared beneath golden bangs, but Cloud did not speak.

"C'mon, Cloud," he urged. "These pancakes are _great."_ He shoved several bits of food into his mouth as he spoke. Char made a sound of disapproval and hit Sora on the back of the shoulder.

"Leave him alone," she said. "Even if he _is_ hungry and he's just pulling the tough-guy act right now, you don't need to wave that in front of his face like that."

Cloud folded his arms. "Hm."

"Doesn't talk much, does he?" Donald commented.

Char finished the rest of her breakfast in silence, and then abruptly stood and pushed her chair in. "We've got another problem," she said. Sora watched her face closely for hints of pain, but she seemed to be suppressing the agony of her burn very well. Again, he was struck by how petty he was acting, feeling impatient and wanting to drag her back along their journey when she was supposed to be getting better.

Everyone around the table looked expectantly at Char.

She took a deep breath and evenly met their curious eyes. "In the Olympus Coliseum, this stupid… giant… snake thing –"

"It was a Hydra," Donald re-phrased, looking pointedly at Char.

"Oh, what_ever,"_ Char retorted. "You can't deny it was a giant snake thing."

"But that's not what it's called," Goofy guilelessly remarked.

Char ignored him and kept speaking. "Well, anyway, it reduced my weapons to nothing. So, um…" She hesitated then, as though debating whether or not to impose on their hospitality. Sora shoveled a few finishing mouthfuls of pancakes into his mouth and reflected that he would have expected her to ask them right out; clearly, she respected the Hollow Bastion residents.

"Could you guys maybe work on fashioning me some new twin swords?" she asked, inclining her head to Merlin and Cid. "If I'm going to continue helping Sora, then I sure as hell can't do it without a weapon."

"That will be acceptable, Charisa," Merlin acquiesced. "You will also need help in your, ahem, _situation,_ I expect?" He gestured at her injured leg.

Char winced. "Ah, gods. Don't remind me." She shrugged. "Well… guess I'll need to stay in bed…"

"And keep the wound dressed." Cloud's words startled everyone; Donald and Yuffie nearly jumped and looked at the blond in shock. The slightest furrow of Cloud's blue eyes suggested he was uncomfortable at this. "The last thing you want is the fabric of your clothes irritating it," he went on, never taking his eyes off Char. "You've been lucky so far not to get it infected."

"And how exactly did _you_ glean all that?" Cid growled.

Cloud looked like he was trying very hard not to roll his eyes. "I listen," was his terse response.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Then Aerith rose. "I think for now, the fighters can go protect the town, and those who know healing spells should stay back here and help." She glanced at Cloud. "And you can continue searching for that person."

Cloud shrugged. "I guess." He turned away and left the house before anyone else could say a word.

As soon as the tails of his black coat had vanished, Yuffie let out a huffy sigh. "Man! He's as bad as Leon. They're both the biggest badass-wannabes I've ever seen."

"It doesn't look good that they don't like each other, either," Sora murmured. A flash of Leon glaring suspiciously at the impassive Cloud went through Sora's mind, and the Keybearer shivered.

"Look," Char finally said, "Aerith, Merlin, Donald… Sora… you guys don't have to stay behind and cast Cura on me every time that painkiller wears off. I may be female, but that doesn't mean I need to be taken care of."

"We're aware of that!" Sora protested. And he meant it; Char had proven herself on more than one occasion. Char's eyes turned to him as he went on, "I mean… it also helps to heal the burn, right?"

Merlin gave a nod of affirmation. "Yes. With Cura and Curaga spells, the process of burns on the skin healing speeds up immensely. Without them, it would normally be several weeks before Char could accompany you again."

_See!_ Sora's conscience scolded him. _It could be worse; this way you would only have to wait two weeks at the most!_

"I'm just happy she'll be okay!" Goofy said.

Donald grunted and looked away. "Yeah… me too, I guess."

"I really like the loving relationship you two have there," Cid noted. He got up from his seat. "Well, if we're done here, I'm gonna go check on the defense mechanism."

"And the great ninja Yuffie shall valiantly protect the town!" Yuffie cried dramatically, whipping out one of her shuriken in a silver blur. Sora blinked; he hadn't even noticed her hand going toward her pocket.

Aerith sighed and smiled at Sora. "Don't worry; Char will be fine in a little while."

"How long's a little while?" he heard Char mutter under her breath.

* * *

Anxclof followed Hayner and the others down the back alley toward what was supposedly the Sandlot. "If you want to get good at Struggle-fighting," Hayner had told her authoritatively, "you have to get going while the going's good. And Seifer could be there too, so you can finally meet the jerk."

"How was your sleep last night?" asked Olette, ignoring her hot-tempered friend.

Anxclof shrugged. "Okay, I guess." In reality, she had been plagued by dreams of Roxas and Sora coming at her with flame-tipped Keyblades and had screamed herself awake, but she doubted that Olette would want to hear that. _They think I'm weird enough as it is,_ she thought wryly.

"At least Twilight Town's breakfast place is right by the Sandlot," Pence commented, rubbing his belly in anticipation.

Anxclof raised an eyebrow. She had barely even realized she was hungry until the boy had pointed out the prospect of food.

"We're here!" Hayner announced. He stopped in his tracks so abruptly that Olette nearly ran into his back, and turned dramatically to Anxclof. "Welcome, Anxclof," he announced in a booming voice, making a sweeping gesture with one of his arms, "to the Strrrrr-uggle tournament!"

Anxclof couldn't help it; she put one hand over her mouth to muffle her giggle even as she was glancing around. Posters covered the walls of the diamond-shaped clearing, set off by the large poster at the front wall that read "Struggle!" in large letters. Nearby, there was a box of long blue bats, a box that Hayner immediately set off toward.

"Okay," he began, picking one for himself and then handing one to Anxclof. "You've got the Struggle bat here," he continued, sounding very much like a teacher talking to his student. "Basically, you knock the crap out of your opponent until the timer runs out."

He kept talking on and on about the elements behind a good Struggle victory, but Anxclof wasn't listening. She stared at the Struggle bat, weighing it in her hands and turning it over and over. The blue foam object was no Keyblade, but somehow, it felt as natural as holding her jagged golden weapon. She wondered if Roxas had participated in the Struggle tournament, and a smile spread on her face at such a silly question. Of course he had; he had probably felt the same way toward this bat that she did, whether he knew the reason why or not.

"Well, well! What have we here?" The arrogant voice cut Hayner off abruptly and caused Anxclof to look up. Coming in from the other side of the Sandlot were four shapes that got more distinct as they approached. The smallest one of all whimpered and hid behind the bulky boy that stood next to the silver-haired girl. The leader, a white-clad boy with a scar across one eye and a mildly interested look on his smug face, cocked an eyebrow at Anxclof. In return, she narrowed her own eyes. Somehow, she got the feeling that the two of them wouldn't be the best of friends.

"Seifer?" she muttered to Olette out of the corner of her mouth.

"Yeah," Olette sighed. "And it looks like he brought Vivi, Rai, and Fuu with him, too."

The girl – Fuu, most likely – watched the two talking with small fascination, but she looked back at Seifer when he spoke. "So," he drawled, circling the group without once taking his eyes off Anxclof. He stopped in front of Hayner. "Who's this chick?"

"Excuse me?" Anxclof growled. "I'm a _person,_ not a _bird."_

Hayner's mouth twitched upwards slightly at Anxclof's words, but he kept a straight face.

"Hey!" the larger boy yelled. "Seifer's talking to you, y'know?"

"Rai, stay out of it," the shortest one sighed.

"I asked you a question, chickenwuss," Seifer said. "Who's she?"

"He has a name, you know," Anxclof cut in. "It's _Hayner."_

Seifer stared at her for a moment; then his eyes lit up as though in understanding. "Ohhh, I get it! Chickenwuss here has a girlfriend!" he told his cronies.

Fuu raised an eyebrow. "Finally," was all she said.

"Hey!" Hayner shouted. "I just met her yesterday, you moron!"

"Yeah!" Anxclof snarled in agreement. "You prepared to back that up?"

"Um… I'm just going over here," Pence murmured to Olette, and promptly disappeared into the breakfast restaurant. Olette folded her arms and shook her head at Hayner and Anxclof.

"Maybe I am," Seifer retorted. He strode over to the box and withdrew a Struggle bat. "You training her for the festival?" he asked Hayner.

"And if I am?" the blond blustered. His eyes widened. "Wait, you're not going to fight her, are you? She just got here a little while ago!"

"Yeah, I think you'd be low, but not _that_ low," Anxclof remarked. At the same time, she considered using a few moves Xaldin had taught her to bring Seifer to his knees, but dismissed the idea.

"She's right," Seifer sighed. "Why would I do that?"

"A guy's gotta know chivalry, y'know!" Rai piped up.

Hayner gasped in mock surprise. "Rai! I didn't even know you _knew_ the word 'chivalry'!" The boy pouted indignantly at that.

"Nah," Seifer said. A smirk took over his countenance. "I'll be fighting _you,_ chickenwuss."

Without warning, he charged at Hayner, and the other teen barely dodged in time. He stumbled back and thrust his bat forward in an attempt at a blow, but it was clear that Hayner had been taken by surprise. Seifer just danced away and lashed out with his own bat at the same time, aiming for Hayner's legs. Hayner nearly tripped, but miraculously managed to keep on his feet. He made as if to strike with his weapon to one side and whipped it in the other direction at the last moment, a move that Seifer barely blocked in time. In the same motion, Seifer dipped his bat downward, obviously trying to get at Hayner's legs again. This time, he succeeded, and the smaller blond hit the ground with a grunt that made Anxclof wince, dropping his bat in the process. He barely rolled away as Seifer's weapon slammed into the ground, bringing up a puff of dirt-clad dust.

After a bit more of this, during which Anxclof and Olette watched with growing dread for Hayner and Rai shouted a few more taunts involving 'y'know', the Nobody could stand it no longer. She might not care much about Roxas' "old friends", but these people had treated her like a friend, and she had a low tolerance for injustice as it was.

She gripped the bat tightly and leaped into action. Dashing away from Seifer's blows, she lashed out in a series of rapid attacks that knocked him backward. Seifer growled, clearly displeased with this turn of events, and switched his attention to Anxclof. Hayner, still on the ground, watched, his eyes wide, as, with a few swipes and blows of the bat, Anxclof had effectively pinned Seifer to the wall with the aforementioned weapon at his throat.

"Now," she growled, her face perhaps inches away from his, "you and your chivalry can back the hell off."

Seifer snarled angrily, but said nothing as she removed her bat from its precarious position at his neck. She pushed herself away from him by shoving his chest.

"Alright then," she said, tossing her Struggle bat in the box, "I'll see _you_ at the festival."

Wordlessly, she helped Hayner up and then looked at Olette. "I'm hungry. Let's eat."

They entered the restaurant with shouts of promised vengeance from Rai and sighs from Vivi following them. Olette looked in wonder at Anxclof. "Wow," she said, her green eyes wide. "How did you… where did you…"

"You totally owned him, man!" Hayner crowed, but he sounded a little half-hearted as he held up his hand. It took Anxclof a moment to realize that he wanted a high-five, and she quickly obliged him.

She shrugged self-consciously. "It… was a reflex. I mean, I had the thing and Hayner was getting beaten."

"Hey, guys!" Pence called to them, and they followed his voice over to his table and sat down. The dark-haired boy had a mouthful of bacon and eggs, but he still stared anxiously at them. "Well… so, I take it you beat Seifer?"

"You should've seen it," Olette told him. She looked at Anxclof, her eyes shining. "Anxclof jumped in at the last second and – I don't even know how she did it…"

Feeling somewhat nervous at being the center of attention, Anxclof glanced over at Hayner, who was sitting next to her. The blond was currently staring irritably out into space, propping up his elbow on the table and leaning the side of his face against his upraised fist; but it was clear that what he felt was beyond annoyance.

Anxclof cocked an eyebrow. "Hey," she said, nudging his arm with her elbow. His brown eyes flicked down to her face. "You okay?"

Hayner raised and lowered one shoulder. "Yeah."

_Sure,_ Anxclof thought sarcastically, but left him alone.

"Hi, all!" the waitress greeted as she came by. "Can I get you three something?"

As Olette ordered a large plate of bacon and eggs for everyone, Anxclof didn't take her eyes off of Hayner. Every once in a while his own brown gaze would return to her, but he looked back away so quickly that she couldn't be too sure. She figured that her victory over Seifer rankled Hayner – or rather, that he hadn't defeated the jerk himself, but needed help from a total outsider. _Way to be inconspicuous, Anx._

"So, Anxclof," Olette began. "Where'd you learn to fight like that?"

"Yeah," Hayner murmured.

Anxclof shrugged one shoulder. "I've… been around." Which, if one thought about it, wasn't a total lie. Training with Xaldin and Xigbar would be enough to make anyone into a fine single-blade fighter.

Almost the instant she finished her sentence, something – an aura she recognized – suddenly seemed to rent the air. Anxclof's eyes widened.

_Oh, no… don't tell me…_

"What's wrong?" asked Pence, swallowing his mouthful of pancake and giving her a curious look.

Anxclof shook her head, at the same time frantically casting her eyes about for the exit. She jumped to her feet and threw a quick promise of returning over her shoulder as she raced out the door.

Outside, the air was clearer, but that still didn't mean the presence was gone. Anxclof made sure to make as little noise as possible as she made her way slowly toward the tunnel entrance by the Sandlot. She stepped into the dark corridor, moving only her eyes around the area. Summoning her Keyblade, she began to move forward…

…and then dozens of white-and-azure blurs flung themselves on her and pinned her down.

Anxclof snarled. "What the –" Her anger turned to shock as she recognized the Nobodies' master himself, his spiky crimson hair standing out against the drab walls of the tunnel.

"I thought I'd find you here," Axel remarked casually.

Wishing more than anything that her Keyblade-wielding arm was freed, Anxclof narrowed her eyes. "Call off the Assassins, Axel."

"How about no?" The male Nobody leaned down so that his face was close to hers. "I don't trust you. And you should know why."

"Axel…" She wasn't sure what she would tell him. _"I got Roxas back only to lose him"?_

"You knew what to do. You were the one that said, 'I'll be the one to save Roxas.'" Axel sighed. "And yet I see you, chumming it up with the very people that bound him to this town!"

"This was just where I ended up!" Anxclof snapped back before she could stop herself. "I figured I should get some rest because –"

"Because?"

_Crap._ Realizing only now that she had gone too far, the brunette growled and struggled valiantly against the lesser Nobodies' hold.

"I don't want to fight you, Anx." Anxclof let out the breath she had been holding as her – former? – friend stood back up and moved away, turning his back to her.

"Wow – it's news to me."

"Will you stop trying to be smart for a second?" Axel's venomous words stopped Anxclof in her action of moving her Keyblade to kill the Assassin that pinned her arm. He sighed again. "Look, all I'm saying is that we have the same cause. I'm just telling you that you should leave this town and keep looking for Roxas."

"Oh, like _you_ are?" Once again, Anxclof's frustration took hold of her. "At least I'm _trying!_ You're just, gods, I don't even know what _you're_ doing. Sitting at home at the World That Never Was, pulling a Xemnas and staring at Kingdom Hearts while trying to be philosophical about your life or lack thereof?"

The dark figure in front of her said nothing, nor did he move; if he hadn't stiffened visibly, Anxclof would have thought he was a statue.

Then he spoke, and she was surprised because he didn't scream at her.

"Let's see you do what you're doing with the Superior and his cronies watching you all the time."

"Oh, no, poor you!" Anxclof scoffed. She flinched as she felt one of the Assassin's claws pierce through the fabric of her elbow-length gloves and through her skin, but she kept talking. "Please, Axel. You're not the one who kept trying, tracked Sora and that bitch Char for what feels like so long, got so close, only to have Roxas fade right in front of you!"

Her words made Axel whirl around. His eyes were wide. "You mean you –"

"Yeah. I got him back a couple days ago." Anxclof took a deep, shuddering breath, suddenly almost relieved that tears were threatening to escape her eyes. "He took me here. We kissed. And then, I guess, Char got Sora back, and Roxas became one with him again. I've been here ever since."

She was abruptly struck with the whole absurdity of the situation when she realized that she could've skipped all the "witty banter" with Axel if she'd just told him that. Her frustration spilled over and she sliced upward with her Keyblade, thoroughly annihilating the Assassin that had pinned her arm. Leaping up, she finished the others with a few more of the same moves.

The two Nobodies were left staring at each other, Axel standing still as a statue, Anxclof's chest heaving with exertion and her arm oozing blood on the floor.

Without another word, Axel turned away and walked into the dark portal he had summoned.

* * *

Char.

Was.

_Bored._

For the past three hours, she had stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling, bored out of her skull. The only semblance of company she had was Aerith or Donald coming in to cast Curaga or Cura, respectively, whenever she called them; and even then, they never stayed very long. Char guessed that they were well aware of her currently volatile temper. Gods, she hated playing the helpless victim.

She groaned and stared out the window. The gray brick of the wall behind Merlin's house greeted her, and as she looked on, a Neo-Heartless appeared only to get vaporized by a light pedestal. A small smile tugged at Char's lips. _Cid's keeping a close eye on the defense mechanism, it seems._

And that brought her back to the subject of her anger toward – well, not necessarily everyone else – just everyone who could fight at the moment. Even now, Sora and Goofy were probably outside helping Yuffie beat up some Heartless that were too strong for the defense mechanism to take care of, and Cid was at the computer regulating said defense mechanism, and Aerith was healing them when they needed help, and –

Char let out a frustrated snarl and flopped back on the bed, glaring daggers out the window as though she could take out her stress in that way. As she did so, she caught sight of the clock near the wardrobe. The hands both pointed near the top.

_This is gonna be a long, long, _long_ day._

Abruptly, Char pushed herself into a sitting position, ignoring the pain that flamed through her leg. Arduously, she got to her feet and, using the wall for support, started limping toward the door. That was it – she had to _do_ something, otherwise she would scream from boredom and the sense of being helpless.

Almost as soon as she had exited the room, a deep voice greeted her.

"And just what are you doing up?"

Char narrowed her eyes at the tall brunette. "I'm walking. What does it look like?" she grunted, gripping the rails along the wall harder.

Leon crossed his arms. "Not walking."

"Shut up."

"If you want to get back to helping Sora, you don't want to irritate the wound like that."

"I've got it dressed," Char scoffed, looking away indignantly. However, her words were punctuated by pain and the anger at knowing Leon was right. "And Aerith will be back in a little bit, right? It's all good."

"Aerith is with the others by Maleficent's castle." Leon took a seat at the table and draped one arm across the back of it. "She won't be back for another two hours at least."

_Oy. _"Well, fine, that's okay; I can handle it until then. But you know what? I'm _tired_ and I'm _hungry_ and I'm _bored."_ As Char spoke, she was all too aware of how bratty she sounded, yet she still said the words. She decided it must be the pain talking and kept going. "And for the record, it's barely noon. I hate sitting around here and feeling like the damsel in distress while you guys run off and kick ass." A thought suddenly came to her. "Why aren't you with them?"

Leon raised and lowered one shoulder, apparently unaffected by her outburst. "I was hungry."

Char blinked. Now that she thought about it, the air did carry the delicious aroma of macaroni and cheese… "Hm. You got any left over?"  
One thumb was jerked over a jacket-clad shoulder. "It's on the table."

"Thanks." Char dragged herself over to the bowl and stuck a nearby spoon in it, not even caring that it was cold and felt slimy against the roof of her mouth. "This is actually not too bad," she commented. She glanced over. "You make this?"

"No, Merlin did. It's leftovers from a couple of days ago."

It took Char's mental clock a moment to bring that up to the day Sora had turned into a Heartless. She flinched, knowing how her stupid mistake must be holding him down from searching for Kairi and Riku.

"Char."

"Hm?" Char turned around fully. She started a little at the look on Leon's face. "What?"

Leon looked even more serious than usual, but the expression – or lack thereof – was accompanied by concern. "Sora does care about you. He's worried because you hurt yourself for him. He cares…" His brow creased in a frown, as though trying to think of how to say what he was going to say. "He's worried," he finished.

"Well, _yeah,_ I know. I offered for him to just drop me off here so he could go on, but he refused." Char's matter-of-fact tone disguised the fact that she actually felt warm at Leon's words. She frowned to herself; again, she reflected that Riku hadn't told her to become friends with Sora.

_Friends?_

She realized that she could get used to that idea – maybe she already was.

Leon's mouth quirked upward. "Thank the gods he didn't decide to just leave you here. You would have bothered us all to no end."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Char retorted, putting one hand on her hip and shifting her weight to her good leg. However, her voice had a teasing note in it, a note that told him she knew he was joking.

Leon rose to his feet, still with a small smile on his face, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Get some more macaroni, and then get back to bed. You're going to need all the rest you can get."

Looking up at the tall Gunblade-wielder, Char realized that she didn't feel the slightest amount of awkwardness even though she knew how Leon had carried her in his arms. Somehow, he didn't seem like the type to read too much into that type of thing.

So, she just nodded and grinned, giving him a two-fingered salute. "Gotcha!"

As Leon hefted his Gunblade and headed back outside and Char picked up the cheese-slathered spoon again, she couldn't help but feel a little better about everything. Sure, her weapons were broken and she felt crippled and helpless and Anxclof was probably still after them, but Merlin and Cid were working on new swords for her, something that was long overdue. And her wound would heal, with the help of Cura and Curaga, and Anxclof loved – or at least felt something akin to love – Roxas, so grief would probably cripple the Nobody for a little while.

And Char and Sora were friends.

Anxclof: About damn time you figured that out! (points to above statement) Yeesh...  
Me: Geez, what're you, a commentator? Anyways, review! (Yes, I do want more than one this time.)


	32. Chapter XXXII

Me: Okay, I really apologize for taking so comparatively long with this. But between swimming four hours a day and taking driver's ed (I have my permit now! Squee!), I've barely had time for anything other than the aforementioned things, eating, sleeping, and breathing.  
Char: And not even the latter most of the time.  
Me: Yup!  
Char: Also, she just drove on the road for the first time. Be afraid... be very afraid.  
Me: ...why is everyone making that joke? The only problem I had was that I didn't know when to brake some of the time and I kept veering to the right... The guy behind us probably thought I was drunk, lol. Well, anywho, I think readers are going to like this chapter. So, sit down, grab a Gatorade, and let's go through this 17-page long monster!  
Everyone: Oy.

EDIT: In light of Birth by Sleep, I just thought you all should know: the Xehanort mentioned as the instigator of the Keyblade War in this chapter is NOT the same Xehanort as the one in BBS. Don't want to make this story TOTALLY AU, yenno. :)

**_Disclaimer-_** I don't own KH, and as hard as it may be to believe, I don't want to as much as I did. I want to own .hack/G.U. now! (hugs Haseo)  
Haseo: ...-.- (BANG)  
Me: (ded)

* * *

"Psst, Char!"

From her position half-entangled in the sheets of her bed, Char groaned and squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. Granted, in the past three days she had been getting more and more sleep due to the gradual influence of the healing spells; but today was definitely one of the days when she wouldn't have the privilege of resting up. "Go away, Sora," she mumbled, turning over onto her belly and surreptitiously pushing a pillow over her head.

"No, seriously! I have something really cool to show you, and you won't even have to get up." Now Sora's voice held a hint of earnestness in it. Char cringed at his tone and felt angry at herself for trying to send him away. Then she frowned; that idiot seemed to have a placating effect on everyone lately. Just the other day Sora had stopped Leon from practically taking Cloud's head off.

"This had better be good," Char growled, twisting around onto her back. As she removed the pillow that obstructed her view, her annoyance turned to shock.

At first, with her eyes only drawn to the black markings on his clothes, she assumed that he had simply morphed into Valor Form. Then her gaze swept over the azure garments that replaced his normal clothes. She felt certain that her eyes resembled tennis balls as she stared at him.

"Wow," she managed. "Another Form?"

"Yup," Sora replied happily. "Since Donald and I have to merge when I use this, we called it Wisdom Form."

He seemed a bit uncomfortable at Char's open awe, so she closed her mouth and blinked to clear her thoughts. "So, did Merlin give that to you?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Hm," was all she said in response. She narrowed her eyes. "And exactly what time is it?"

Sora's discomfort increased at her words. "Uh… seven o'clock…" He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I… I just wanted to show you…"

Char sighed. "Look, I got up way earlier than this for assignments when I was a researcher here. It's fine." The boy's shoulders slumped in relief.

There was suddenly a brief flash of light, and when it cleared, Sora stood there in his regular black attire. Donald stepped out from behind the brunette's back, rubbing his head and looking a little dazed.

"Didja have fun, duck boy?" Char smirked at Donald.

"Ah, be quiet," the mage muttered in reply as he headed off to his room.

Sora waited until Donald was out of earshot before speaking. "So… how are you lately? I mean, I'm always out there beating up Heartless and stuff…"

Char raised an eyebrow. "Are you worried about me?"

The brunette looked guilty. "Well… yeah! You just… you nearly killed yourself protecting me, after all…"

"Sora, shut up." Harsh as Char's words were, her angry tone was half-hearted. "I get that you're grateful to me for saving your ass back in the Underworld, okay? Stop forcing yourself."

Sora unconsciously winced at her words.

Her eyes softened and she added, "And I'm fine. I think I'm coming along as far as recovery goes. Aerith told me that we should be able to leave here in a week or so."

Sora brightened. "That's great!" Seeing the redhead roll her eyes at his enthusiasm, he put one hand on his hip, but didn't stop smiling. "Hey, maybe one of these days when you feel a little better, you can show me some more of Hollow Bastion."

Char hoped her surprise at his request didn't make itself too obvious. But she just nodded. "Yeah, I think I could do that."

The boy's grin widened; then he turned away and left the room.

Char couldn't help it; she leaned back against the pillows and sighed deeply, running her hand through her hair to untangle it. She knew all too well that walking around the area with Sora wouldn't happen for a while yet. Her heart gave a sorrowful little dip of disappointment at the thought.

_Just a week to go,_ she thought as she lost herself in the comfort of sleep. _Just seven more days…_

* * *

"So how was she?" asked Leon.

Sora, walking alongside the taller man with the Hero's Crest at his side, shrugged. "Better. She said that it'd be about another week before we could leave."

"Are ya glad we can keep travelin' soon, Sora?" This was Goofy, surveying the jagged stones of the bailey.

The Keybearer smiled at his friend. "Yeah." He hesitated before continuing. "To be honest, I sort of regret keeping Kairi and Riku waiting."

Leon didn't take his eyes off the boy as he voiced his concern, but now the Gunblade wielder glanced back at the area. "Char feels the same."

Sora blinked. "How do you know? Do… do you talk to her a lot?" The sudden revelation hit him and he felt something unpleasant in his gut at the mental image of Leon sitting by Char's bedside. With some difficulty, Sora inwardly shook off the feeling and tilted his head to the side questioningly.

Leon kept his eyes in front of them, even as they patrolled the flat piece of territory that was the ravine around Maleficent's castle, the territory known as the Great Maw. "Sometimes."

"Well… what else does she say?"

Leon raised and lowered one shoulder. "That she gets tired of sitting in bed when she thinks about how we're actually protecting the town. That she's almost better. That she hates how she's holding you back."

"So what if she is?" Donald's vehement question startled them. The Gunblade wielder blinked at the duck, which was about his equivalent of jumping in surprise. "At least Sora's not dead! If she regrets protecting him so much, then she shouldn't have done it in the first place!"

Goofy stared at his friend. "Gawrsh, Donald…"

"Since when have _you_ been singing Char's praises?" Leon beat Sora to that skeptical remark.

Seeming to realize how strange his behavior had been, Donald became very interested in what his feet were doing. "She's a good fighter; I'll give her that much," he muttered.

Sora had been staring at Donald in surprise, but at Leon's sudden battle cry, he whirled around. The Gunblade whipped through the air in a silver blur, carving through the mass of darkness that had just surrounded him. Sora leaped into the fray, swinging the Hero's Crest to impale one of the small, armored creatures. It squealed in pain and fell to the ground, where Goofy made quick work of it using his shield.

Almost as soon as they had vanquished the Heartless, flashes of white heralded the abrupt arrival of Nobodies. Sora gritted his teeth as he sized up his opponents. Most were the gently swaying Dusks or the Samurais from the last visit to Hollow Bastion, but the others, off-white creatures with a definite shape and bright pink shields surrounding them, were unfamiliar to Sora.

"Uh-oh," Goofy gulped.

"We'll just have to take these out first!" With that command, carrying more confidence than he felt, Sora charged forward.

He could hear battle snarls behind him and knew that Donald and Goofy were focusing on the Dusks. However, not even Leon's constant support could keep back the relentless onslaught of their enemies. Sora could barely get at the superior Nobodies due to their constant lashing out with the pink shield, and the attacks that did strike the enemies barely did any damage. Soon, both brunettes found themselves panting and bleeding on the ground.

"What the hell _are_ these?" Leon grunted.

Sora himself felt something pricking the edges of his conscience – anger, and, for some reason, the sense of being watched. He shook off the latter as it was overtaken by hopelessness.

_Are… are we going to die here?_

He remembered turning into a Heartless – agony, the sense of falling asleep, becoming prey to a plague of nightmares. He remembered "awakening" from these nightmares, and seeing his friends there. He remembered feeling angry at himself for always having to be saved.

That anger grew now and gave him the strength to reach inside himself for that inner power. When the light disappeared, he glanced down. Crimson clothing greeted his eyes; his once-free hand held the Star Seeker, and Goofy was gone.

Leon stared at the Keybearer in shock as the younger brunette leaped forward, his wounds healed from the transformation into Valor Form. With a few swipes of both Keyblades, every once in a while having to dash away from the shields, Sora had finished the strange Nobodies.

He morphed back into his normal form, and Goofy appeared near Donald. The duck jumped up in surprise and started lecturing Goofy about not scaring him like that, while Leon raised one eyebrow at Sora. "You did well," he remarked.

Sora grinned breathlessly at him; the Keybearer still couldn't get over how natural dual-wielding felt. "Thanks –"

Abruptly he fell to his knees in exhaustion. Donald dashed over and held his staff over Sora's head, but the boy pushed it away. "I'm fine," he insisted. "I just need to get back to Merlin's house and rest a bit."

The mage looked doubtful, but nonetheless he made his weapon vanish. Leon and Goofy followed suit.

Sora forced himself to get to his feet. "See?" he said to the others, knowing that his smile was strained. "I'm fine."

Leon sighed. "Your legs are shaking," he warned, but said no more.

* * *

The sun was just barely past its apex in the sky when Sora finally staggered into Merlin's house, Donald and Goofy following close behind for support. The Keybearer didn't know what he expected to see when he entered, but those expectations most definitely did not take the form of a dual-wielding redhead sitting at the table and practically inhaling a cheeseburger. Char moved only her eyes to acknowledge the group's arrival, her eyebrows vanishing into her bangs as she looked up. "Hey Sora," she greeted after swallowing. "Back for lunch…?" Her words trailed off when she saw his state, and she abruptly dropped her meal and stood up, using the table as support. "What the hell _happened_ to you?"

"Nobodies," Leon grunted from the back of the group, causing Donald and Goofy to turn and look at him. Char's eyes widened.

"Dusks or Samurais couldn't do that to him," she said in a voice that suggested she was brooding. She looked at Sora, her gaze following the weary brunette as he took the seat next to her with a pained grunt. "Or… was it…?"

Her eyes met Sora's sapphire-colored orbs, and he saw the silent follow-up to her seemingly trailing question. _The Nobodies we fought in Beast's castle…_ Sora searched his memories, trying to recall what that girl had called them. _"Avengers", that was it._

He suddenly realized that Char was still waiting for him to respond. He shook his head. "Nah, these were different… they had these weird pink shield things around them. I think… I think those were more superior Nobodies." Even as he spoke, he realized the significance of the fact that the girl who kept attacking them – the girl who turned him into a Heartless – seemed to control her own type of Nobodies. Again, the possibility that she had once been with the Organization struck him.

As Sora gave the report, a change seemed to come over Char. A shadow passed over her face, and her brows drew down in a hawk-like frown. Suddenly, she reached out with both hands, and before Sora could do anything, she had seized the collar of his jacket and yanked him close.

The brunette stared at her in shock, even as her cold eyes appraised him angrily. "What is the matter with you?" she hissed.

Sora didn't know whether to stutter out an incoherent response or defend himself; his mind couldn't quite get away from the fact that her face hovered inches from his. Fortunately, Char spared him from having to make that choice by continuing in a shout, her voice dripping with pure venom that made him wince. "If you didn't recognize that thing – no, if you tried fighting it and failed, which you obviously did – then you should have run away, you dumbass! Damn it, don't you remember the _last_ time you tried to bite off more than you could chew? In case you forgot, let me refresh your memory." Char jerked her finger toward the area below the desk, which Sora took to mean her leg. He flinched at knowing that she was right.

"It's bad enough when you deliberately put yourself into danger, but it's even worse when you do it at the expense of those who care about you. I won't always be around to save your ass, you know. So stop being such an arrogant idiot already!" She took a deep breath, as though exhausted from her temper. The silence lay so thickly upon the room that one could have heard a pin drop.

A puff of pale smoke caused them all to look. From the fog, a certain magician appeared. "What's all this racket?" Merlin complained, adjusting his glasses and glancing about. When he saw Char and Sora, a look of understanding appeared on his features.

The redhead winced – such a subtle gesture that only Sora saw it – and abruptly pushed the brunette away with a "che". She turned away and crossed her arms.

As Sora shakily faced Merlin and told him about the Sorcerer Nobodies, Char sighed, breathing through her nostrils so that only she heard it. She didn't dare turn back around from fear and embarrassment – fear of seeing Sora's face, and embarrassment that Merlin had seen her. She tried to tell herself that her desperate words had only spawned due to the fact that the Nobodies Sora had described were controlled by the Organization's Superior himself – Xemnas.

She distracted herself from her feelings by attempting to think rationally. If Sorcerer Nobodies were wandering around, then that definitely meant that Xemnas had arrived as well. The thought sent shivers down her spine and made her legs tremble in worry. If they were lucky, perhaps the Nobodies wouldn't find them here…

A soft snort escaped her. _Yeah. And maybe I'll grow wings and fly up to Kingdom Hearts and ask them very politely to give my friends back._

She chanced a look back. Donald, Goofy, and Leon had vanished, and only Merlin and Sora remained. Char cringed inwardly at the looks on the magician and Keybearer's faces as they gazed at her. "What?" she grumbled, averting her eyes.

Merlin just sighed and disappeared in another cloud of smoke. Char cursed his horrid timing, because this left her alone with Sora.

"Look," she snapped as he opened his mouth, "I'm just… I was worried, okay? You scared me for a minute there. I'm… sorry for freaking out on you like that." She hated having to apologize, but with Sora staring at her like she'd just grown a tail and wings, the obligation to try to redeem herself was eating at her belly with guilty teeth. "Just… remember what I said. Don't put yourself into danger, especially when you know people will miss you." She forced a smile. "I don't know what Donald and Goofy would do if you made a stupid, fatal mistake."

_Or me,_ she left unspoken.

Hoping against hope that he would be able to read between the lines of her speech, she popped the last bit of burger into her mouth, got up while chewing, and loped off back to her room.

Sora watched her disappear into the hallway, a mixture of bemusement and cold self-reprimand building within him. Char's words echoed in his mind with the quality of someone yelling from a high elevation. Suddenly he wished that Merlin hadn't told him that the magician could take things from there and eradicate the Nobodies himself. Sora thought that it would help to have something to do and get his mind off Char. The harshness of her words stung him, for some reason.

With a sigh, he settled into Char's empty seat and wondered if there was any leftover hamburger.

* * *

"Did you have to yell at him?" Aerith sighed.

Char's own sigh had a huffier quality to it than the brunette's. "Look," she muttered, glaring at the dresser to save her eyes from the bright green light of the Curaga spell, "nothing else was going to get through to him. He has to know what an idiot he was, trying to take on those powerful Nobodies like that."

"I've known Sora for a longer time than you have." Aerith didn't look up as she cast the healing spell on Char's gradually-closing wound. "I think if you'd just reprimanded him without raising your voice, the two of you wouldn't be avoiding each other right now."

"I wouldn't call it _avoidance_," the redhead grumbled. "Besides, I was worried. When I'm worried, I get desperate."

"And that's understandable." Aerith looked sympathetically at Char. "But all the same, I don't think shouting at him is going to get him to see things your way."

"I know," Char murmured, breaking the eye contact and staring at the covers of her bed. Even she knew what she had done; even she, she who had only been with Sora for a week and a half, realized she'd hurt him.

However, she knew, as she jerked her head back up to glare defiantly at the healer, that that still didn't mean she had to just accept the lecturing.

"What would _you_ have done?" she growled.

To her credit, Aerith didn't falter or flinch back at the venom that oozed from Char's tone. The older girl straightened and looked down at Char with her head slightly tilted to the side, appraising the redhead in a way that started to make the latter uncomfortable after a while.

Then Aerith spoke. "Truthfully? I would have done the same as you had. But… it's not that you scolded him at all. It's the way you did it."

"We're talking in circles!" Char groaned and plopped back against the sheets. "Now we're back at the 'you yelled at him and so it's not enough that you already feel bad about it; we must prod you and remind you of it and make it worse'!"

"Wasn't that the point of this conversation in the first place?"

Char fell silent at these words and looked away. When she looked back up, the dark green eyes were staring straight into her ice-colored orbs.

"You should try and make it up to him," Aerith finally said.

"Well, _obviously,"_ was what Char wanted to say. But she brushed those childish words aside and just snorted instead. "And how do you propose I do that?" Inside, she felt hope begin to bubble up in her chest, thinking that the healer honestly had a solution.

However, Aerith failed to fulfill Char's expectations, as she just shrugged. "You're the one that put space between you two. I'm sure you can find a way."

"Oh, come _on."_ Char sat back on the bed and crossed her arms. She felt certain that a bratty expression covered her countenance at the moment, and anger swelled within her at the thought.

Aerith chuckled and shook her head, waggling a finger reprovingly. "It won't be special unless it's your idea."

Char snorted. "'Special'? Geez." Her temper heightened. "Cut me some slack here."

Aerith's laughter faded at this. The healer fixed Char with a look that seemed to be on the cusp of skeptical and annoyed.

"Alright, alright, don't look at me like that!" Char growled, unnerved by the flower girl's uncharacteristic irritation. The redhead directed her own eyes toward the sinking sun that was casting the bricks of the ground and walls into a dark reddish-gold.

Now that she took the time to consider the solution, Char realized that she hadn't really thought about how she would bridge the conflict that lay like a canyon between them. However, the annoying voice of reason in the back of her mind assured her that Aerith was right; the journey with Sora couldn't continue normally even when the wound that ravaged her leg and gnawed at the nerves was vanquished, if he and Char could not talk and synchronize in battle like they used to. The dual wielder winced inwardly at the memory of how she had treated him when they had first met, eleven days that felt like a lifetime ago. The remembrance of her harsh tone and how she had pushed his offers of friendship away sent waves of stinging humiliation through her. She reflected that when Riku had forced her on this adventure, she hadn't foreseen how badly she would need a friend in the events to come.

_Friends…_ For some reason, the word conjured up the mental movie sequence of a smitten, gray-haired teen, holding out a few ragged stems of honeysuckle flowers to a bemused-looking, nervous redhead. And the two people conjured up the question Char had asked, one fine eyebrow raised and her heart pounding fit to burst through her chest.

_"W-where did you get those?"_

_"Let's just say I have my sources."_

Char's eyes flicked toward the window again. If she hadn't known any better, she could have sworn a burst of emerald green shot through with speckles of white greeted her just beyond the drab gray hue of the town's walls.

Aerith watched the redhead closely, the brunette's eyes observing every flicker of movement from the younger. She said nothing, but when Char pivoted back to the room's entrance, the older girl gave her an expectant look.

"I have an idea," Char murmured, her heart beginning to kick up in the way of one who has just found the answer to a large crisis, and the aforementioned idea began to form in her head as she spoke her next words. "Do you think you could let me walk around the town for the next couple of days? I need to find something, and I don't think it's within the bounds of Hollow Bastion."

_Unless a random green field is contained somewhere inside a ruined city,_ she added silently.

Aerith put a hand to her chin, her index finger brushing against her lower lip thoughtfully, but otherwise she kept her composure. A smile spread across her face. "I think we can manage that."

Char nodded enthusiastically. Inwardly, she frowned. Since when had the dual wielder become Little Miss Sunshine?

"Yeah," she went on. "We can just have Merlin turn on the defense mechanism so that it kills any enemy that shows up, so then it won't be a problem that I can't defend myself." The last fact she had stated didn't anger her as much as she had expected, and Char wasn't sure whether to take that as a good sign or a bad sign.

Aerith's pleasure faltered a bit when Char had finished talking. "But what about those Nobodies Sora and Leon fought?" She asked the question innocently enough; however, Char sensed the undertone of doubt – doubt that the defense mechanism could handle exterminating something that held so much power.

Char shrugged. "Cid can enhance the defense mechanism, right?" Inside, though, she was nodding in apprehensive agreement at Aerith's fears. Char had never been very into computers – that little honor had belonged to Even, and though Braig had always teased the long-haired blond for being such a "nerd", Char couldn't deny that Even, known as Vexen in the Organization, carried an erudite reputation for knowing computers. The most interaction Char had ever had with Ansem's computer mainly involved typing up papers or looking up information to use in works cited pages.

Aerith confirmed Char's opinion. "It won't be that easy," she murmured. "The defense mechanism has to adapt to the enemy's genetic code and know the exact way to destroy it."

The clever manner of the Organization's methods hit Char like a fist then. _Of course._ The lesser Nobodies had been getting in mostly undetected by the light pedestals for so long because of this flaw in the system. The Organization sent their lesser Nobodies into Hollow Bastion, knowing this flaw, and let their minions wreak havoc before pulling them back again. Due to this, the defense mechanism had never had time to create a method of destruction for the creatures, and so that was why Nobodies were now running rampant.

_And the Sorcerers will be the exact same way._ Char shuddered inwardly, a shudder that chilled her to the core, at the thought that even now Xemnas could be here, controlling the Sorcerers.

Aerith shrugged helplessly. "I'll ask Cid and Merlin about it myself," she promised.

Char nodded in an equally despondent way, though her voice, as usual, was strong with confidence. "Could you? That'd be great."

Because honestly, she reflected dryly, she really didn't have any better plan.

* * *

The sky of Hollow Bastion was clad in the heated garb of sunset. The dying sun shone across the bailey and washed the broken rocks in a paler gray glow as a lone boy stepped up to the ledge where, not too long ago, Leon had shown him the problem with the town.

Sora leaned on the ledge that overlooked the trail around Maleficent's castle, his cheek propped against his upraised palm, and sighed when a few off-white silhouettes, their bodies streaked with iridescent pink, appeared far below. The Sorcerer Nobodies – so dubbed by Merlin – swept through the plain, and even though Sora could barely see them, he shivered nonetheless remembering how they had nearly killed him just a couple of days ago. Admittedly, his wounds hadn't been as bad as Char's own burned leg – his own injuries had only needed one of Merlin's Curaga spells before becoming whole again – but the brunette's shoulder still ached from where one of the Sorcerers' shields had thrown him to the ground.

Thinking of the day he had clashed with the powerful Nobodies caused Char to spring into his mind yet again. Another sigh was heard and Sora focused determinedly on the rock formations around Maleficent's castle. He still couldn't help but wince whenever he thought of how Char had shouted at him – and how he knew the truth of her words.

She was right, though – if he made a mistake, what would Donald and Goofy do? Char herself could probably manage, the Keybearer thought wryly; she had obviously managed before now, with her research and her knowledge of the worlds.

_But why did she leave Hollow Bastion? And how did she end up in Twilight Town and find us so fast?_ Were it a physical force, the myriad of questions swirling about in Sora's mind would have toppled him. He realized only now how little he knew about the dual wielder. The only facts that were certain were the bare essentials, such as her red hair and blue eyes and twin swords, and that she had once lived and worked here.

Now that Sora delved into the topic a bit more, more things became clear to him. Before, she had always rejected his offers of friendship, yet as of a few days ago, after bringing him back from the nightmares of Kingdom Hearts, she had extended an ironic offer of her own. He briefly considered whether or not it was a matter of taking him for granted, but dismissed it, as the concept of the negative option stung him.

He did know one thing, though, and that was that he wanted to know her – not so much for himself, but for the sake of his journey. Whether he found Riku and Kairi right away or not, Sora understood the importance of everyone working together in battle and otherwise.

He blinked a few times to clear his head and lifted his head so he could gaze back out at the sunset. The bright golden disc had slipped down a couple of notches so that the light projecting into the bailey was dimmer, less vivid.

Sora blinked again. The scene was starting to fade out, the gray backdrop of the walls melting away, the sunset darkening into a cloudier, storm-shaded sky.

_I must be more tired than I thought,_ he mused, and tried to shake his head to clear it.

But it wasn't going away – the dark sky, the blindingly white castle, the heart-shaped pastel moon that was glowing above him. Sora felt like he was standing off to the side as, a nameless ghost, he watched a familiar blond boy clad in a black cloak step onto the rampart. The brunette gave a start as he recognized the garb – the coat of an Organization member.

But the boy walking toward the very edge of the area bore almost no resemblance to the Nobody Sora had encountered in the Underworld; this one had a smaller and slighter frame, and his hair stood up in slicked spikes, more of a shade of golden butterscotch than dirty-blond. Sora's brows drew down in a frown. _Why does he seem so familiar?_

The brunette craned his neck to see better, and he had to put a hand over his mouth to hold back his gasp. The Keyblade-wielding girl who had turned him into a Heartless was sitting near the precipice, dangling her booted feet off the edge and staring down at the murky blackness as though contemplating flinging herself off.

Then the blond spoke.

"Somehow I knew you'd be up here."

Sora couldn't help his curiosity. Mirroring the movements of the other boy, he walked slowly over near the edge and stopped right next to the girl.

The aforementioned female sighed, putting her arms around her upraised knees in a somewhat defensive way. "Roxas… just go away."

_"Roxas?"_ Sora didn't bother holding back the incredulous cry. Now he _knew_ the girl was – or at least once was – part of the Organization.

"Sora!"

And with a cry from the present, the scene was broken. Startled, Sora shook his head a few times and looked around. Somewhat to his disappointment, the dull gray of the bailey was back, the Nobodies traversing the trail below were back, and the comparatively-blinding light from the sunset was back.

He turned, half-annoyed at whoever had disrupted… the memory? The flashback? Whatever it was – either way, he had probably been about to get some answers about the Organization and what this _Roxas_ had to do with him.

But for some reason, all the irritation melted away like dew in the sun at seeing the dying light catch crimson hair.

"Hey, Sora," Char greeted breathlessly, skidding to an ungraceful stop beside him. The Keybearer took a step back, noting her uncharacteristic clumsiness. It was… rather nice.

He smiled. "Hi, Char. What's going on?" He found himself praying fervently that Char hadn't noticed any of his little displays from earlier – frowning at something nonexistent; crying out a nonexistent person's name. Yet in the back of his mind, he wondered why she would bother talking to him after what she had said. Nevertheless, he added teasingly, "Aren't you supposed to be in bed right now, young lady?"

Char rolled her eyes and playfully hit his arm. "Oh, shut up, you freak." She ignored his pout at the "insult" and continued. "Alright, um… So, do you remember a little while ago, when you asked me to show you around Hollow Bastion?"

In fact, he had forgotten all about it. The hectic quality of the last few days had kept Sora up until midnight and awake at dawn, pushing out almost all of his more superfluous thoughts. However, now that she brought it up, the memory came rushing back, of himself in his Wisdom Form making the request. "Yeah. What about it?"

"What about it?" Char repeated with an exaggerated sigh. "You're so dense sometimes. Well, I want to take you up on it! I begged Aerith to let me leave for a little bit –"

"But wasn't that not really the smartest thing to do?" Sora interrupted. He winced a bit at Char's annoyed countenance. "Because there are Sorcerer Nobodies right down there – don't look like that; Merlin told me what they were called."

The boy pointed conspicuously down at the Great Maw, which now looked coated with a patchy layer of white from the Nobodies, white that had an undertone of blue from the ground.

Char folded her arms. "Well of course we're not going down_ there,_ you idiot! I don't go back on my word – I'm not going to let you try and kill yourself again."

Sora rolled his own sapphire eyes and chuckled. "Darn it, you caught me."

"Don't even joke, spike. I was worried."

_Spike…_ Unbidden, Roxas came to Sora's mind again – Roxas talking to the Organization girl, putting his arm around her and bringing her into a gentle embrace, his arms wrapped around her back and her head pressed against his shoulder.

"Yo! Earth to Key-boy!" Char was waving a hand in front of his face.

Sora shook his head and leaned back slightly. "Okay, okay," he answered, laughter in his voice as he raised his hands in surrender. "I'm here. So where are we going, anyway?"

A look of thoughtfulness spread across her face, as though she were contemplating his strange behavior, but she clearly dismissed it, because a smirk graced Char's already-playful features. "That," she replied, "is for me to know and you to find out."

"Oh, come on!" Sora put his hands on his hips. "Is there anywhere in Hollow Bastion I haven't been?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," she retorted, with a you-don't-even-know quality to her tone.

_"Char…"_ Sora turned the name into a drawn-out whine.

She rolled her eyes, but all she said was, "Just come on. I have something I want to show you."

Without waiting for his consent, she turned on her heel and, her walk brisk if not uneven, started walking toward the stairs.

"H-hey, wait up!" Sora called, hastily making his way down the steps so that he was right behind her. He glanced around nervously as they reached the bottom. "Uh, I thought you said we weren't heading that way –?"

His words trailed off. True to her word, Char pivoted in the opposite direction from the castle gates, toward the cluster of broken buildings. She passed through the pipe-surrounded entrance and he ran after her.

_Okay…_ He wondered briefly why she was taking him to a construction area, and then realized that this must just be the way there. Sora scolded himself inwardly; why would Char give him such an enthusiastic impression about a bit of fragmented architecture?

The path wound in an almost-confusing way, taking sharp turns, and more than once Sora nearly ran into a wall, causing Char to stop, look back, and either raise an eyebrow or suppress a laugh. Each time, Sora would frown, only to have the corners of his lips quirk back up in a grin whenever she turned back around.

Char suddenly stopped in her tracks, and the boy found himself mere inches away from making contact with her back. Quickly he stepped back to avoid crashing into her.

"Uh, Char?" He leaned slightly to the side from where he stood behind her so that he could see her face. The brunette hesitated before continuing, putting a hand on his hip and setting his weight on the opposite leg. "Why did we…?"

Without looking at him, Char held up one finger for silence. Sora looked on, one eyebrow slowly disappearing into his brown bangs, as her free hand moved to stroke her chin thoughtfully. "I thought it was –"

Abruptly she cut herself off and whirled to face him. "Never mind, I found it. Let's go."

"Char, what –" Again, she cut him off, but this time she startled him into silence by seizing his wrist and heading off a little further down the path at a haughty pace.

Sora sighed and let himself be led along, knowing her certainty of the way to this place. He stared down at his feet and couldn't help but notice that Char's limping gait wasn't quite as pronounced as it had been in the early days after the return from the Olympus Coliseum. Sora felt a wave of relief at that; perhaps the recovery now would not take as long as Aerith had predicted.

Glancing back up, Sora was greeted by a strange sight. An off-white glow, not unlike the hue of the Nobodies themselves, was emanating from not too far above them, nearly hidden by the stone formation that rose up in front of it like a column of a cave.

Char stopped in front of the ledge near the strange glow. "We're going up there," she announced, nodding toward where the aura was originating.

Sora didn't know why, but he felt a faint sense of foreboding every time he looked up there. "Are you sure?" he asked at last.

Char sighed impatiently, leaning against the rock and folding her arms so that her hands were tucked under the opposite arms. "Sora, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were thinking I'm leading you into a trap. I've been in there… I know it's safe. Now come on." She stumbled a little over the last two sentences, as though she didn't quite believe herself.

"Okay, okay," Sora murmured; all the same, though, he resolved to call forth the Hero's Crest if any Nobodies or Heartless decided to impede their path.

Uncurling from her position, Char nodded and made her way up the rocks. Having trained hard lately with the Valor Form, Sora had learned exactly how to push down on the ground so that he could jump higher than before, so getting up the makeshift stairway proved to be a simple task for him. However, Char didn't have that luxury; not to mention that she was injured and therefore only had one leg to work with. She gritted her teeth as she pushed herself upward, the pained expression on her face giving everything away. Sora watched her anxiously from the top, at the same time shooting surreptitious glances toward the still-glowing corridor in case anything dangerous popped up. "Are you okay?" he called stupidly.

The redhead gave him a glare that suggested she was most certainly _not_ okay as she continued to struggle to get up the narrow cliff. "Pull me up, would you, you idiot?" she grunted.

Sora started. "Oh! Right!" Clumsily, he leaned down and took her outstretched hand, trying to be careful and not irritate her injury even further as he pulled her up next to him. Nonetheless, a sharp intake of breath grew from behind Char's clenched teeth and she placed her free hand on his chest in order to get better bearings.

When he had pulled her up, he stumbled back briefly and unwittingly took Char with him. It took Sora a moment to realize that this ended up with him against the wall, practically pinned there by Char's body. They stared in shock at each other, faces scant inches apart.

Dimly, he supposed that she must have instinctively put out her other hand to balance against the nearest surface. So, of course, it had to be him. Embarrassment turned his face a ruddy crimson when he realized that she definitely had to feel his heart pounding against his sternum by now.

Before he could comment, however, Char had stepped away from him, shaking her head as though to clear it and rolling her shoulders. "Whew! Thank the gods the journey down's a little easier."

Sora stared at her, and after a few moments, the heat started to vanish from his face. _How could she not have noticed that…?_

When he looked a little closer, though, Sora could have sworn he saw anger flash in her eyes – and was that a tint of red he saw radiating from her own cheeks?

"Hey, so if you had a hard time getting up here just now, how did you find this in the first place?" he queried, in an obviously-strained attempt to change the subject.

Char sighed and turned back to look at him. The off-white glow from behind her framed her body in a faint pale gray as she spoke. "I obviously didn't go this way – I just found out that this was a back way yesterday."

_Huh._ Sora remembered that he had been mostly resting yesterday and had thought how strange it was that he hadn't seen Char in bed. Later, the girl had returned back to Merlin's house, looking strangely triumphant, and had taken only a few small pieces of the steak that Cid had cooked before heading back to her room and becoming dead to the world. _So that was where she was. _Briefly, Sora reflected on how even in one's own home, places that one didn't know about – hadn't bothered trying to find – existed.

He followed Char into the cavern and watched, his eyes wide and awe growing, as the normal stony hues of the walls of Hollow Bastion paled out into the murky off-white he had come to recognize as the trademark of the Nobodies.

The sound of their footsteps gradually changed as the long tunnel ended and turned into a spacious, circular room that was illuminated by the ice-blue torches lining the walls. Stairs spiraled off directly across the room from where the two of them stood, creating a platform that rose above the computer on the lower "floor." Objects on the upper story, objects that looked like some kind of door and that numbered fourteen in all, surrounded this computer. Black symbols adorned the doors, and these symbols were set off by either dark crimson or a pale blue. When Sora squinted to get a better look at these doors, he realized that the red and blue in the area of the doors were created by fire itself.

"Wow," he managed, looking over at Char. He took a few steps along the upper story, placing one hand on the closest door. It was decorated by what looked like a single Keyblade outlined in blue. Sora peered a bit more closely at it; the look of the Keyblade seemed familiar somehow, but when he tried to remember it, the answer scuttled just out of reach.

Suddenly, he realized that he could feel Char's gaze on his back. He turned to look at her, and saw that the corners of her mouth were twitching with amusement.

"Is… is this what you wanted to show me?" he asked, tilting his head to the side and trying to ignore his embarrassment.

To his bemusement, she shook her head. "Not quite." She descended the stairs and moved toward the other side of the room from where Sora was standing. Sora saw that directly above where she stood, there was a red door with a picture of an open book on it.

Hastily, he followed her through the door.

At first, he had to blink to get used to the dimmer lighting after the sheer whiteness of the other room. Once he could see well enough, to his surprise, it was just another tunnel, pristinely white like the previous chamber. He glanced over at Char, wondering despite himself when they were going to find what she had wanted to show him.

Char answered his skepticism with a reproving look of her own. "Look, if there's a shorter way to get there, tell me. It'll save me the time."

Hearing the sharp edge of impatience in her words – impatience that, honestly, matched his own feelings at the moment – Sora bit back his own annoyed remarks and fell silent.

Again, he followed behind her as they trekked through the tunnel. For the first time Sora began to notice that light was gradually vanishing as they progressed further; perhaps that was a sign that they were getting close, since night was falling.

He looked back in front of him, watched Char walk for a bit in the way of one who was obsequiously following another. Even a half-blind old man could tell that the agony from the wound was impeding her stride and creating a slight limp in her normally confident gait. At least she _could_ walk, though, Sora thought. Only a few days ago, she had been irritated due to the fact that he'd had to support her.

The realization of how little he knew about Char still nagged at Sora. He suddenly wondered whether or not this strange venture had more meaning to it than he had first assumed.

They walked on for a while longer, for what seemed like hours, and then he took a deep breath. "Char –"

And then the tunnel ended, and what Sora saw in the dying sunlight made him inhale sharply in awe and look around with large eyes.

The first thought he had was that this place had to have the first sign of plant life he'd seen in this journey's visits to Hollow Bastion. While the area wasn't exactly a plentiful field of flowers, a few white petals still made themselves known among emerald green grass as they fluttered in the early evening breeze. This grass lined the perimeter of and surrounded what had apparently once been a pedestal, but what now lay in ruin, the same dark blue color as the rest of the rocks in the restoration site and Great Maw. As Char and Sora stood there, looking on while the wind gently tugged at their hair, the boy noticed that they stood on a path that led up to the pedestal. He looked behind them and was greeted by only solid rock; however, when Sora craned his neck to see more properly, he could see Maleficent's castle not too far off.

"So?" Char's voice made him look at her. The redhead was staring at him expectantly, her arms folded across her chest, every few moments brushing away a strand of hair that had strayed into her eyes. "It's some ancient ruins where a battle of the Keyblade War took place, and as far as I know it's also one of the few places where plant life still grows in this world."

Sora gazed around. As he watched, a bird fluttered down on a shattered column that had apparently encircled the pedestal. He wondered whether or not this had been some sort of shrine once. The idea sent shivers up his spine; the more he looked around, the more this place was starting to paint a picture in his mind of Keybearers in armor clashing blades and spilling blood, of snarls of anger and battle taunts, of the breathtaking feeling of victory.

And yet, when he blinked, just like that, the feeling was gone.

"I like this," he finally said, glancing back to Char, who was still giving him a "well?" look.

A small smile graced her features in response. "I thought you would."

A shadow came over her face then, as though looking at this were reminding her more and more of something from her past. In truth, Char was thinking of Ienzo, frowning in determination as he uprooted some of the honeysuckle flowers. She wondered what her friend and fellow apprentice had been thinking as he had walked down the same tunnel she had just exited from – that today, he would finally show Char how he felt? The idea created a lump in her throat, for some reason.

_Focus,_ she reminded herself. _Remember what you came here to do._

And yet, when she watched Sora, just like that, the attempt to be reasonable had all but evaporated from her mind.

Dark blue eyes met her own topaz gaze. "So…" His voice was quiet, as though he were afraid to break the serenity that seemed to envelop this place. Char couldn't blame him for speaking softly; earlier, she had felt like her voice was echoing throughout the whole of Hollow Bastion.

"Can you tell me more about what happened here?" he asked at last.

Silently thanking Sora for giving her an excuse to think about something _other_ than the gray-haired boy who had apparently fallen so hard for her, Char gave a single, brisk nod. "Yeah, we had an especially long unit on this part of the Keyblade War. See, Xehanort and his allies had already sent Heartless through most of the worlds, right?" Like so many times before, she was struck by the irony of the fact that the Xehanort of her own time had the same name as the instigator of the Keyblade War. Even more ironic was the fact that Xehanort had turned out just as ambitious and passionate as his namesake.

As Char went through the history lesson, animating it by walking around and exasperatedly clarifying points to the clearly-clueless Sora, she noticed vaguely that the sun had vanished entirely and now the barely-visible moon of Kingdom Hearts bathed the pedestal in silver.

"…so, it turned out that Xehanort won over this world, too." Sora's shoulders, tensed in anticipation of the Keyblade warriors' epic victory, slumped in disappointment. Char felt slightly guilty at building everything up in her tale only to tear it down again, but that was the sad truth of this place's history. "He was originally going to use this place as a sort of palace for himself – see, this thing over here was apparently a throne once – but the Unversed and Heartless kind of got a little crazy when they saw how much light this place contained. They tore it apart and it was forgotten."

"Huh," Sora mused, his arms folded in thought. His eyes traced absently over the few remaining columns that surrounded the stone floor of the pedestal, and his gaze eventually landed on the grass beyond. "And that's why I never knew about this place even when I visited a year ago, right?"

"Yeah."

She found herself leading him over to the small strip of grassland. Immense trees blocked off the view of whatever lay beyond.

Before she could open her mouth, Sora had plopped down on his back in the grass, wriggling out of his jacket and sighing as he felt the cool blades against his skin. "I didn't even know Hollow Bastion _had_ much grass!"

Char held back the urge to roll her eyes. "Well, obviously they do; otherwise how the hell would they get vegetables?" However, as she spoke, she sat down next to him, one arm settled against the same knee. Silence reigned for a moment, and, suddenly needing to feel the breeze against her skin, Char took off her own jacket and placed it on the grass, so that her white, camisole-like top showed.

She stared up at the sky, at the faint pinpricks of light that announced the presence of the stars. Her eyes were drawn toward the conspicuous pink-gold-and-black heart-shaped moon that was Kingdom Hearts, and she let out a soft sigh. She knew that if Kingdom Hearts was visible to a world, then that meant that the world itself hung on the cusp of getting overrun by Heartless. Quickly she went over the list of worlds they had already been to in her mind, besides Hollow Bastion and Twilight Town. Beast's Castle, the Land of Dragons, the Coliseum… During their trip to the very latter of the worlds, the group hadn't stuck around long enough to see it at night; but from what Char _had_ seen of the Coliseum, it seemed safe, as did the other two worlds. When she sighed in relief, she reflected that before this journey had begun, she couldn't have cared less what had happened to those other worlds. A grin twitched at the corners of her lips. Sora was definitely rubbing off on her.

She glanced at the boy in question and saw him staring thoughtfully at her, his head tilted to the side. Char felt her heart do that annoying flutter thing as their eyes met and quickly averted her gaze, but she could still feel him looking at her.

"What're you thinking about?" he asked.

Char looked back at him. Sora was barely visible through the long blades of grass, but she could see through the patchy curtain of green that his arms were behind his head and he was lying on his back on the ground with his head still cocked to the side.

She shrugged. "Nothing. This journey. Stuff."

Sora's mouth quirked upward when she had uttered the words, and he returned his gaze to the darkened sky. Irritation flared inside the redhead. "What's so funny?"

She saw him flinch slightly at the anger in her tone, but nevertheless he turned his head to look at her again. "I was just thinking how weird it was that you called me out here." He hesitated before continuing, with tentative nervousness veiling his voice. "When you were so mad at me and all…"

An irritated sigh permeated the night air, and Sora started. "Um, if you don't want to talk about it –"

But a finger promptly placed against his lips silenced him. Char's brows were drawn tightly together in a frown, one eyebrow slightly raised as she stared at him with annoyance plain on her countenance. There was a moment of silence, a moment that was permeated by the rustle of the trees as the wind shook them, before Char spoke again.

"Sora… can we just stop talking about that?"

He blinked. Once. Twice. Again.

As soon as she took her finger away, he opened his mouth to speak, still bemused. But she beat him to it, and he saw her fingers occupied with tearing apart a few innocent blades of grass as she gazed at the sky.

"Have you ever done something – no, _said_ something to someone, something that you looked back on later and hit your head against the wall for being so incredibly stupid?"

Sora hesitated, about to reply negatively. But then he thought of Riku, extending his hand to Sora, waiting patiently even as darkness threatened to consume him. _Come on, Sora,_ his position had whispered, _let's go together – best friends, on the journey to new worlds._

And what had Sora done? Sat and stared like an idiot while his best friend vanished right before his very eyes. (1)

"Yeah," the brunette murmured, coming back to the present in a rush.

"Well… that's the exact situation I'm in right now. I'm sorry, okay?" Char cringed a little as she said the last part, almost as though apologizing was physically injuring her.

Inside, her heart was pounding madly. She hoped with all her might that this was going well, because Sora's surprised gaze wasn't exactly giving her any hint toward the positive outcome.

But then he'd risen so that he was supporting himself with his palms, and one hand was placed on her shoulder. Char looked briefly down at the hand on her shoulder, and then her eyes went back to the Keybearer. She was sure she was gaping stupidly at his next words, spoken through a gentle, warm grin and accented by shining blue eyes.

"Char… everything's okay."

It was Char's turn to blink. Once. Twice. Again.

Then she saw the look of hopefulness on his face, lying behind the smile and bright eyes, and knew how much her reconciliation meant to him – a realization that was further confirmed when his hand squeezed her shoulder.

"Alright then," she answered, and to her complete and utter shock she found her own hand reaching up and brushing briefly against the hand on her shoulder. Sora turned red at the contact, the blush darting across his face before he lowered his gaze, his face still a little pink. Char put up her free hand to hide her giggle at his reaction.

"You know what?" she murmured.

Sora raised his head and tilted it to the side, blue eyes wide with curiosity. "Yeah?"

"You're not so bad, Key-boy."

"Shut up," Sora laughed, but his hand pressed against her shoulder one more time before lowering.

Char suddenly looked up at the sky; Kingdom Hearts was appraising them from almost the same point it had before, yet she still felt a sense of urgency to get back to Merlin's house before everyone started worrying.

"We should get back," she remarked aloud, getting to her feet. Disappointment caused Sora's face to fall, but then he glanced up at the sky and his eyes widened a little, as though he saw her point.

"Yeah – I don't want Leon and the others to worry," he acquiesced; but the effect of his words was slightly diminished by the yawn that permeated what he said. He gave Char a sheepish grin. "Sorry… it's been kind of a long day."

A smile threatened to tug at Char's own lips, but she turned away before he could be sure. He wasn't sure if it was to hide her amusement or to pick up her jacket. "C'mon," she said, pivoting back to face him. She gathered her jacket against her frame with one arm and, to his surprise, extended her free hand to him. He stared at it, and then back up at her. Her normally-icy eyes were warm, which startled him even more.

In the end, though, he smiled back at her and took her hand, letting her pull him to his feet. He shouldered his own jacket on and shivered, crossing his arms tightly across his chest and rubbing them to try and stave off the sudden cold.

"Aw, is Key-boy tired _and_ cold?" Char joked.

Sora just laughed in reply, and they set off back through the tunnel. He cast one final look behind him, at the moonlight-bathed ruins and the rare grass and the bloody past.

And suddenly he felt serene.

* * *

(1) You know, if you think about it, the whole thing with Riku and Sora kind of parallels Anxclof and Roxas...

Me: I was originally going to add more than that, but eh, I figured it'd been dragged on long enough. Nearly 10,000 words, baby! Still, though, I'm not sure how much I like nice!Char right now. We'll just see how things play out for her friendship with Sora.  
Lexi: I liked the dragged-on part...  
Me: (irritated) Gtfo! You're not even in this fanfic!  
Lexi: (flinches) But... but I heard Haseo was here...  
Haseo: (hiding behind potted plant) Oh crap.  
Lexi: (starry-eyed) Hi!  
Falcon: XD You has a Haseo!  
Me: Ah, the fluff between two characters of my non-written story idea in a fandom that probably half my reviewers don't know about...  
Sora: I'm still here! D:


	33. Chapter XXXIII

Me: (dodges punches/tomatoes) Okay, so I have a valid excuse this time! Although I finished swimteam/driver's ed a while ago (I passed the driving test with flying colors, thanks very much :D), my dad is now fond of making me turn off the computer right when I get on a good writing spree. So, blame that.  
Char: Also, she's had more ideas for her G.U. story idea than this, unfortunately.  
Me: WHY DID YOU TELL THEM THAT YOU - (is sprayed by fire hose)

**_Disclaimer-_** I do not own Kingdom Hearts; Squeenixney does. I do, however, own Char, Anxclof, Falcon, Copperhead, the Shadowed Desert world, any minor OCs that come with SD, this iPod, and this sketchbook. Fwee... sketchbook.

* * *

Char's eye twitched a bit. "Uh, guys? What did you do to the Gummi ship?"

Looking on with an equal amount of surprise, Sora had to agree with her sentiment. They had just returned from their talk in the meadow-contained ruins to find Cid, Leon, Aerith, and Yuffie working on the inside of the aforementioned vehicle. Clouds of smoke in the interior all but obscured what was going on. As always, Cloud was nowhere to be found, even though the evening was fairly late.

"You mean you guys didn't bother putting any furniture in it or anything?" Yuffie queried, bounding up to them and giving them an incredulous look.

"W-well, we didn't exactly have any time for that… Yen Sid kind of just gave it to us back at the tower…" Sora murmured, eyes wide. Currently, the group was in the process of dividing the ship into separate rooms – so he and the others wouldn't have to sleep on the floor every night, Sora guessed. As they watched, Cid dragged a small bed through the main navigation room, grumbling to himself all the while.

"We've been working on this all day," Leon said, as expressionless as ever as he joined the self-proclaimed "great ninja." He raised his eyebrows at Char and Sora. "Where were you two? We were going to show you how it was going."

_"I_ know where they were…" Yuffie cut in, giggling as though she couldn't resist saying that.

Sora turned a shade of red that was thoroughly reminiscent of Char's hair at Yuffie's suggestive tone. "It wasn't… We weren't…"

"Are you serious?" Char interrupted, looking annoyed. She folded her arms across her chest. "We just talked, is all."

Sora glanced at her, not knowing whether to feel offended or relieved that she was backing him up. Thankfully, he was spared the decision when Aerith strode up.

"We're almost done with the renovations to your rooms," she informed Char and Sora. For some reason, the smile she gave Char, and the redhead's responding smirk and wink, made Sora a little suspicious.

Her smile fading to a more serious expression, Char nodded once. "That's good."

"And it looks like you're moving around a bit better on that leg," the healer went on, looking carefully at Char's injury. Aerith smiled at Sora. "At this rate, it'll only be a little while before you all can set off again."

"Oh boy!" Donald's squawk startled just about everyone except Leon and Aerith. Sora turned to see the duck in question ambling up to them with Goofy at his side.

"I'm glad we can keep goin' soon!" Goofy grinned widely.

"You and me both," Char murmured, rolling her eyes.

Sora supposed that he should feel the same happiness that the others were expressing – the concept of having to put his journey on hold had irked him before – but strangely, he felt a pang of disappointment. Immediately he felt ashamed at himself for feeling disappointed, but he thought he understood.

With the absence of her home around her, the walls that Char had so carefully crafted around herself would probably go back up again.

"Hey Sora, are you okay?" asked Goofy, tilting his head to the side in a way that made his long ears swing.

The boy smiled at his two animal friends. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just tired."

"Then you should get some sleep," Char said before anyone else could open their mouths. He glanced at her, a bit surprised at the concern on her face. She shrugged a little self-consciously. "Well… you heard Aerith. It could be tomorrow, even, when I can walk normally again, right? So we should all be prepared."

"She's right," Leon muttered, looking slightly irritated – but only slightly.

At that moment, none other than Cloud appeared in the room. He looked on with a look of bored indifference on his blond-framed features, a look resembling Leon's own normal expression. Sora sighed inwardly. _For two people who don't get along, they're sure a lot alike…_

"And just where have you been?" Leon asked Cloud, dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. The way he spoke, it sounded more like he was demanding answers from the younger man.

Cloud simply gave him a look that seemed caught between "you don't want to know" and "none of your business." Abruptly, he turned to Char, whose composure cracked just a little at having his iron gaze focused on her.

"There's something for you in the Postern," he said.

Sora didn't recognize the word, and he let that confusion show by tilting his head to the side and frowning slightly. Char, however, apparently knew that term all too well, because her shoulders tensed visibly. She stepped up to Cloud, who stood just behind everyone else. "How do you know it was for me?" she asked after a moment.

"There was a note attached to it," Cloud answered smoothly. "Your name _is_ Char, right?"

Ice-blue eyes narrowed, but then widened back to their normal size again, and Char sighed, pushing her bangs off of her forehead with one hand. "Alright; I'll check on it," she said, in a somewhat reluctant tone.

"But aren't you tired?" asked Yuffie, tilting her head to the side. "C'mon; you've been running around practically the whole day, when you're supposed to be in bed getting better!"

Char let out another sigh, this time with a huffier quality to it. "For the love of the gods, Yuffie, it's fine…"

"Get to bed," the ninja interrupted, putting her hands on her hips and glaring pointedly at Char.

"Okay, okay! Geez…" Char turned away and started down the small set of stairs that led into the marketplace. Sora couldn't hear what all she muttered under her breath, but he caught the words "what are you, my mom?" and had to keep back his snicker. Watching her walk away, Sora realized that Char had meant what she'd said about being okay; she hadn't just said it to get Yuffie off her back. For the most part, the dual wielder's tread was fairly smooth: not as confident as it used to be, and marred by a slight limp, but Merlin, Aerith, and Donald's healing spells had done wonders.

"And just what are you grinning about?" Cid growled, coming up to stand beside Leon and Yuffie.

"Er, no reason," Sora quickly amended.

He directed his next words to Cloud in an attempt to change the subject. "So, um, how's your search for that person going?"

Cloud's sapphire eyes mirrored Sora's own orbs as the two made eye contact, and the blond just shrugged one shoulder. "I still haven't found him."

"Maybe if you told us what he looks like, we could help you," Aerith suggested.

Cloud narrowed his eyes. "I told you before, it's not something you want to get involved in."

"Oh, come _on,_ Cloud!" Yuffie all but stomped one foot as she looked impatiently at him. Her words induced only a raised eyebrow from his end, but she continued nonetheless. "You've been pulling that big 'tough-guy' act for the past five days, and it's getting a little old."

"Let him alone." Surprisingly, the words came not from Char – who looked about ready to say it herself – but from Aerith. The flower girl gave a stern look that Char remembered from yesterday, when the two of them had talked. "I want to know myself… but everything comes in time, right?" Aerith went on. Her soft green eyes shifted to Cloud, who blinked at her – a little gratefully, Sora thought.

"Some things come in less time than others," Leon muttered, still eyeing Cloud with a look of barely distinctive agitation slightly wrinkling his features.

A yawn suddenly rent the air, and Sora realized it was coming from him. "Uh, guess I should be getting to sleep too," he said in response to the others' bemused glances. Sheepishly, he added, "It's been a long day."

And before Yuffie could tack any more innuendos onto his words, Sora had turned on his heel and set off in the same path Char had taken.

When he tentatively pushed the door to Merlin's house open – the stupid thing tended to creak whenever he opened it; it reminded Sora too much of the door to his room at Destiny Island – the brunette blinked to allow his eyes to get used to the still-limited amount of light. He sighed in disappointment when no telltale blue eyes greeted his vision, and stepped forward, carefully pulling the door closed.

Then the path of the door was stopped rather abruptly. Instinctively readying himself to summon his Keyblade, Sora glanced up through the narrow opening between the door and the wall, and, to his surprise, saw Cloud's taciturn face.

"Sorry, Cloud," the Keybearer quickly amended, and lifted his hand from the doorknob just long enough for Cloud to step sinuously into the room. The blond merely gave a small shrug to indicate that he accepted Sora's apology.

"I was just going off to bed," Sora explained, deciding to speak up only after a few moments of already-awkward silence. He pointed with his thumb off toward the hallway next to the computer screen; Cloud's slender eyebrows rose a bit, as though he hadn't known about the rooms' presence before.

"Can I stay here, just for the night?" he muttered at last, so softly that Sora could barely hear him. "I'm going to leave tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow? But you just got here!" Sora protested, more for the sake of protesting than actually meaning it. Clearly, Cloud had made his choice and no one was going to sway that. The brunette sighed as he realized how much his and Cloud's purposes paralleled: searching, always searching, it seemed; weaving in and out of people's lives for a greater reason.

"I think Merlin said there's an empty room down the hall." Sora hoped that he sounded less despondent than he felt – not necessarily about Cloud's coming departure, but at the whole situation in general. Not for the first time, he wondered if his journey would ever truly come to an end.

Cloud gave a single nod and started off in the direction Sora had indicated. As soon as the door closed behind the blond, Sora allowed another sigh to escape him. _All I can do now is keep going._

The thought was one that had occurred to him so many times over the course of his last journey, even more so in the escalated action after rescuing Kairi and battling Riku in Hollow Bastion. _All I can do…_

Still, just thinking that didn't make things any easier – in fact, sometimes it just made matters worse when all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball and sleep for months. Again, Sora reminded himself that this time, things were different – that in addition to Donald and Goofy, whose loyalty toward him would last till the very end, he had Char by his side. A frown wrinkled Sora's forehead as he reflected how odd it was that, no matter how Char had seemed to abhor his presence before, she still protected him like they'd been lifelong friends.

However, for now, all he could do was shrug it off and walk down the hallway to his room. Plopping down in the bed, Sora didn't even bother pulling the covers back before falling asleep.

Across from Sora's room, Char's body twitched about from where the covers were sticking slightly to her currently gown-clad body, fingers opening and closing repeatedly from clenching so hard at the blankets. Ordinarily her nightmares never produced such an extreme reaction – and had she been watching herself, Char would have been embarrassed at what she was doing – but this nightmare differed drastically from the one that normally plagued her. This time, Ienzo and the others didn't prowl across her dreamscape and darken it with the reminiscence of their "deaths".

And those dreams certainly never felt as real as this one did.

_Where the hell am I?_ Char hissed for perhaps the thousandth time. And for perhaps the thousandth time, she berated herself for saying the words, no matter how quietly. That was just the way dreams were, she supposed – one couldn't have thoughts in the form of simple ideas without voicing them.

Looking about her again with narrowed eyes, Char growled under her breath as she found the fog to be impenetrable yet again. _If only I had my twin blades; I could probably hack this bloody fog to bits and then I could _finally_ see what exactly is –_

_Char._

Despite herself, a gasp ripped itself from her at hearing the voice – achingly familiar, a voice she'd gone without hearing for a mere nine days.

_Riku?_

And then the mist cleared, however briefly, and before she had time to sigh in relief at being able to _see_ she saw him. It was definitely Riku, no doubt about that; though the haunted glow in his turquoise eyes was exactly different from the happiness and friendship in them whenever he was with her. She realized as she took in his appearance, however gaunt it was, that he had taken his original form in this dream: the boy with the long silver hair and uncertain, determined green eyes she had met near Castle Oblivion. If feelings were tangible in this dream, she knew that happiness and relief would be roiling through her right now.

Happiness and relief that was replaced by confusion when Riku called out again.

_Char._

_What…?_ But when she took a step forward, Riku's shape immediately drew back into the mist again.

_Come back, you idiot!_ Instinctively Char started at a run toward where he had once been, and abruptly realized how eerily quiet it was in this place when her footsteps echoed all too loudly against – what was this floor made of, _marble?_ She shook off the nervousness that gripped her and increased her heartbeat, and focused instead on the thought of Riku.

_Char._ The redhead in question narrowed her eyes as his voice rang out again.

_I'm right here… if you'd just stop moving, maybe I could get to you… _(1)

_But you don't really want to find me, do you?_ The words surprised Char enough to stop her in her tracks, a look of shock and horror on her face.

_That's not it, emo boy! I can't find you _at all!

_If you wanted to find me, I would be right there in front of you…_

Riku! _What is the matter with you?_ Char shouted, her heart pounding more than ever now. _Of course I want to find you; I want you here with me now!_

_You're lying… you stopped caring about me when you agreed to go with Sora._

Char didn't know why, but his words shook her to the core and seemed to echo inside her mind.

She shook her head, partly to clear it and partly to disagree. Predictably, she felt she only succeeded in the latter. _Riku, I agreed to this stupid venture_ because_ of you._

_You only want Sora now, and we both know it._

The words seemed to crowd in on her and push her to her knees. Char's heart now felt like it was going to burst through her chest and she shook her head frantically. _That's not true… it's not true; it's _not…

Perhaps that was when she jerked awake, panting and with her hair practically plastered to her back and forehead.

She took a few deep, shuddering breaths, lifting a trembling hand to push her bangs out of her eyes – she really should get those trimmed one of these days, she thought fleetingly – and closing her eyes in an attempt to calm the currently-demonic presence writhing in her chest. The redhead opened her eyes briefly and noted the shining golden orb just peeking over the horizon. As she squinted against the light of the rising sun, she sighed. _Guess now is as good a time as any to get up…_

A flicker of movement around the edges of her vision caught her eye, and she turned her head toward it, half-expecting Sora to be hovering at her bedside with wide sapphire eyes. She shivered despite herself at remembering how Riku had portrayed Sora in the dream – a spiteful person who had come just to steal Riku's friend away.

But her feelings about the nightmare were eclipsed by surprise when she saw who exactly stood there, when her gaze found pale blond hair instead of cinnamon brown.

For some odd reason, at first she thought it was Roxas who stood at her side; but then she took in the pure black coat and the fox-like badge along the chest and realized who exactly it was.

Cloud said nothing to indicate that he'd noticed her staring at him. _How long has he been there?_

_Probably long enough, _she answered herself, and her face flamed a little with embarrassment. Given the cold sweat the dream had put her in, the light blush was actually a welcome feeling.

Then Cloud got up and left the room.

After a moment of silence, Char figured she should probably follow. (2)

* * *

Twilight Town was too beautiful this morning.

From her position on her back against the green couch – _still_ her designated sleeping area, even after what felt like so many uncomfortable nights, nights that really numbered about seven in all – Anxclof sat up, supporting herself with her elbows. Dark pupils offset by emerald watched today's scanty orange-gold of the twilight sky mingle with the majority white-gray clouds.

It had been this cloudy every day for the past week, in seeming promises of rain that turned out empty in the end. Hayner had at first complained at the possibility of rain, as that dampened any chances to go train for the festival – no pun intended, of course. It was fortunate then, Anxclof reflected, that the boy hadn't had any more of an excuse to flare up irrationally than normal. A grin tugged at her lips at the thought. In the past few days, it seemed like her only solace had become tagging along with Hayner and his friends in their various exploits. These often took the form of odd jobs to make money for train tickets, during which Anxclof felt sincerely glad that they never took the tunnels, as they reminded her all too well of her encounter with Axel; making a scene at restaurants; or helping the producer of the Struggle tournaments set things up for the festival.

Anxclof couldn't hold back a sigh at the thought of the festival, more at the realization that it took place _today._ Time did fly when one was torn between misery and doubt, she thought dryly.

Though… really, that wasn't the case, was it? Yes, her internal conflict over how she would be forced to leave in just a few days had weighed her down, in a burden that, it felt, just kept growing. Yes, she had been about ready to press her face into the couch's vanilla-scented cushions and suffocate herself after the encounter with Axel, a feeling intensified when Hayner, Pence, and Olette had gotten worried at seeing her freshly-cut arms and torso. Yet… somehow, she realized, things had steadily gotten better.

"It feels like… like seeing Roxas again," she murmured, eyes widening as the revelation hit her. It was pathetic, even for her. But then again, she supposed, that was just the way things were sometimes. She liked to think she saw little pieces of Roxas in everything she did here, and – at least for the moment – that was enough.

"Hey, Anxclof!" The familiar voice snapped her out of her reverie, jerked her up into a fully sitting position that made her head spin from the speed of it. Unconsciously her hand came up to her hair, running through the wavy strands in an attempt to untangle them. As she looked on, a head of wild, strawberry-blond hair greeted her through the mesh of the gate to the Usual Spot.

Hayner's excitement seemed to carry over from his voice to his countenance, as he was grinning breathlessly. Anxclof resisted the urge to roll her eyes and just grinned instead. Inside, she wondered how he could be so obvious at times and yet completely opaque at others.

_"Some_body's a little overexcited," she remarked, and her smirk grew despite itself when Hayner came to a clumsy stop and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. A flash of blue drew her eyes down to the Struggle bat he held in his hand.

"Well, yeah."

She raised an eyebrow and folded her arms, simultaneously leaning against the side of the couch and crossing her legs. "You _do_ realize that the Struggle's not until, like, noon, right?"

Hayner blinked at her for a moment, then sighed and shook his head in mock rebuke. "Anx, you sure you have a sense of time _at all_ in that head of yours?" he asked.

"Of course I do!"

The boy smirked in response, an answer that caused Anxclof's own to wane. "It's almost a quarter till, smart one."

Anxclof jolted in shock. _Holy crap – I slept_ that_ long?! _Inwardly, she smacked her forehead – if she stayed in Twilight Town for too much longer, surely she'd start to lose her inner sense of time.

"So c'mon, c'mon, let's go!" Hayner's smirk turned back into his former grin.

"Breathe, sparky," Anxclof laughed, pushing herself up and shoving his shoulder playfully. She knew she wouldn't feel uncomfortable with that, mostly because the sheer idea of Hayner having a crush on _any_ girl – let alone one he'd only known for a scant week – felt so absurd.

Inadvertently, Roxas came into her mind again, causing her to curse her memories' horrible timing. She bit her lip and unconsciously her eyes found a very interesting point on the ground.

Fortunately, if Hayner noticed, he didn't let it show. He just shrugged. "C'mon – aren't you excited? Now I can actually win this time!"

"I take it the summer's Struggle didn't go well?" Anxclof hoped her voice wasn't shaking too much as she followed him to the Sandlot. When they entered, two small dots amid the swarm of people, she instinctively laced her fingers together behind her back for comfort. She'd had no clue that Twilight Town was this _populated_.

Hayner sighed, squeezing his way past a mob of what were clearly Setzer supporters – if the way they were screaming the man's name testified. "Nah," the boy answered. "I just let my guard down, is all… And the best part was that they had this great trophy…"

Abruptly he stopped, both verbally and physically, so that Anxclof practically hit his back. She leaned over to see around him with half-narrowed eyes, but as far as she could see, there was nothing that could pique his interest and hold it. Aside from the aforementioned trophy on the table next to the Sandlot itself, the orbs along its "arms" glittering in all their multicolor glory, she still couldn't find what had caught his attention.

"Uh… Hayner…?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. "You feeling okay?" She didn't even bother trying to beat back the worry that was rising within her; at this point, she'd gone far beyond the throes of tolerance toward the people that had bound her best friend to this town.

Hayner sat there for another moment, his dark eyes screwed up into a squint; but just as soon as the feeling had come, it was gone, and now he was grinning at her again. "Yeah. Dunno what happened."

Anxclof snorted. "Liar," she muttered bluntly.

"Hayner! Anxclof!" called a familiar voice, causing both of them to turn. Pence and Olette were walking up, the former holding some of Twilight Town's infamous sea-salt ice cream by the sticks. Pence had spoken with his mouth full of the icy-blue treat, and the substance dripped onto the ground from its vantage point as the boy smiled. "Want some ice cream?"

Hayner, of course, heartily agreed and took one of the popsicle-like treats, causing Pence and Olette to smile – Pence enthusiastically, and Olette with her normal reserved air that suggested she was used to this. She glanced at Anxclof, still smiling slightly. "Do you want some before the tournament starts, Anxclof? We saved some for you guys."

Anxclof cringed despite herself; she didn't know how any of them could think of eating at a time like this. "Er, no, that's okay," she said.

"But you just got up – aren't you hungry?" Hayner asked through a mouthful of ice cream.

Anxclof raised an eyebrow at him. "Ice cream for breakfast, anyone?" (3)

Hayner looked a little put-out at that and turned away, muttering something about having already had breakfast before now – like that was any excuse.

"Anyway, I'll be fine – I'm just a little nervous," the Nobody continued, to the trio's bemused looks. Contrary to what Hayner, Pence, and Olette seemed to believe, Anxclof wasn't entirely lying. She could feel the unmistakable, smoky aura of lesser Nobodies wreathing around the area and tried to convince herself that they were probably just lurking around in the tunnels. _Yet again, I'm starting to doubt the reality of this town…_

And yet again, she chided herself for thinking that – this was the real Twilight Town; the Organization just couldn't resist interfering. Thanks to Axel, they probably knew all too well that she was here. At the thought, Anxclof's hand clenched into a tight fist that, had she not been wearing gloves, would have pressed little white half-moons into her palm.

She opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment, a bell chimed, changing everyone's attention to the producer of the Struggle tournament. The man stood at the edge of the sandlot and smiled widely for all to see as he announced, "Welcome, one and all, to the beginning of the Twilight Festival!"

This was greeted with thunderous cheering and applause that made Anxclof wince slightly. She hated crowds, and this was exactly why.

"As everyone knows," the dark-haired man went on, "this festival begins first with the intense, mettle-testing, heart-pounding Struggle tournament! Some of you who didn't do so well during the summer's round may find yourself climbing the ranks to fight our reigning champion, Setzer!"

Predictably, almost on-cue the rabid fans the group had seen earlier squealed the champion's name. Anxclof frowned at them and then followed the crowd's gaze. The aforementioned man waved nonchalantly to the crowd, the light breeze tugging at his long silver tresses and purple garb.

"They always do that," Olette sighed, referring to the fan-girls.

"I love how you never notice any _guys_ cheering for him," Hayner muttered. Both girls stifled giggles at that.

"Now, everyone, get ready to –"

"STRUGGLE!" everyone screamed in response.

The platform that served as the "battlefield" was readied, and the producer continued speaking. His microphone was the only thing that kept him audible above the audience as he went on, "You all know the rules for _ordinary_ Struggles, but the Twilight Festival's Struggles have a tiny little difference. In this competition, the participants still battle it out to see who's better. However, in the festival, whoever is still going when the timer finishes is the victor!"

"So basically, beat the crap out of each other?" Anxclof murmured to Hayner out of the corner of her mouth.

Hayner laughed under his breath. "Yeah, pretty much."

"This year, we have our two favorite rivals competing for the prize! Hayner, an underground favorite and local attitude problem!" Hayner grinned and waved at the applauding, cheering crowd. "And the one who bested him last time around, the head of the Twilight Disciplinary Committee – Seifer!" Seifer's mention heralded notably more pleasure from the citizens than the first name, causing Hayner to frown slightly.

Anxclof started. "Seifer's competing…?" She knew it was a stupid question even as it escaped her mouth; that was obviously the reason Seifer had come to the Sandlot that day. Insulting her and Hayner had just been a bonus, she reflected dryly.

The blond in question was already striding up, smirking as he reached the edge of the platform. "So, chickenwuss," he purred at Hayner, whose face promptly shifted into a glare full of anathema for Seifer, "are you and your girlfriend competing, or am I gonna have to kick your ass like I did in the summer?" He gave a mock yawn. "It was so boring. I think that if it's the same this time around, I might just fall asleep."

"I believe the ass-kicking on your part will be in short supply today," Anxclof retorted through clenched teeth.

Seifer raised his eyebrows, causing the scar over his eye to stretch a bit. "So look who it is. This ought to make things a little interesting."

"Where're your flunkies?" Anxclof commented, scanning the area around him. "I didn't think you'd be so bold without them."

"We also have a newcomer to the tournament!" The three of them nearly jumped in surprise; in their exchange, they hadn't noticed that the producer was still going on. "Hayner has informed me that another catalyst is going to be thrown into the tournament, making things decidedly unpredictable for our other three participants!"

"There are only four of us?" Anxclof couldn't hold back her surprise, annoyed as she was due to Seifer's abrasive words.

Olette shrugged. "Well, they had the prelims a little while before you came."

Anxclof gave a nod of understanding. At the same time, though, she couldn't help but think that perhaps, in the virtual Twilight Town, Roxas had swept the Struggle tournament. It wouldn't surprise her; in the Organization, they had always been a bit competitive. Her anger rose within, bubbling dangerously close to the surface, as she remembered one such time where competition had nearly pushed her to leave the World That Never Was entirely.

"So, please welcome our new entry – Anxclof!" The man swept a hand toward the Nobody in question, effectively cutting off her chance to reminisce. Everyone glanced over, and Anxclof shivered a bit at the unwanted attention. Nevertheless, thinking quickly, she gave a hesitant smile and a quick little wave; at that, everyone began clapping, if in a more polite, controlled way than they had for Hayner and Seifer. Her fierce nature seemed to frown at not immediately being supported.

"Wait, so who's the other contestant?" Anxclof queried to Hayner.

The blond shrugged helplessly. "Dunno. In the summer, Rai and Fuu entered, too…"

"But this time they're not," Seifer cut in. Hayner and Anxclof narrowed their eyes at him as the arrogant teen jerked a thumb over to a section across the platform from where they stood. "We're gonna go get some ice cream, after _I_ win the tournament."

"So, you want all the glory for yourself, huh?" Anxclof's breath huffed out in a sigh. "Figures." Under her breath, she added, "Arrogant bastard."

"Mind speaking up, _chickie?_ I couldn't quite hear you over the crowd." Seifer cupped a hand around his ear and smirked at her.

One eyebrow slowly went up on Anxclof's forehead. "My name is Anxclof." _Chickie? _(4)

But he just ignored her and glanced at Hayner. "Well, have fun getting your ass handed to you again, chickenwuss." Without another word, he sauntered off, still with that infernal look on his face.

"For our first match," the announcer blared, "we have Hayner, the seasoned contestant, versus Anxclof, the newbie Struggler!"

As the two of them stepped out into the sandlot to thunderous roars of anticipation from the citizens, Anxclof felt her breathing quicken and her heartbeat accelerate in excitement. Despite her initial nervousness at performing in front of so many spectators, the urge to exercise her fighting muscles was threatening to take over. She reminded herself that she couldn't exactly summon her jagged golden Keyblade and give it her all like she normally would.

Nonetheless, a grin wove itself across her features as the producer handed the blue, foamy Struggle bats to the two contestants. "So, remind me again how this works?" she remarked to Hayner, just for the benefit of the producer and audience.

Hayner just shook his head and rolled his eyes, not without an equally enthusiastic grin on his face. "May the best Struggler win," he joked.

Anxclof laughed. "Don't worry. She plans to."

"Just look at those sparks fly!" the producer cried. "Ready… Struggle!"

Instantly Anxclof rushed in and delivered a flurry of attacks to Hayner's side. The boy stumbled back a bit, but retaliated almost instantly with a downward swipe to Anxclof's belly, effectively pushing her back.

"That was a dirty trick," she grunted, only half-jokingly. _Damn, I'm really rusty…_

This went on for a while, Hayner staying on the offensive and Anxclof feinting around his blows, until Hayner had nearly backed her into the corner. The audience was going wild, leaping up and cheering at the top of their lungs, while the producer was forced to raise his voice to say that there were only fifteen seconds left.

_I… am so… _rusty! Anxclof mentally cursed herself, the crowd, and Hayner to the depths of hell as she rolled away from another of Hayner's strikes. So far, she had barely managed to land any blows on him at all, and now with only ten seconds remaining on the timer she sure as hell wasn't going to win this –

_But that wasn't the plan in the first place, was it? I didn't want to win the Struggle… I just needed a cheap way to exercise my fighting skills and get some entertainment before I had to get back on the road… _The thought of Roxas flashed through her mind – the soft smile on his face when he and Axel had first approached her, back when she joined the Organization; the serious frown he attained and the way he tapped his chin while he was contemplating something; the way he'd held her when she'd brought him back; the feeling of his hand against her face. His kiss had tasted of sea-salt ice cream and a faint dash of creamy vanilla. (5)

And just like that, Anxclof's barrier broke, and the tears began flowing freely down her cheeks, tears she had been suppressing for what felt like so long.

She wanted to cry even harder at that realization. _Finally._

Her vision blurred only slightly as she found the strength to lash out hard with her Struggle club from where she currently knelt on the ground. Hayner stumbled back, and in the same moment that he righted himself, Anxclof's bat was a pale, sea-salt ice cream-blue blur as she attacked furiously, eventually pushing him so that he was on his back.

At that moment, a bell rang, ripping Anxclof out of her half-stupor. She glanced around, almost dazed, as the producer shouted, "I… I don't really know what just happened, but… Either way, Anxclof is the winner!" This was greeted with hasty, somewhat stumbling applause from the spectators.

"Hey." Anxclof flinched, half-expecting Hayner's temper to rise after what she had just done. But she was shocked to find that, when she had pivoted to face him and her eyes met his, only a small amount of aggression was visible on his features. For the most part, he looked… _concerned._

She started a bit at that, and unconsciously, her hand rose up to her cheeks, her fingers brushing lightly across her face. When she lowered her hand, she could feel clear wetness slightly soaking the fabric of her glove. For some reason, that pained her more than her come-from-behind victory.

Her head jerked back up to look at Hayner, but he was already stepping out of the sandlot, grinning and shrugging at the audience, as if to say "well, you win some and you lose some". After a moment, Anxclof realized that she should do the same, a realization that was enforced when the producer put a hand on her shoulder and told her gently that the next match had to start.

With the rational part of her mind she recognized the fact that next she'd probably have to face Seifer or the still-anonymous fourth contestant, depending on how the next battle went. She understood that, could feel that fact under her skin, but somehow, she couldn't bring herself to care much about it.

And that time when she had nearly said _to hell with this_ and left the Organization rushed fresh into her mind again. Like many other times when she had been forced to face the possibility of quitting entirely, it involved Roxas.

* * *

_When she'd awoken that morning, Anxclof had anticipated yet another day full of exhaustion and even more failed attempts to summon her lesser Nobodies. She couldn't hold back a sigh as she descended the marble staircase of the Twilight's View into the upper part of the Hall of Empty Melodies, where the training was usually held. Already she could hear the sounds of metal clashing against metal and grunts of the Organization members training inside._

_As always, she entered without knocking and had to blink for her eyes to get used to the sudden comparative darkness. That's the problem with this castle, she thought, too much white. A blur of crimson caught her eye and she saw Axel… who as always was coming right at her with his chakrams raised. _

_"'Morning, Anx," he greeted with a wolfish grin, a grin that widened when she barely managed to get up her Keyblade to block his attack in time._

_"Che, wish I could say the same for you," Anxclof grunted. She pushed her blade forward to push Axel's chakrams away, and, in the process, knocking him backward._

_"Ah, c'mon, you know this is just what wakes you up." Axel spun his chakrams around on a finger of each hand as he smirked at her._

_Anxclof just rolled her eyes and suddenly tilted her head, eyes scanning the surroundings. "Where's Roxas?" she queried at last, her voice softer than before._

_Axel shrugged one shoulder. "He's up there," the redhead answered, nodding with his head toward the upper part of the Hall of Empty Melodies. Sure enough, when the female Nobody angled her head and squinted her eyes just right, she caught a glimpse of honey-blond hair, the spiked back of which was turned toward them. A small noise of disappointment escaped her when she saw that._

_"Aw, is Anxy wishing Roxas were here?" Axel teased._

_Anxclof huffed out an irritated sigh as she transferred her gaze to the redhead and narrowed her eyes. "Axel, shut the hell up."_

_"Well, you know you do!" Axel spun his chakrams around again, this time accompanying it with a burst of yellow-orange flame. Before Anxclof could scoff and call him a showoff, he continued in a conspiratorial stage whisper. "The Superior himself wanted to see him."_

_The girl blinked. Despite herself, her curiosity was piqued. _

_And then the first part of his statement seemed to sink in._

"Axel, shut up!"

_The ferocity of her words, snarled out in a volume just quiet enough for the two of them to hear, seemed to cause her to summon her Keyblade in a flash of golden light and charge at him. Axel threw back his head and laughed, commenting "Now that's what I'm talking about!" as he lifted up one of his chakrams just in time to block her assault. It failed to dissuade her, however, and almost the instant she pulled her sword away, the curved blade was upon him again, practically slammed down in the direction of his head. Axel managed to get up one chakram to block her and lashed out with the other one, this time adding a weak little burst of fire – not strong enough to actually hurt her, but hot enough to cause discomfort. Watching her wince visibly and leap back, he grinned again. "Still waiting for an opening, Anx?"_

She simply narrowed her emerald eyes in response. Suddenly, without warning, she leaped forward with her Keyblade at the ready; but, to her growing anger, he immediately, it seemed, threw her off again. In a matter of seconds he had her on her back with one of his chakrams at her throat.

_"I win," he whispered obviously._

_To her humiliation, Anxclof couldn't manage anything more than a frustrated snarl._

_"You're still favoring your right side, Number XIV." A deep voice caused them both to glance over. Xemnas was striding over to them, his gait slow and unaffected as always, followed closely by Saïx. The Luna Diviner's expression held almost no signs of emotions; he was one of the members that took this "no heart" thing way too seriously, Anxclof thought. And, to her relief, behind them all walked Roxas. He was staring at the ground with what Anxclof assumed was thoughtfulness, but when he looked up and saw his two best friends, his mouth formed into one of his rare smiles. _

_"You've also only been training with Axel and Roxas lately," Saïx remarked, his golden gaze sweeping stoically over the redhead. Axel, who still had Anxclof pinned, gave a snarky grin and lifted two fingers in a mock salute to his seniors. Saïx simply rolled his eyes, while Xemnas simply arched a slender gray brow over one of his own orange orbs._

_"So, what's your point?" Anxclof growled just as Roxas began to open his mouth. She flicked her eyes pointedly in Roxas' direction before returning her gaze to Xemnas and Saïx. While she cared deeply for the Key of Destiny, sometimes she didn't appreciate how he tried to fight her battles for her. "They're my friends, and they don't _try to kill me!"_ She directed these last words loudly, hoping a certain Freeshooter heard her loud and clear, and was rewarded with a raucous laugh from Xigbar's direction._

_Xemnas sighed, almost as though he were speaking to a small child. "That is precisely the point, Number XIV. When you are exposed too often to a certain style of battling, you become used only to that style; therefore, it is vital that you spar with the many other possible partners."_

"'Many'?"_ Axel snorted as he let Anxclof up. "What, you mean the ones that are left after Sora massacred most of us in Castle Oblivion?"_

_Now standing next to Axel, Anxclof directed her glare at the ground; she thought that if she watched her two superiors any longer, she just might either vomit or lash out with her Keyblade – most likely both._

_"It is not your place to speak, Axel." Anxclof didn't look up, but she knew that it was Saïx speaking; being only number VII, the blue-haired man didn't exactly have the right to refer to them by their numbers, especially not Axel, who was only a number behind him._

_Xemnas acted as though the Flurry of Dancing Flames had not spoken, and instead focused on Anxclof. "Number VII and I were just addressing Number XIII on this issue. Ever since you came along, he has had trouble with his sparring."_

_"Oh, so it's my fault?" Anxclof let out a harsh laugh, jerking her head up to stare right into Xemnas' eyes. The Superior was unperturbed, though Saïx did blink once in astonishment. "I'm terribly sorry for messing him up. Or, wait, is that even the correct term for it?"_

_"Anxclof…" Roxas spoke for the first time, and his tone carried a hint of warning._

_Anxclof ignored him and pushed on. "So, just because I've been here a little over two months and still haven't met your standards, it must automatically be because of that?"_

_"I said nothing for you to assume that," Xemnas pointed out calmly, much to Anxclof's already-growing temper. She could feel anger bubbling all too close to the surface, and had to remind herself to stay calm. _

_"I was merely pointing out that since your arrival, Number XIII has been more distracted. He has had more trouble summoning his Samurais, and gets distracted easily in the training sessions."_

_"And while you yourself, Anxclof, have all but mastered your own weapon, you have not learned to summon your own lesser Nobodies." Saïx spoke calmly, but she could sense his own temper straining to push past the façade of passiveness._

_Anxclof narrowed her eyes. "So, now Roxas isn't meeting your standards? What _are_ your 'standards', anyway? Master your weapon, summon your Nobodies, okay, that's it, you're done. Oh, but if you screw up even slightly in that regard, we're gonna just blame it on your friends! How the hell can you condone that?" she hissed, clenching both her fists and her teeth. She was sure that her grip on her Keyblade had grown white-knuckled. _

_"Wasn't it you who told me when I first got here, 'We may not have hearts, but we remember what it's like'? Well, obviously you don't, because I have _friends. _Remember that? _Friends?"

_Xemnas looked like he was about to say something, but Anxclof cut him off by moving toward him and pushing deliberately against his shoulder as she passed._

_She turned only her head to look at him, and he in response just moved his eyes to meet hers. Her emerald orbs were blazing with anger. Behind them, Saïx looked ready to draw his claymore, his face darkening, and Roxas' eyes were wide. _

_"Let me know when you change your mind," Anxclof spoke in a low voice. She heard Axel let out a long, hissing exhalation, but ignored it and left the Hall of Empty Melodies angrier than ever._

_That night – or at least she assumed it was night through her internal clock; it was always stormy here anyway – she sat at Luxord's designated section of the World That Never Was, an area that one could easily get to by going through Number X's door in the Proof of Existence. She dangled her feet off the edge of the precipice, not daring to make the same mistake of looking down as she had when she'd first arrived here, and sighed, propping her elbows up on her knees and putting her head in her hands. Xemnas and Saïx's words wouldn't get out of her head. _

You've only been training with Axel and Roxas lately… Since your arrival, Number XIII has been more distracted… you have not learned to summon your lesser Nobodies…

_Despite herself, an irritated growl escaped her and she drew her knees further up against her chest. It occurred to her how stupid that was – practically readying herself to fall off the edge – but she brushed it off. Inside her were warring two emotions: anger and frustration at the whole situation, and delight at the fact that _she_ was distracting Roxas. Instinctively she ducked her head to hide her blush, a gesture that had become so familiar after trying to hide it from the other Organization members. _

_And as if summoned, a familiar voice sounded behind her._

_"Somehow I knew you'd be up here."_

_Anxclof jolted in surprise, straightening up and widening her eyes; but she didn't turn around. Her superiors' words went through her mind again and her shoulders slumped._

_"Roxas… just go away."_

_Only when she felt him sit down next to her did she realize how close they were. Fighting the urge to scoot away, she uncurled slightly so that her legs were crossed. She was all too aware that their knees were practically touching, and unconsciously spoke to break the silence._

_"I'm sorry…"_

_She damn near clapped her hand over her mouth. Why the hell was she apologizing? Why was she… _apologizing?

_Apparently Roxas was thinking the same thing, because he had a bemused look on his pale face. His slicked spikes swayed just a little as he tilted his head to the side. _

_Then _his_ shoulders slumped in a sigh, and Anxclof felt the heat inside roar to life as he moved so his shoulder was touching hers. _

_"They're angry at me," he murmured._

_Anxclof blinked. She hadn't known what to expect as a response to her words, but it sure as hell wasn't _that.

_She didn't need to ask who _they_ were and why _they_ were angry at him, though._

_They sat together in a few moments of uncomfortable silence – at least on Anxclof's part; when she glanced over, Roxas' face was all but blank as he stared out at Kingdom Hearts. Suddenly needing something to fill the silence, she spoke again._

_"I'm so sick of this."_

_The words seemed to reverberate inside her head and felt like they were echoing in the air. Abruptly she got to her feet, leaving Roxas on the ground staring at her. She turned away, feeling his gaze on her back as she narrowed her eyes at the heart-shaped moon above._

_"I hate having to be subjected to what _they_ want us to do," she spat. "I hate not being allowed to feel, just because we're not 'supposed' to. I hate getting reprimanded for having friends."_

_She heard the familiar sound of leather shifting against marble as Roxas apparently got up. However, she didn't catch sight of his blond hair out of the corner of her eye, so she assumed that he was just standing behind her._

_"I just… I'm tired," she confessed. _

_Roxas had been silent for a while, just listening, but now he spoke._

_"Anxclof, why are you crying?"_

_Her eyes widened just a bit in surprise. Sure enough, she hadn't realized it until she'd heard the hitch in her breath, felt the warmth of the tears slipping down her face, seen the reflection of the shining trails on her face in the marble. She stared at her doppelganger for a moment, then shook her head._

_"I might just up and leave," she chuckled, shaking her head again. "You know? I might go and find my Other already. It's long past time anyway – three years too late."_

_She'd been "born" three years ago._

_"So, what makes you think you're going to leave without me?" This time a trace of anger lay in Roxas' voice, and not the teasing kind that he usually gave her._

_Anxclof gave a small start and whirled to face him. "Roxas, that's not what I –"_

_He hugged her._

_It wasn't really a _hug_ so much as he grabbed her shoulders and practically mashed her against his chest. Anxclof reflected fleetingly that clearly, Roxas' Other had not had much experience in this area, but that was about all she _could_ think. Her mind had basically shut down at this point anyway, and she could gradually feel her cheeks – hell, her entire _body,_ traitorous thing – heating. _(6)

_It occurred to her that she should probably hug him back – though truly, it was out of something else rather than the sense of duty that made her do so. She awkwardly brought her arms to wrap around his neck, and in response, he tightened his own embrace. And she felt certain by now that he could feel her body flushing against his, and oddly, she didn't even give a damn._

_For that, and everything else, she let herself go and put her head on his shoulder and cried._

* * *

Back to the present, Anxclof stifled a sob and shook her head to clear it. She caught sight of Olette giving her a worried look from the other side of the platform and had to fight the newborn urge to cry.

"Anxclof goes on to the finals!" the announcer blared, and the brunette in question stared dully out at the sandlot, not really watching anything in particular.

"Next, we have Seifer against a mystery contestant! Who is this stranger, and how did he come so far in the bracket so quickly? We'll just have to find out and see!"

Seifer smirked and winked his non-scarred eye, causing many of the Setzer fan-girls-turned-traitors to swoon. The Struggle champion in question frowned slightly at that.

Anxclof had only a moment to wonder briefly who the unnamed Struggler was before the man in question stepped onto the sandlot. And while the hairstyle differed drastically from the one she knew – vivid locks held in a loose ponytail instead of down – she would recognize those tear-marks on his cheeks and the arrogant green eyes anywhere.

_"Axel?!"_

* * *

Dun dun DUN!

(1) THE RETURN OF TEH AUTHORZ NOTEZ BWAHAHAHA! Ahem, anyways... If anyone knows the origin of the first part of Char's words - actually, screw the cookies; I know SOMEONE knows it. xD

(2) Don't ask me why CLOUD was the one who came instead of Sora. I thought maybe... she and Cloud could use a little "interaction." (IT IS SO NOT BECAUSE I SHIP THEM A LITTLE WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT -shot-)

(3) SEE EVERYONE? ANXCLOF HAS TAKEN HEALTH CLASS, SHE KNOWS THE DANGERS OF ALL THAT SEA SALT ICE CREAM. (-wink wink nudge nudge Squeenixney-)

(4) xD This is also a slight reference to when Kanda dubs Allen "bean sprout" in D.Gray-Man.

(5) Because I realize that I did next to no elaboration on that kiss scene. LOLOL I FAIL.

(6) Because not enough teenagers suck at hugging/kissing in fandom.


	34. Chapter XXXIV

Me: Just felt like getting one more chapter in before school started (WHY?! -sobs- Char: 0.o). I did most of this today :D  
Char: Yeah, before this afternoon I think you were only up to the Axel/Anxclof conversation.  
Me: Oh yeah, and I get the feeling that Char likes this chapter too...  
Char: Yup! (evil grin)  
Me: Also, just because I love to shamelessly plug all my stuff, I finally started that .hack/G.U. story idea I keep mentioning, because it was driving ME crazy too.  
Lexi: Ari, Shadow - TSA fans.  
Ari: Charmed, I'm sure. (snorts)  
Shadow: Hi, everyone!  
Me: So, the first three chapters are posted on my Deviantart ;P With that said, enjoy this 14-page long chapter!  
Everyone: Oy.

**_Disclaimer-_** I don't own anything... especially not Roxas, Axel, Riku, or Sora... -dramatic sob-

* * *

Anxclof could only look on in shock, her eyes wide, as she half-numbly watched Axel and Seifer accept their Struggle bats. _What the hell is he doing here?_ seemed to be the only thought pervading her mind. Yes, Axel was the arrogant type – probably enough to have swept the preliminaries and make it this far. But why was he here _now?_

The answer was obvious. Anxclof clenched her teeth in a way that made her feel as though she had lockjaw, and almost in response to that, her fingers curled into angry fists. He was probably a last-minute entry, just like she was, and had come for her. She couldn't tell whether or not he was here to talk to her or just beat the crap out of her – or, come to think of it, whether or not he was participating of his own volition or on Xemnas' orders.

Either way, she knew deep inside her, knowing in the absolute kind of certainty that caused a sinking feeling within her core, that Axel wasn't just here for the free glory.

Though, she realized dryly, the fame that came with participating in the biggest part of the festival was just a bonus. If the way Axel was smirking condescendingly at Seifer while winking and blowing kisses to the crowd was any indication, at least.

"Let's see how the veteran Struggler, Seifer, handles the recent dark-horse entry!" The announcer's words confirmed Anxclof's suspicions, and she looked on with a sinking heart.

"So, that guy just entered, just like you did…" Pence murmured around a mouthful of corn dog.

Anxclof cast a bemused look in his direction. "How can you eat at a time like this?"

"It's almost lunchtime anyway," he answered, without the slightest bit of aggression in his voice. She felt a bit guilty at the sharp way she'd spoken to him when she heard his tone.

"Where did Hayner go?" Olette wondered, surveying the area with a look of confusion on her face.

It occurred to Anxclof that she hadn't seen Hayner leave the sandlot, a realization that caused worry to accelerate her heartbeat and accumulate in the pit of her stomach. For no particular reason, the mental image of the Nobodies dragging Hayner through the underground tunnels popped up, a thought that made her wince. Thankfully, though, neither Pence nor Olette were looking in the Nobody's direction, and so Anxclof was spared having to think up any awkward explanations.

"Hey, pretty-boy," Seifer jeered as he and Axel stood across from each other on the platform. "Why don't you just throw the match _now,_ and I'll spare you the humiliation later."

Axel sighed in a mock-rebuking way and pushed a few strands of vivid crimson hair out of his face, a gesture that reminded Anxclof disturbingly of Char. The brunette had a brief moment to wonder where Char and Sora were now before Axel spoke. "Look, man, I hate to break it to you, but…" He sighed again and pointed a casual finger in Seifer's direction. "Maybe _you_ should be the one throwing the match."

Seifer's scar twitched as his eyes narrowed. "Fine, if that's how it is."

"Ready… STRUGGLE!"

The instant the words escaped the crowd, Seifer lunged forward with a grunt, his bat out in an offensive stance. Looking on, Anxclof suddenly realized that she didn't know who to root for: Seifer was a total jackass, but Axel had all but betrayed her in the past two weeks, and she felt torn.

However, the memories of the good old days, when she and Axel had put rats in Larxene's bed and terrorized Demyx, flooded into her. She flinched as she felt tears prick at her eyes; her memories never did pick the best times for reminders.

But the match was still going on, and so she managed to pick herself back up into the present long enough to see Axel's counterattack. Quickly, just before Seifer's bat touched Axel's belly, the redhead swerved out of the way, causing Seifer to stumble. Just as quickly, Axel's own Struggle bat whipped up in a blur of pale blue and struck Seifer hard in his own stomach.

"Ouch! How will Seifer handle _this?"_ Anxclof watched, a smile gradually growing on her face, as Seifer fell to the ground, only to growl loudly and leap back up. However, Axel was already preparing his next move, and he spun around before facing Seifer again and lashing out with the bat. Apparently this next attack hurt even more, for Seifer graced Axel with an actual grunt and fell back again.

"He's good," Olette murmured, both eyebrows raised in surprise. Anxclof spared the girl only a fleeting sidelong glance before looking back at the match.

As the timer whittled down to the last seconds, Axel beat Seifer with the blond's own momentum, using Seifer's aggression against him while barely getting hit himself. Before Anxclof knew it, the time had run out, and Axel was still standing.

"The newbie is the winner!" Axel looked a bit put-out at the announcer's words and muttered something under his breath. "Next is our final match before the infamous Setzer! It's dark horse versus dark horse, newbie versus newbie, in a clash of the underdogs!"

"You're gonna be fighting him, Anx," Olette remarked, looking over at the Nobody in question.

Anxclof's own expression held shock and, she was sure, dread. Now she realized all too well the way he had planned this.

"Hey, you feeling all right?" queried Pence, lightly tapping Anxclof's shoulder.

She shook it off, if only briefly, and looked over at Pence, who stood on the opposite side from where Olette was. Anxclof gave him a quick grin, though her heart was pounding and she was fighting back the urge to vomit. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just nervous."

"Ah, don't be!" Pence chirped, reassured immediately. He swallowed the last of his corn dog and continued, a bit more coherently than before. "You're gonna clean up with that guy!"

"Yeah, you'll do fine." All three of them nearly jumped with shock at the sound of Hayner's voice. They whirled around and saw the boy, leaning against the wall and absently gnawing on a stick of half-eaten, dripping sea-salt ice cream.

"Where _were_ you?" Olette asked, clear reprimanding in her voice.

Hayner winced a little at her tone, but replied nonetheless. "I went to the old mansion to think."

"You thinking," Anxclof couldn't help but remark. "What a concept."

Hayner rolled his eyes, then turned serious again. "No, really. I just figured that there was something wrong with you… the way you acted after our match…"

He let the silence speak for itself. Anxclof broke the eye contact with him by staring at the ground. "Oh," she murmured, guilt flooding her.

"And then, after a while, I figured – hey, if she wants to tell me, she will, right?" Hayner shrugged one shoulder. "So, I came back."

Pence and Olette gave nods and replies of understanding, accompanied by chiding comments on the latter's part, but Anxclof continued to stare at the ground. So, _that_ was it… She couldn't help but mentally hit herself at the fact that _she_ of all people had worried him. It was yet another reminder that one couldn't just go having painful reminiscences whenever they felt the urge.

"Anxclof, it's time for your match," Pence reminded her, getting her attention with another tap to the shoulder.

She looked up. All three of them were looking encouragingly at her, and suddenly, she wanted to cry all over again. _I don't deserve this – I'm going to be gone by tomorrow anyway, and even though they _couldn't_ know that, they still care… _Biting her lip, she nodded, hoping that she still gave the illusion of nervousness.

Anxclof stepped onto the platform, her heartbeat growing ever faster and more erratic as her eyes met Axel's own dark green gaze. She stepped closer until most of the gap had been closed, and despite the way her anxiety was growing at the thought of speaking to him again, she didn't look away. She had always hated that he was just taller enough that she had to gaze up in order to meet his eyes.

"Hey there, Anx," he greeted – quietly enough for the crowd and announcer to miss, but loudly enough for her to hear from where she stood. "Having fun here?"

"Cut it, Axel." Anxclof narrowed her eyes. "You haven't come here to ask about my wellbeing and we both know it." The producer handed her a clearly-used Struggle bat – the nicks and scratches along the blue foam made that clear – but she ignored him.

"Geez, can't a guy go see his best friend without getting accused of not being here just to see her? You're more paranoid than I thought." Axel shook his head, bringing his hand up to his head to run through his crimson hair.

"I may have been one of your best friends, but Roxas was dear to both of us. That's the only reason –"

"Ready… STRUGGLE!"

_…crap._

Axel lowered his hand, a wolfish smirk covering his features. "Well, sorry, hate to tell you, but it looks like we're gonna have to finish this little conversation later."

And then he charged at her.

It was too fast for Anxclof to intercept, so she ended up sprawled on the ground in an undignified heap. Hastily, she picked herself up. As she stared at Axel, noting how the tear-shaped markings on his face were set off by his grin, her grip tightened around the Struggle bat.

Letting out a snarl, she raced toward him, her Keyblade – _bat_ already raised to deliver a blow. He brought up his own chakram – _bat_ to block it, but he didn't have the privilege of dual weapons this time, and she focused on pushing his own bat down. Her arms shook with the effort, and his own arms trembled with the task of holding it up. Eventually, however, he lost the battle, and her Struggle bat came crashing down on him with the weight of their combined strength. A look of breathless triumph crossed her face, but it faded when he merely ducked and maneuvered his lithe body out of the way.

He grinned at her and moved his finger in a "no, no, no" motion. "Ah, Anx. You always fell for that trick."

Before she knew it, he was coming at her again with even more force than before. She found herself feinting backward in order to avoid his onslaught, bringing up her bat to block every blow. It was an odd caricature of the old days, she thought, except this time the weapons were more blunt and there was less of a chance of her getting incinerated.

She chanced a quick glance behind her and realized she was about to fall over the edge. Rapidly, she swung away from the final blow of Axel's onslaught and rolled away, so that she was well onto the platform. He nearly fell over the edge of the platform himself, but with the languid grace of one who was used to this, he twisted his body away in time.

"Well now, aren't we clever," he laughed.

Maybe that was when he sent her over the proverbial edge, and, crying out, she lunged forward. Axel's infernal smirk didn't go away as he blocked every one of her attacks, moving his Struggle bat effortlessly in a way that created a pale blue blur, a blur that blended smoothly with her own.

She raised the bat for one final blow as she noticed that he was about to fall off the edge again, but Axel was faster. He lashed out with his own weapon and it hit her in the stomach. While she had the wind knocked out of her, his bat briefly obscured her vision again, and then she was on her back with his weapon at her neck.

He leaned down so that his lips practically brushed hers with every word, loose crimson hair dangling against her bare shoulders as he effectively pinned her down. "I win," he whispered.

Meanwhile, the crowd and the announcer were going ballistic. "I… I'm not quite sure what just happened… But… Either way, our mystery contestant is the winner! What an intense match between two fledgling Strugglers!"

Axel straightened, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown. "I wish he'd stop talking like that," he muttered, his words barely audible over the screaming spectators.

"Next, he will have to face our reigning champion, Setzer!"

_"Setzerrrrr!" _the fan-girls squealed from nearby. Both Nobodies rolled their eyes.

Anxclof knew she'd have to get up _now_ if she wanted to save some face, so she promptly did so, not taking her eyes off the redhead. And as she watched him, he paused in smiling and waving to the crowd to meet her gaze.

Unspoken were the words _we're talking later._

Anxclof lifted her chin, let out a "che", turned away, and left the sandlot.

* * *

"Anxclof!"

She started a little at the sound of her name, but relaxed when all she saw was Hayner running up to her. His pupils moved a little from side to side as if scanning the area, and eventually landed back on her.

"Are you going back to the Usual Spot?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. "You missed the title match," he went on, not waiting for an answer. Anxclof uncoiled slightly from where she was leaning against the wall, arms and legs crossed, at Hayner's words. "Setzer beat that other guy, but barely. It was pretty cool – but I was kinda looking forward to seeing _you_ own Setzer," he confessed with a sigh.

"Too late now, I guess," Anxclof murmured, looking away from him and staring at the permanently-twilit sky. She issued a sigh of her own. For the life of her, she couldn't understand how anyone managed to actually _live_ here – the sense of eternity passing was too great.

And while one would think that, being a Nobody and essentially having no heart, the idea of eternity was welcome, in Anxclof's case, that wasn't true at all.

Without glancing back, she knew Hayner was still watching her; she could feel his eyes drilling into her. Thankfully, though, being Hayner, he didn't pry.

"Well, the silent auction's going on right now," he said. "Let's go back to the sandlot."

Anxclof glanced back at him. The look on his face suggested that she wasn't allowed to disagree.

She rolled her eyes and sighed, stepping away from the wall as she did so. "Okay. Let's go."

He blinked; clearly, he'd expected her to take at least a small amount of umbrage. However, he still nodded. "Okay!" He turned away and started back toward the sandlot at a run.

The Nobody followed more sedately, absently running her fingers back through her hair. If she remembered properly, right after the silent auction – which strangely would last hours; she still wondered how that could be – was the party itself. She recognized the fact that Axel sure as hell wouldn't wait until the whole festival had come to a close before pulling her off and talking to her.

Maybe that was why she was so nervous.

She willed her pounding heart to calm as she entered the sandlot. _Maybe he'll wait. Maybe he won't do it at all._

Damn it, why did she even bother trying to reassure herself of _that?_

"Hey, Anxclof."

She froze. The sounds of the crowd around her faded off into a dull buzzing hum as her heartbeat grew faster. _Speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear._

Axel emerged from the shadows the twilight cast over the area, his typical grin already having taken its perch on his face. "So, how's life?"

She didn't turn to face him. "Axel, is this really the place to be talking about this?"

She heard him sigh. "Ah, you've got a point there."

And before she knew it, he'd seized her arm in a vice-like grip – probably to make sure she didn't try to get away – and dragged her off into the alleyway she'd just emerged from. For a brief, panicked moment, she willed Hayner or Olette or even Pence to notice what was going on, to come over and demand what exactly Axel thought he was doing, but of course it didn't happen.

As they left the sandlot far behind them, Anxclof took a quick look around and noticed how close they were to the Usual Spot. Immediately memories of sitting there, talking to Hayner, Pence, and Olette, making fun of Seifer, and refusing enough sea-salt ice cream to make a whale sick rushed back into her mind.

_I'm sorry, guys. I wasn't what you thought I was._

She looked back up, as she had lowered her head so the bottom half was concealed behind the top of her jacket. Upon meeting Axel's eyes, she saw the impatience and annoyance in his gaze, twin green orbs that mirrored her own.

"All right, Axel, get to the point," she growled, folding her arms across her chest. "I know you didn't come here just to say 'hi'. I know Roxas has something to do with your being here."

Shockingly, no words emerged from Axel's mouth, not even a smart remark on how he _was_ here to say hello, or a comment on how she was acting paranoid again. He simply lifted his eyes to the sky, his pupils moving as they caught sight of a flock of birds making their way across the palette of twilight in specks of dark ink.

Finally, Axel spoke, in a voice so quiet that she damn near asked him who he was and what he'd done with the Flurry of Dancing Flames.

"Roxas lived here. But… at the same time, he didn't."

Anxclof blinked. And then his meaning dawned upon her with the weight of ten falling rocks: he was talking about the virtual Twilight Town.

"Yeah, I know," she answered, in an equally soft voice that was full of reminiscence and longing. Somehow, this didn't feel like the type of conversation that merited the shouting and demanding that she was itching for. "Roxas told me about that, before he –"

And then tears gripped her throat and she could say no more.

The redhead lowered his gaze so that dark green eyes met her identical emeralds – emeralds that, currently, were shamefully blurred in the garb of tears.

"You said that while you were here, Roxas kissed you."

His words only made her throat close up even more, so that when she tried to swallow she almost choked on it. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"So, if you cared about each other that much, why didn't you try harder to keep him with us?"

There it was – the dreaded question. Anxclof had been anticipating it ever since she'd seen those telltale red locks, but that still didn't make things any easier when it finally came. She flinched and looked away. As she stared at the ground, a roly-poly made its way across the dirt, only to abruptly stop and curl into a ball when it noticed the two Nobodies talking there. _Lucky bastard._

She shook her head, still not daring to meet Axel's eyes for fear of what she'd find there. "I don't know."

"You don't know." He spoke flatly, chuckling bitterly to himself. From the corner of her eye, she could see him shaking his head and running a hand through his hair; rather pointless, she thought, he was just aggravating the ponytail even more.

And then one gloved hand jerked out and yanked her chin up so that she was looking right at him. She narrowed her eyes, ignoring the single tear that escaped due to that action, at the rough feeling of leather against her skin.

"Get your hand off me," she ordered coldly.

For all intents and purposes, he ignored her.

But his next words cut her to the core.

"Not only did you lose Roxas right when you got him back… but now you're here with his friends, losing valuable time."

Anxclof said nothing. She would have shaken her head, but Axel's hand held her fast.

"Bring him back. You're the only one that can."

"So you're giving up, just like that?" she wanted to say. However, he seemed to read her mind anyway.

He took a deep breath. "I came here to tell you… I think Xemnas is on to me – to us. I think he knows what I've been doing. And while he has me under his control, you're free as a bird, to do whatever you want."

"You've never been scared of Xemnas before," she couldn't help but remark. "Why are you suddenly backing out?"

Axel's eyes widened, and then his hand snaked away from her face and back to his side. Freed from his touch, she stepped back, not taking her eyes off of his face, a countenance which currently held rising anger and… _fear._

_You've never been scared of Xemnas before._

Number VIII shook his head, grinning slightly. "I'm saying I'm leaving it up to you… Blade of Vengeance." He gave her a cocky wink. "Got it memorized?"

He'd never called her by her title before. It gave her a strange feeling along her spine.

And then it hit her: He was trusting her with this. He trusted her enough to allow her to work on her own.

It wasn't that he didn't care about Roxas. It was that he wanted to be around if or when Roxas came back.

* * *

Char's feet landed almost soundlessly on the ground as she walked, one after the other, eerily silent since she didn't bother running or slowing down. She ignored the people around her, allowed the sounds of the active marketplace to dim in her ears – it became easier as she rounded the corner toward the stairs that led into the bailey.

She glanced up at the sky, where clouds currently obscured the sun in a patchy blanket. A few minutes ago, it had been bright, but right now, it was dark, and that idea blotted out the thought of the sun's return.

_Story of my life,_ she thought with a sigh. Ordinarily she would have pushed the thought away, mentally scolding herself for acting so despondent, but as of late, it fit all too well. The loss of her weapon, the injury that had all but crippled her… Even now, she still walked with a slight limp, and the stares from everyone around her elicited a small flinch from her. Nevertheless, she put it out of her mind and walked on.

Earlier this morning, she, Sora, and the others had said goodbye to Cloud. Char couldn't hold back a small chuckle at remembering how awkward things had been, considering that no one really knew the mysterious blond all that well. _I should've taken a page out of _his_ book with Sora, Donald, and Goofy. _In turn, Cloud had looked uncomfortable with everyone crowded around him, especially when Aerith came up and actually put a hand on his shoulder before wishing him good luck on what he was searching for. That had caused Yuffie to nudge Sora and wink at him, to a grunt of surprise and a cringe from the aforementioned Keybearer.

Oddly, that didn't amuse Char as much as it should have.

She shook her head to clear it as she approached the entrance to the half-broken restoration site. A flash of light caught her eye, and she whipped toward it, instinctively putting out her hands to summon her blades only to snarl under her breath when she remembered what had happened. Fortunately, she had only glimpsed the light pedestals that the defense mechanism emitted; Merlin and Cid had set the town's defenses on high alert just before Char had left to find what was in the Postern for her. Recalling what the two of them had told her about the defense mechanism's levels, a small pool of guilt began to accumulate in her stomach. Keeping the light pedestals eliminating Heartless was difficult enough, but when they had to set it at such a high frequency, the defense mechanism wore out more quickly. _I'll just have to make it as quick as possible,_ she had decided, a decision that now seemed rather rash.

_Are you sure you don't want any of us to come with you?_ Sora had asked, worry clear on his face. Goofy looked just as concerned; even Donald had the courtesy to ask the same question.

_I'll be fine, really, _she had answered firmly. _It's something I need to do alone._

Looking back, Char knew that she had spoken the truth as far as her own feelings were concerned. The Postern – and all that lay beyond its downward-spiraling staircase – held too many memories, good and bad mixed together in a nostalgia-inducing concoction.

She was now approaching the very same cavern that she and Sora had passed through just yesterday: the cavern that emanated that ominous white glow; the cavern that, she felt sure, had something to do with the Organization. The sight of the Nobodies' symbol near the back of the marble room with the doors told her that much. She also knew for a fact that Zexion's weapon had been a book, so it made sense that there would be an entrance to the meadow-contained ruins right beneath the door with the book on it.

Char had to stop in her tracks at thinking of Ienzo and honeysuckles. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath that barely made it past the growing lump in her throat, raised a hand to run through her bangs, a hand which tightened into a fist as it touched her hair. _Focus, Char. You can't afford to get lost in your emotions._

As the feeling subsided and the choking feeling dissolved a little, she took another breath and carried on.

She stepped onto the more-defined concrete of the Postern, and felt the feeling of reminiscence hit her almost at once; the memories came at her with the force of a well-aimed slap, nearly buckling her knees and pulling tears from her eyes. Her gaze traveled the Postern, going from the large, circular clearing she currently stood in to the stairwell leading down toward Ansem's study, to the walls that towered high above her in a way that eclipsed the sun even though most of the clouds had now passed. Every corner held some sort of memory for her, she thought. By the wall nearest to where she stood, Ansem had found her: a five-year-old wreck, abandoned by her parents and with no clue of where she was; over by the spiraling stairs, she had first been introduced to Ienzo and the others; they had discovered Xehanort right where she was standing, his posture suggesting the same amount of purpose that she currently had here. She murmured slightly, closing her eyes and raising her face toward the sun, briefly reaching up to push some strands of hair back behind her ear.

She just thanked the gods that whatever was here, it clearly didn't wait for her within the winding corridors that led into Ansem's study. That, she knew, would induce such ardent feelings of longing and nostalgia in her that the tears threatening to spill out actually _would_ escape.

However, right now, she managed to keep herself from crying – a feat she'd perfected well over the years, when she'd realized that, living among six other guys and her master, toughness was the only thing that she could allow to pervade her outer appearance.

So, she looked back at the Postern, opening her eyes so she could properly re-focus at the task at hand, and began walking brusquely around.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the smaller building where she and her fellow apprentices had stayed, an inn-like dwelling close by the foreboding walls of Ansem's study – and the Heartless manufactory, she recalled with an odd tinge of guilt, which was the cause of the nearby building's large size. She and the others had had to stay so close mainly because Ansem called them quite frequently for assignments and whatnot. She carefully avoided looking at the place where she had lived for ten years and instead chose to scan the Postern itself.

Cloud's words came back to her as she searched with only her eyes.

_There's something for you in the Postern… There was a note attached to it…_

_A note – well, that shouldn't be too hard to notice, right? _Knowing she'd have to actually move around and look, Char began walking around the circumference of the clearing, trying to search without having to look at her old home or making herself stare at the ground. It was more awkward than it sounded.

She thought she heard a few tiny voices giggling behind her, and abruptly Char whipped her head toward it, icy eyes narrowing. Seeing nothing, her eyes became suspicious slits before she turned back around.

"Excuse me, are you with the Restoration Committee?"

"Son of a –" Char whirled around fully, ready to pulverize whoever had just surprised her, weapons or no.

Then she frowned. Where…

"Down here," a different, but unmistakably feminine voice sighed.

Char raised one eyebrow, but nevertheless, she looked down. There stood – or rather, floated – three fairy-like creatures, all definitely female, and with different prevailing color schemes. The one who had just spoken was clad in mostly black, with ragged dark wings and spiked, pale brown hair. She flanked a fairy wearing pink, blue, and pale yellow who had longer brown hair; on the other side there was a blond, yellow-and-orange-garbed fairy, who was currently grinning up at the redhead.

Char blinked owlishly.

"Are you with the Restoration Committee?" the fairy in the middle repeated patiently.

"Yuna, don't bother," the dark fairy muttered, rolling her eyes.

Char narrowed her own eyes in response. "Sort of, yeah. Why?"

"No reason," the blond fairy giggled.

"Then go away," Char growled in response, turning away. "I'm looking for something here."

"Obviously," the short-haired fairy remarked, raising one tiny eyebrow.

The redhead turned only her head to face them, her forehead creased in an irritated frown. "Well then, if it's so obvious, why aren't you poofing or warping or whatever the hell it is you guys do?"

The main fairy had been looking on with a look of slight amusement on her face, but now she spoke. "Looking for something? Here?"

"No crap," Char answered cheekily.

"Ohhh, is it that box that's sitting over by that smaller building?" the blond fairy asked, tilting her head to the side and placing one finger against her chin.

Her curiosity successfully piqued, Char's frown softened into a curious expression. "Box? Does it by any chance have a note attached to it?"

"Uhhh…" The perky pixie looked down thoughtfully.

The black-clad fairy rolled her eyes again. "Yes, it does."

"Then that's what I'm looking for!" Without hesitation, Char started at a run toward her former home. The three pixies exchanged a glance and vanished in a flash of bright, multicolored light.

Upon reaching her destination, Char knelt down to get a better look and felt the breath catch in her throat. Sure enough, sitting against the graffiti-covered door – courtesy of Braig, much to Even's chagrin – was a small, slightly wide box. And sure enough, the infamous note was attached to the top of it by a short piece of tape. It was almost like Christmas, Char thought dryly.

Taking a deep breath – she felt like something important was about to happen, for some reason – she took hold of the note and tugged it free of its binding to the package. And that feeling, it turned out, was correct.

Char stared at the note, her eyes gradually becoming wide and her jaw dropping ever so slightly in her shocked murmur. It would almost have been comical, if the situation didn't suddenly feel so dire. The one who had penned this note had not had the courtesy to leave a signature, but she would recognize her master's meticulously neat handwriting anywhere.

_Take this… and become stronger… so you can protect Sora._

_I wish you well._

Swallowing past the sudden lump in her throat – which, for some reason, only seemed to irritate it even more – Char put the note down and reached for the box's lid with suddenly-trembling fingers. Upon opening it, she gasped.

Carefully, she lifted out the dual swords, noting how natural the leather of the hilts felt against the tips of her fingers. From the way the three blades adorning each of the swords shone in the early morning light, she supposed that the weapons were fairly new – possibly had never even seen the light of day until now.

Struck by a sudden thought, she dropped the twin swords like they were hot pokers and hurriedly picked up the note again.

_Take this… and become stronger._

It was just like Master, she mused. Even when he wasn't around, it seemed, he was looking out for her.

She slowly lowered the hand that held the small piece of paper. Tears were pricking at her eyes, and her teeth gritted together at the thought that Cid and Merlin wouldn't have to create a new pair of swords for her after all; she could just use these; after all, they were presents from her master.

This time, she didn't resist the urge to cry.

* * *

Sora leaned back a little in his chair, putting his feet against the table that had recently taken up residence in the Gummi ship's back room. He inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of the hot dogs cooking for a brief moment before exhaling carefully in order to keep the scent in his nostrils. His stomach rumbled a little in hunger, and Donald and Goofy, who were sitting next to him, looked over in bemusement. The Keybearer gave them a sheepish grin. "I'm just hungry."

"Well, you're just gonna have to wait," Cid growled from where he stood at the stove, turning only his head to glare at the trio. "They'll be ready when they're ready."

"Alright, alright! Geez…" Donald grumbled, looking away. A few moments later, another growling sound akin to Sora's own stomach caused them all to glance at the duck. Donald frowned and muttered something under his breath, crossing his arms and glaring at the ground. Sora and Goofy laughed to themselves, being careful to keep it quiet so as not to rouse the mage's volatile temper.

"I just hope Char gets back in time for lunch," Sora remarked, glancing out the Gummi ship's window.

"Me too – those hot dogs sure smell good!" Goofy chuckled.

Sora looked at Cid, slight worry clear in his dark blue eyes and on his features as the brunette cocked his head to the side. "So… did Leon and Yuffie really get lunch already?"

"Yep," Cid grunted. "They're out in the marketplace right now, getting some more groceries. Since the defense mechanism's takin' care of the Heartless right now, and we're almost out of supplies anyway…" He gave Sora, Donald, and Goofy a pointed glare, causing them all to start and glance nervously at each other before giving weak little laughs of agreement.

Come to think of it, Sora _did_ feel like lately, he and his friends had been, well, taking advantage of his friends' hospitality – he carefully skirted around using the word "mooching", but the thought still remained. Luckily, Char's wound had fully healed, even though she still walked with a slight limp, and so they would probably depart tomorrow morning at the very latest. She had been lucky, though, Sora reflected; normally the burn from Hades' fireball would have done much worse damage to the nerve endings of her calf muscle. As it was, no matter how much Char apparently hated still carrying a bitter reminder of that day, luck was on her side.

Not to mention that Sora was so grateful that things had turned out all right in the end; that she hadn't been permanently… _detained_ due to his ignorance.

_But… she hated me back then. _He still winced at the thought of it, for now he counted Char among his friends. Remembering back then induced unpleasant feelings of sadness and remembrance of the hope he'd always felt that she'd change her mind about him. _So why was she so driven to protect me, when she knew the consequences of what she was about to do?_

He still knew that he knew so little about her – and he intended to change that. Strangely, the thought of that made him slightly nervous.

_Oh, come on!_ he scolded himself, in a voice that reminded him disturbingly of Char's own. _You know each other pretty well already, and it's not like you'll have to keep up _your _end of the conversation – she'll just talk and you listen. _

He was getting the feeling that that was all she needed, anyway – someone to talk to, and, more importantly, someone who would listen. In the past few days, especially when she had taken him to the field last night, Sora had realized how much Char was bottling up inside. To quote his mother, that kind of thing couldn't be healthy.

Sora guessed that the real thing that daunted him was that even if he managed to get Char off to the side, there was the extreme possibility that she wouldn't want to talk. It was odd, because underneath it all lay the desire to be that someone she could talk to, and that someone who would listen.

An abrupt knock roused Sora from his thoughts, and he glanced toward the entrance to the room. His heart began to beat a little faster with the hope that it would be Char returning.

His hope was justified, because in the next instant after the knock on the door, the door itself opened and Char's trademark crimson hair and blue eyes made themselves known to everyone in the room. A small smile covered her face from where she'd popped her head in, and Sora blinked. _Wonder what that thing for her was._

"Hi, Char!" Goofy greeted with his telltale grin.

"Hey, everybody," Char answered, her own smile widening as her gaze went from Donald, to Goofy, to Cid, and then to Sora, where it lingered. Sora ignored the snicker from Cid's direction and waved. "Hi, Char. So, what was waiting for you at the Postern?"

A small shadow flickered over her face at the word – another thing he was going to have to ask her about – but it was gone as quickly as it had come. Char stepped fully into the room, and immediately, everyone saw what she had been grinning about.

In her hands were an obviously-new set of twin swords, but these differed drastically from her original blades. Her old weapons had held a sort of beaten-up, dignified presence about them. These swords, however, had a completely different aura. Sora couldn't explain it, but it reminded him inexplicably of Leon whenever the older brunette was wielding his Gunblade. Not to mention the two blades that extended off to the side of the middle one, making the weapons into dual _three-bladed_ swords. The blades themselves had jagged figures from where they extended out of the hilt, which was adorned with rubies along the sides of where Char was currently gripping it.

"Wow," Donald uttered, floored with shock.

Char grinned, as though enjoying the attention. She raised her swords slightly to put her hands behind her back, and a flash of light from there announced that the swords had just vanished. "Like 'em?" she queried almost lazily, making her way over to the table. She plopped down in the free chair next to Sora's and looked right at Cid. "Guess you won't be needing to make me those new twin swords, eh?"

Cid growled in disappointment. "Char, you little hooligan, you just ruined Merlin's and my tries to make a new one!" he grumbled, putting his palm to his forehead and shaking his head.

Char looked away shiftily. "Eh, well, think of it this way. At least you won't have to work any harder, right?"

"Whatever," Cid grunted, setting the newly-cooked hot dogs into buns and bringing the basket over. "Help yourselves."

"All right!" Sora cheered, taking a hot dog and nearly devouring the whole thing, bun and all, in one bite.

Char rolled her eyes, but it was good-natured. "Sora," she muttered, taking a hot dog of her own and smirking into it as she took a bite. "You're such a bottomless pit it makes me sad sometimes."

"Hey!" Sora protested.

Donald narrowed his eyes. "You're awfully happy," he remarked around a mouthful of hot dog.

"Well, Donald, she _did_ just get a new weapon, a-hyuck," Goofy said, tapping his friend's shoulder.

"Pretty much, yeah," Char admitted. Despite her previous remarks about Sora being a bottomless pit, she'd already finished her first hot dog and was reaching in for another.

Cid didn't say anything aloud, but he grumbled something about people eating him out of house and home. Sora grinned.

For the most part, Donald was right – Char seemed happier than before. The surge of warmth that went through Sora as he looked at her definitely had nothing to do with his stomach.

Then he thought of Kairi and nearly hit his head against the table right then and there. _What is _wrong_ with me?!_

"So, since I'm better and back in ass-kicking mode, does that mean we can leave tomorrow?" asked Char, apparently not noticing Sora's feelings about to make themselves known.

"Yup, I'm sure we can!" Goofy smiled.

"You'd _better," _Cid muttered.

Char just rolled her eyes at him before looking back to the others. "That's good, then. We'll just spend one more night here and then – Sora, are you okay?"

Sora gave a start of surprise at her words and looked over at her. Her head was tilted slightly to the side and her brow furrowed in a small frown. He stared at her ice-blue eyes for a moment – had they had tiny slivers of gold in them before?

And then he abruptly realized that she was still waiting for an answer.

"Er, yeah," he hurriedly said, promptly occupying his mouth with his meal before anyone could say otherwise.

Char's eyebrow slowly went up on her forehead, but mostly she dismissed it.

"Finally," Donald muttered.

* * *

As always, Anxclof couldn't tell what time it was from the twilit sky – but Olette had said the party portion of the festival would take place at night, and the citizens of Twilight Town had been dancing and talking and laughing for hours.

She thought back to the events from the beginning of the party as she leaned against the wall. Hayner and Olette had danced for a while, with Anxclof sitting off mostly to the side trying to ignore the rest of the world, her thoughts still focused mostly on her friends and Axel's appearance. She had to admit, it had been rather amusing, watching Hayner staring down at the ground in obvious concentration so that he wouldn't accidentally step on Olette's toes.

Anxclof almost hated to admit it, but, despite her previous insistence on her feet being more suited to the battlefield, she had swallowed her pride, however briefly, and danced with Hayner and Pence. Things with the former had been awkward due to him practically being like her brother at this point, and the sight of Pence attempting to "move that body" was embarrassing, but for the most part she had ignored that and just allowed herself to have a little fun. When things got to the "slow dances," Anxclof had dutifully peeled herself away from the crowd of suddenly-enthusiastic couples. It had been difficult, because Seifer – _Seifer, _of all people – had tried to persuade her to dance with him for just one song. Fortunately, a threat against certain appendages had been enough of a hint for him, and he had slunk off in a rejected, surly state.

Not to mention that Pence had gotten up the courage to ask a girl he'd had a crush on for a while to dance with him, thanks to some encouragement on Olette and Anxclof's part – the Nobody was shocked that she'd cared that much about Pence's life to tell him to go for it, but things were always changing.

She glanced toward the alleyway that led to the Usual Spot, remembering how she and Axel had talked, and suppressed a sigh. Things were always… always changing.

In the back of her mind, Anxclof understood that she had to leave _tonight._ Tonight was about the only chance, unless she wanted Hayner and the others to try and enroll her in school with them.

_School._ She nearly scoffed at the concept. Right now, Roxas was more important than any idiotic school.

Roxas… Her fists clenched as she thought of his blond hair; his dark blue eyes; his smile. Until now she hadn't allowed herself to think of how much she missed him – not _here,_ in this atmosphere, anyway – but now that she had a moment to herself, the thought hit her, hard.

She had to leave.

Quietly, Anxclof slipped away from the party, allowing herself to breathe deeply once the loudness of the music and talking had faded behind her. She still hated crowds.

After a moment's hesitation, because she had no clue where she intended to go, she put out a hand and summoned a dark portal. It swirled and danced together in a mixture of ebony and ivory tentacles, and she bit her lip.

_I don't know where I'll go next… but I have to at least try._

With that thought ringing through her mind, she stepped into the portal, and it vanished as soon as she'd disappeared through it.

* * *

Me: Okay, so that should be the last we see of Anxclof for a while. (I can just hear you all sighing in relief...)  
Fans: YEY! More SoraChar-age!  
Char: Just kill me now...  
Me: (sweatdrop) Yeah, so now hopefully you can kind of start to see him growing to care for her. I'm not sure if _she_ likes _him_ yet, though...  
Char: (ahem)  
Me: In the FIC, I meant. We all know that outside of it you hate him...  
Char: Pretty much.  
Sora: D:  
Char: ...dammit, don't cry... Look, I'm sorry, okay? Does that help?  
Sora: It's fine, Char... really. (smiles and hugs her)  
Me and Fans: D'awwwwwwwww.  
Lexi: (sweatdrop) Er, I'll just close this chapter then, I guess.  
Ari: Since Saf is too busy fangasming over her own pairing...  
Lexi: Next chapter, Sora and company leave Hollow Bastion, and on the way to Port Royal, Sora and Char get to know each other a bit more.  
Ari: (sees everyone getting stupid grins) Oh God - bloody perverts! (carves them up with her scythe)  
Everyone: ...


	35. Chapter XXXV

Me: Okay, so I told myself that Chapter 34 would be the last chapter I posted before school started.  
Char: Yeah, she kinda lied.  
Me: Yup. I find writing the scenes from the original KH2 easy (since you can find most of it on YouTube anyway), but boring. So, I got off my ass and wrote this. Ari?  
Ari: I am not going to introduce the bloody chapter -  
Me: (waves Shadow plushie in front of her face)  
Ari: I HATE YOU! Erg... Well... in this chapter they leave Hollow Bastion (finally) and head to Port Royal, where a certain pirate captain is a very nasty son of a bitch.  
Char: Or, if that euphemism's too much for you, a pedophile.  
Me: Exactly! -knew her bondage fetish would come to life someday... not really-  
Ari: GIVE ME THE DAMN PLUSHIE NAO!  
Me: NEVER!

**_Disclaimer-_** I only own Char and all the other stuff that is OBVIOUSLY of my design. Why the hell do you people think the story lists Sora/ORIGINAL CHARACTER, Roxas/ORIGINAL CHARACTER, and ORIGINAL CHARACTER/ORIGINAL CHARACTER as the pairings?!  
Char: Geez, and you wonder why you never get reviews...  
Me: What's that supposed to mean?  
Char: You know damn well what.

* * *

Char awoke to the sound of rain pattering gently against the windowpane. The events of yesterday morning and the discomfort beforehand came rushing back to her, and she quickly searched her subconscious memories for whether or not she'd dreamed last night. She let out a sigh of relief when she could recall no unpleasant dreams – couldn't remember her subconscious sending her anything at all, actually. It wasn't that she had expected nightmares like the one with Riku accusing her of replacing him with Sora, but Char, being naturally paranoid, didn't want to take many chances.

She glanced out the window. The raindrops were creating blurred streaks on the window, but, looking at the clock on the nearby wall, through her grogginess Char gauged that it must be around eight o'clock.

As quickly and quietly as possible so she wouldn't wake everyone else up, Char cleaned herself up and changed into her regular attire, then stepped carefully out the door. A flicker of movement flashed out of the corner of her eye and she turned toward the main room.

"Good morning!" Yuffie greeted brightly. Leon, who was sitting on her other side, simply nodded. Cid, already at the stove in preparation of their breakfast, simply grunted in acknowledgment.

"Well, aren't we bright and happy this morning," Char commented dryly as she approached. She stopped right in front of the table as she noticed the absence of a certain trio of dorks. "Where are Sora, Donald, and Goofy? And isn't that the same stove you stuck in the Gummi ship yesterday?" she added to Cid, raising one eyebrow at him.

As it was, Leon only answered her first question with a shrug of one shoulder. "I guess they're still asleep."

"Geez, lazy asses…" Char sighed, putting one hand on her hip. "I can wait for breakfast; I'll go wake them up."

She turned on her heel and started toward Sora's room, which sat directly across the hall from hers. Without hesitation, she opened the door and headed right inside.

"Sora, get up," she ordered. "It's time to leave."

For the most part, there was no response from the bed, except that the mussed and entangled sheets murmured just a bit.

A frown dragged its way across her countenance, and she stepped right up to the bedside. "All right, Sora, it's almost time to leave," she muttered, painfully aware of how awkward this was. To try and take her mind off of that, she took hold of the covers that, she guessed, concealed his spiky head, and pulled the sheets away.

To her surprise, her attempt revealed not his hair, but his side. Growling under her breath, Char made her way to the other side of the bed and pulled those sheets off of him. Sora grunted, his eyes opening in a small squint. "Ahh… Char… what?" he grunted, his voice practically incoherent as he raised one hand to rub his eyes.

"About time, I should say," she snorted. "It's eight o'clock, we have to leave soon, and I _still_ haven't woken your friends up yet."

"Oh… sorry," Sora murmured, getting up and pushing the covers back. "I'll be ready in a bit, I promise."

"Damn right you're sorry," Char growled. As he stretched, arching his back slightly backward, she sighed. "It's just… it's a bit late. We should have been able to leave a while ago."

"Sorry," he said again.

Looking at him, Char felt a sudden, irrational burst of anger. "Would you stop apologizing?" she snapped, and left the room.

Thankfully she was spared from having to wake Donald and Goofy, because the aforementioned animals were making their way toward the main room. "Smells good, Cid!" Goofy remarked, smiling at everyone and plopping down in a chair.

Donald, however, glared at Char. "Thanks for waking me up," he said sarcastically.

"You're welcome," she answered, an equal amount of sarcasm in her own words. "I'd expect much better from the mage of Disney Castle, but I suppose that will do."

"How do you _know_ these things?" Donald squawked, throwing his feathery hands up in anger.

"Because I _listen,"_ Char retorted. Inside, however, she was scolding herself at her slip-up; she'd thought she was through with giving them hints that she knew more than she let on.

The duck just coughed something that sounded suspiciously like "stalker" and sat down next to Goofy.

Char turned toward the hallway and saw Sora emerging from it, clad in his normal attire and with his bed-head significantly tamed – though with Sora, that really wasn't saying much. He smiled tentatively at her, and Char stared at him blankly before realizing he wanted reconciliation from earlier. She gave a subdued, close-lipped smile and added a small wave for good measure. In response, his own grin widened and he sat in the chair on Leon's other side. "What's for breakfast, Cid?" he asked.

Cid grunted. "Scrambled eggs. I figured since it's the last meal you guys'll be having here for a while that you should have something good."

Char sighed inwardly; she didn't even like scrambled eggs.

Sora seemed to notice her thoughts and nudged her gently. "Sit down and eat," he urged. "We never know where our next meal should be coming from."

Seeing the logic in his words, Char gave a single nod and sat next to him.

They finished breakfast relatively quickly thanks to Sora and Donald's ravenous appetites – a fact that induced dry remarks from Char and indignation from the mage. Leon had left in the middle of the meal to go protect the town for a bit, but after a while he came back just in time to finish his own breakfast. Now everyone stood in front of the door.

"Is it still raining outside?" Char asked Leon. A stupid question, she realized when she took in his stiff-looking clothing and damp hair.

Leon folded his arms. "I think so. It was winding down when I got back."

"That's good, then," Sora said.

Char rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. It's just a bit of water."

They stepped outside, and Char found that Leon's words rang true. The only "rain" to be found around the area was a bit of water that dripped from some of the shops' overhangs.

"We'll leave you here," Leon said.

Sora turned and stared wide-eyed at the older man. "Aren't you going to lead us to the Gummi ship?"

"Eleven days ago, we would have." Leon's deep voice cut through the cool early morning air as he met Sora's gaze. "But since Char is fully healed and she has new weapons, we figured that you all should exercise your fighting muscles."

_"We?" _Yuffie cut in. "You decided that all on your own, Squall!"

Leon's scar-adorned eye twitched a bit as he glanced over at her. "I told you already, it's Leon."

"So… we'll see you later, then?" Sora asked, smiling hesitantly at the duo.

"Of course!" Yuffie chirped. "The Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee can always use your help!"

Leon lifted one hand in a small wave. "Be careful," was all he said.

* * *

"Damn, it's been so long since we've actually gone anywhere on this thing," Char sighed, sitting in a chair – not the pilot's, Sora and the others noted with relief.

The brunette himself glanced around. The interior of the ship looked so much more different than it had before, what with the new renovations Cid had made on it. Sora returned his gaze to the window and moved to sit in the pilot's seat. "Guess we should set off – huh?"

Donald and Goofy looked over Sora's shoulder as the Keybearer picked up the note that had been taped to the dashboard. As Char watched, a dark look crossed her face for a brief moment, but then it was gone.

"Sora – I put some new blueprints under the seats so that the Gummi ship could be stronger and faster than ever before. From Cid," Sora read aloud. He grinned. "Well, that makes sense, right?"

"Yup, he was always givin' us those Gummi blocks before, remember?"

Sora nodded in agreement. "Well, at least he's looking out for us…" Remembering the way Cid had characterized them all as gluttons, Sora gave a weak little laugh before glancing down at the controls. "Guess we should be on our way."

He started up the ship without much problem, but as Donald and Goofy scrambled into their respective chairs, Sora cast a glance in Char's direction. She didn't seem like anything other than her determined self – perhaps with a bit more happiness because her wound had healed – but Sora asked her the question all the same.

"Are you okay with leaving your home like this?"

Char gave him a sidelong look, her eyes narrowing. "Of course I am. I've stuck with you this long, haven't I?"

"Good point," Sora answered, deciding to just let the matter drop. He pointed his Keyblade up to the sky, and the telltale flash of light created a rift just wide enough for the Gummi ship to enter the realm between worlds.

Leon watched the red-and-yellow shape move off and promptly vanish into the clouds, and he sighed to himself.

Merlin gave the man a concerned look. "Is everything all right, Leon?"

"Yes," Leon replied, not taking his eyes off where the Gummi ship had been.

Inside the Gummi ship, Char pointed at the snow globe-like container that held a pirate ship, a world that was labeled Port Royal. "Let's head to this world," she suggested to the others. "It's the only one that came up, anyway."

"Maybe Kairi and Riku are there," Sora murmured, steering the ship through the rushing mist. He blinked. "Wow, Cid was right – this thing _is_ faster than before!"

"Really…" Char muttered softly, her eyes widening.

"Don't even think about it," Donald grunted.

Char gave him an innocent look. "Oh come on. I wasn't even thinking about piloting it again. Even I understand how much I suck at that."

"Heartless incoming!" Goofy suddenly shouted.

"Uh oh!" Sora quickly fired a few lasers at the creatures that had approached the ship – had nearly latched onto the windshield and broken the glass, actually. The well-aimed blast knocked the Heartless away and effectively destroyed them.

"Piece of cake," he commented with a grin.

After a few more minutes of frantically dodging past Heartless and the occasional Nobody – "maybe that's a sign that the Organization is in that world," Sora pointed out uneasily, a possibility that none of them wanted to consider – they had finally gotten through the barrage of attacks from the between-worlds Heartless.

"That'll show ya!" Donald yelled, shaking his fist at the currently-sinking Heartless pirate ship.

Char folded her arms and leaned back in her chair, secretly glad that the whole affair was over. She'd never been fond of this kind of travel – but then again, for the past year she'd traveled by dark portals. "A pirate ship of Heartless on the pathway to a world that's undoubtedly full of pirates? Geez. Whoever's sending all these enemies to us has no creativity whatsoever."

Goofy and Sora laughed. "Very true," Sora agreed. As he spoke, his sapphire eyes darted about in search of a place to land. As the vessel descended a bit closer to the world itself, things became easier for the pilot. "We'll just land in that little corridor over there," he announced at last, nodding toward the aforementioned area. He had to squint, as the only light around this area came from the meager torches along the walls. _Guess it's night in this world…_

"Sora, don't crash it again!" Donald squawked, standing up in his seat to further make his point.

Sora grinned sheepishly. "I'll try not to, but I can't make any promises…"

"Oh, that's great," Char muttered, sarcasm etched into every note of her words.

Sora just gave her a reprimanding look for interrupting his concentration and then refocused on the task at hand. Things were made a little more difficult by the darkness, but with a little squinting and hasty redirection from Char, Sora got the Gummi ship parked snugly into the corridor.

"How'd you learn to see so well in the dark, Char?" asked Goofy, tilting his head to the side and causing his long ears to swing.

She shrugged, a little modestly. "Well, a lot of times, Master made us go out late at night to gather research material."

"Last-minute studying?" Donald queried dryly.

"Sometimes, yes," Char replied, causing the duck to blink in slight disappointment that she hadn't bitten back.

"Who else worked with you? Was it anyone we know?" Sora asked.

Char rolled her eyes. "What is this, the third degree? Shouldn't we be checking out this new world?"

"Of course." The two residents of Disney Castle got up from their seats and headed toward the door, but Sora roused himself a little more sedately. He held back a sigh. It seemed like, even after all the time Char had spent with them, while she _had_ softened a bit from the woman they'd met in Twilight Town, she was still hiding things from them – from _him. _Part of him urged him to be patient, and yet the other just wanted Char to open up already.

"Yo, Key-boy! You coming, or what?" Char shouted, sounding like she was already about to leave the Gummi ship.

Sora started. "Oh yeah! Let's go, then!"

He followed her out, squinting a little to get used to the abrupt change in lighting and taking his place at the front of the group. As the hatch closed behind them and Sora's eyes got used to the darkness, Donald uttered a "wow".

"This place is…" Sora murmured, folding his arms.

Goofy finished his sentence for him. "Kinda different."

From what she could see of the area, Char had to agree with the knight. As far as she could tell, they stood on the edge of a rampart. There was a set of concrete stairs nearby that led down to the rest of the town, and the moon was hidden behind a layer of clouds – it was probably a sliver, from the lack of light that came down. Char could hear the rough whisper of waves lapping at the shore below and realized that this area overlooked the ocean. _So it's a port… maybe we can get some supplies here._

When she voiced this thought, Sora sighed. "Yeah, maybe so. We all know that we're gonna have to get used to Cid not being there to cook for us."

"I miss it already…" Goofy put a hand over his mouth to muffle his laugh at Donald's words. The duck turned to glare at his friend, but at that moment a series of long, drawn-out screams rent the air and made them all shiver.

The four of them ran over to the edge of the rampart that overlooked the town. Sora squinted and craned his neck, but he couldn't gauge anything at the moment. "Something's up," he commented quietly.

Char turned her head to quirk one eyebrow at him. "Now what makes you say that? Was it the screaming?"

"Ha, ha," Donald muttered. "Maybe it's Heartless?"

"Or Organization XIII…" Goofy added nervously.

Sora nodded and returned his gaze to the town. "Only one way to find out," he said, hoping he sounded braver than he felt.

The group descended the stairs at a run, weapons at the ready in case any enemies decided to jump them from the darkness. If that happened, then Char certainly couldn't blame the Heartless for their choice of strategy; in this thick darkness, penetrated by weak torchlight, one could easily get taken down by one of the black Neo-Shadows and not notice a thing. She shivered at the thought.

_But this time, things are different. I have those blades Master gave me, and there's almost no chance of them getting broken this time around, unless the Heartless somehow have particularly sharp claws. Things are different._

* * *

"Aztec treasure, eh?" Pete asked.

"Aye," the unshaven leader of the pirate group confirmed. "And thanks to the curse put on it, we are neither among the livin' nor the dead." He gestured to the rest of his crew as he spoke.

Pete held back a shudder at the captain's words. He'd gone to this world – Port Royal, it was called – in the first place because Maleficent had told him that a massive cloud of darkness resided within. Certainly, that was correct, and he'd planned to expand that darkness. But then these creepy pirates had shown up, and while Pete saw a chance for an unholy alliance, the thought of the pirates actually being the "undead" put him off more than a little.

"B-but you just look like regular pirates to me," he said, trying to keep his bold appearance.

"Ah," the captain laughed, "but in the moonlight…"

Pete was getting the nagging feeling that this guy was talking down to him now. However, he remained silent instead of summoning forth Heartless to take them all out.

He looked up at the sky, where the wind was just starting to push a cloud away from the moon. It was a full silver orb, he noted, and he lowered his head, fully ready to turn these pirates away and carry on with his plan.

But then he started and nearly whimpered aloud at the way the pirates had changed. What had started out as skin was now mere skeletal cartilage and bone; what had started out as clothing was now only tattered rags that hung off the bony bodies like moss off of a tree branch.

"Whoa," he managed. "Now I get what you were sayin'… Hm…"

He hesitated. Maybe they _could_ be a valuable asset after all – because in the volatile clouds of this world, who could truly take down the undead pirates?

The captain continued to survey Pete with his eyes-that-weren't-eyes. Pete shivered.

"Well," he said at last, "if you see two doofuses with a brat holdin' a Keyblade and his angry girlfriend, steer clear. They got a kind of magic that don't belong in this world, see? And nobody knows what it'd do to ya. Especially when the moon's showing what you really are."

As he spoke, the clouds had clearly obscured the moon again, because skin reformed on the bones and the pirates were staring at him normally again.

"A match for Barbossa, you say?" the captain – Barbossa – mused. A smirk wove its way across his lips. "We'll keep an eye out."

"Hey!" a deepening voice suddenly called out, and they all turned to see none other than Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Char, approaching with their weapons ready. Sora lowered himself into his battle stance, while Donald and Goofy did the same. Char simply narrowed her eyes and tightened her hold around her new swords.

"See there? I knew it," Pete sighed. "Those are the punks I was tellin' ya about."

"Really?" Barbossa asked, looking from one to another. His eyes lingered on the redhead, and Char fought back the urge to shudder when his tongue darted out to lick his lips.

Apparently his crew was of the same mind, whistling and shouting. "Hey, why don't you ditch Spike and come with some real pirates?" one taunted.

"Hey! Back off!" Sora ordered, in as close to a snarl as Char had heard him get. "And we're not _punks!_ It's Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Char to you – and don't you forget it!"

"That we won't," Barbossa said, his amusement clear on his face and in his voice. "And we'll engrave it on your tombstones, to be sure."

"Whoa! I like your style!" Pete said.

Barbossa turned to the others and snapped his fingers. "Men – half of you stay here and indulge these cullies. The rest – bring me that medallion!"

"Medallion?" Char murmured, eyebrows raised slightly.

"I see the dear lass is curious," Barbossa purred. "Would you truly like to know?"

"I _said_ back off!" Sora shouted.

"Sora, shut up," Char growled sharply at him. "I can take care of myself."

The pirates remaining approached them, scimitars and guns brandished. "Aw, we only get to stomp on a few of you?" Sora asked mockingly.

Barbossa simply smirked before turning on his heel and following the rest of his crew.

"Bastard," Char grunted. "Thinks only with his –"

"We're gonna ask you one more time: ditch Spike already," one of the pirates leered, blackened teeth visible in a lecherous grin.

Char kept her composure, as much of an effort as it was, and instead, she smirked. "No thanks," she answered smoothly, and charged at the pirates with Sora at her side.

She brought up one of the swords and slashed downward in a way that should have ripped the guy in half…

…but instead his figure only distorted a bit and he struck out at her with his curved blade. _The hell?_

She danced out of the way just in time and glanced nervously at the others. "Uh, guys? I think we have a problem," she said, grunting with the effort of blocking the pirate's blows with both swords. Donald cast spells frantically, but it was about as useful as Char's efforts were. Goofy soon pulled his shield away, just as confused as the others.

"It's no use," Sora muttered, leaping back and panting slightly. "We can't beat them."

"Aye, what do ya expect?" one of the pirates queried smugly.

Char narrowed her eyes; something about the way he addressed Sora sent her temper bubbling over. "Shut up!" she spat, and raced toward him.

"Char, stop!" Goofy cried, putting out one hand; but she had already blocked the scimitar with one sword and, whirling around, ripped into him with the other…

…and then the clearing was suddenly illuminated with moonlight, and the pirate fell, choking a bit on his own blood.

"Holy…" Char murmured, while Sora, Donald, and Goofy emitted shocked cries of their own. The pirates had suddenly turned into… skeletons…?

One of the remaining pirates smirked at them. "Your efforts don't make a bit of difference, girl," he said. "We're cursed to live forever – strike us down and we'll just keep coming."

"But you do stay down, if only for a bit," Char retorted, watching his still-fallen comrade. She whipped her head toward Sora. "Let's pound them!"

"Hey, watch out – they can see ya! Stay away from their magic!" Pete squawked behind them.

Sora stared at Maleficent's minion for a moment; then he grinned. "Thanks for the tip, Pete!" he laughed, while Pete quickly slapped a hand over his mouth as though that could correct his words.

So Donald cast in the background while Goofy, Sora, and Char lay into the now-exposed pirates with their respective weapons. Needless to say, the group quickly took down the undead pirates.

The pirates all leapt up and ran off, shouting angry obscenities over their shoulders that made even Char wince. Pete looked briefly flustered, then yelled, "This ain't over!" and lumbered after them.

Char sighed and made her swords vanish. "Well, damn. That was…"

"Pretty weird," Donald agreed.

Goofy looked at his friend in surprise; he'd never thought that he'd see Donald and Char agreeing on anything other than plain fact. Then again, wasn't that what this was – pretty weird?

"If Pete's here, that must mean we have work to do." Sora clenched his fists.

"Yup. And that pirate captain looked pretty mean, too," Goofy remarked.

Char crossed her arms in obvious agreement. "Damn right. He looks like just a stereotypical captain – only thinks about gold, women, and booze."

"But there was something else he was after, remember? He said something about a 'medallion'," Sora mused. Inwardly, he passionately agreed with Char's statement about the captain; yet the Keybearer still wasn't sure why he felt so much irrational anger about the way the pirates had treated the redhead.

"Well, we _are_ here…" Donald pointed out.

Sora nodded. "So we might as well help out. Hey," he added teasingly, "maybe we can take a pirate ship out for a spin!"

The looks of shock on Donald and Goofy's faces and the way Char rolled her eyes confirmed how they'd taken his statement. Sora laughed and put his arms behind his head. "Kidding."

"Sure," Char said dryly, clearly still brooding about the fight earlier.

Ignoring that, Sora looked at all of them. "Weren't those guys headed into town?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think they were looking for treasure," Goofy said.

"That medallion, maybe…" Sora glanced toward the torch-lit bridge. "Let's go."

* * *

Me: I was originally going to extend it longer than that, but since this is a short chapter for me, I figure I may as well spare you all :D It's mostly a filler chappie, but the action will hopefully increase next chapter. Char gets to do something very funny later that I've really been planning since before starting this fic...  
Char: Che.  
Me: Also, as a bit of shameless plugging, I put a TSA-related poll on my profile. Check it out if you want -suppresses desire to lecture 500-some people that clearly read this story but don't review-  
Ari: Next chapter, everyone meets Captain Jack, and Char gets trapped in a ghost story, if you get my meaning. -crickets chirp- Oh, come on! That was pure gold! -grumbles to herself while stealing my Shadow plushie and hiding away in the corner-


	36. Chapter XXXVI

Me: One of my favorite chapters -grin- And it's long, too.  
Char: -noncommittal grunt-  
Me: Yeah, so, anyway, I wrote all of this today -insert Miranda laughter here- I just thought I'd post it now, because I'm leaving for a swimteam-related party in about forty-five minutes. If I don't return hideously humiliated... it'll be a miracle.  
Lexi: Oh, come on. It won't be so bad.  
Me: Oh, won't it? Anyway, here 'tis. (Wow, that was one of my shorter A/Ns XD)

**_Disclaimer-_** Dude. No.

* * *

As they crossed the moss-laden bridge, with Char shuddering a bit as a raindrop fell off of a tree branch above, the redhead allowed herself to fully take in Port Royal. She frowned to herself, irritation growing within her at the thought that so far, the pirates had exceeded her original expectations of "desire" – had risen far above them, actually, if their behavior in front of her back there was any indication. She told herself that it was only a case of severely untamed lust on the undead pirates' parts, but that still couldn't keep back the annoyance at earlier. And Sora… For some reason she didn't really mind the fact that he had tried to protect her – key word being "tried", of course – but Char knew better than anyone that she could take care of herself. A couple of lecherous pirates were no problem.

A couple of lecherous, _undead_ pirates.

The group trekked through the underbrush in silence, until, quite suddenly, they found themselves standing in an all-but-deserted town. Char blinked; she'd expected people to be bustling and haggling for wares even at this time of night.

Suddenly Donald cried out and pointed, and the others followed his gaze. A single pirate was walking away from them, but that obviously hadn't been what had gotten the mage's attention: the pirate had heaved a struggling young woman with long brown hair over his shoulder and was carrying her off. "Where are you taking me?!" she demanded haughtily, pounding her fists uselessly against the back of his shoulder. "Let me go!"

"Elizabeth!" a masculine voice shouted from nearby, and a young man clad in an open gray-and-white shirt rushed forward. "Stop –"

Almost in a direct caricature of his own order, the man halted abruptly in his tracks. Char caught sight of the glowing yellow eyes in the darkness.

"Heartless," she muttered.

"What _are_ they?" he murmured, staring wide-eyed down at the creatures.

"It's the Heartless! Watch out!" Donald squawked. One of the black ants moved forward to attack the young man and Donald quickly brought his staff up; the Heartless vanished as the thunder attack scythed right through it.

"Let's go," Sora cried, running forward and brandishing the Hero's Crest. The older man looked on in shock, his eyes lingering in particular on the Keyblade.

Char realized how strange Sora must look – a boy no older than fifteen wielding a _giant key,_ of all things – but she still turned her head and cast the man an expectant glare. "We'll take care of these guys. Just take cover, got it?"

Seeming to snap out of his surprise, the man gave a swift nod and obeyed. Char looked back at the Heartless and took a deep breath before letting out a snarl and bringing both swords up to drive down into the nearest one. It disappeared in an all-but-concealed puff of black smoke. She could hear Donald yelling "I got it!" and Sora grunting with the force of swinging the Hero's Crest as she quickly whipped away from the next Heartless' claws – it still managed to shallowly scratch her legs; compared to the pain from Hades' attack, though, this was nothing – and laid into it with one sword.

"Looks like you're doing really well with those new weapons, Char," Sora called from her side.

The redhead turned her head briefly to acknowledge his statement. "Thanks; I got used to using them when I found them at the Po – gods damn it!" she suddenly snarled, barely blocking the Heartless' attack in time. She narrowed her eyes as she held up her swords to guard. _What the hell are these? _she wondered, glaring down at the little dog-like Heartless. _I've never seen these before… Don't tell me the Heartless are evolving!_

But then a flash of lightning impaled the dog Heartless, and it fell backward and disappeared with a howl of pain. Donald stood there, a smirk on his feathered face. "You're welcome."

"Tch," Char muttered, looking away. "That had better be the last of them…"

Thankfully, that was the way things seemed. Sora straightened from his battle stance and the rest of the group came to stand near him. "Good effort, guys. Hey, Char, do you want that leg looked at?" he added worriedly, looking at the series of reddening lines from where the Heartless had slashed her.

She simply gave him a skeptical look, a look that said _it's the same leg Hades burned, moron._

"Oh yeah… right." Sora laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.

The anonymous young man came running back up to them, stumbling in his effort to stop right before knocking Sora over. "Well done!" he congratulated. "My own fencing skills are not to be ashamed of… but I've never faced foes such as that before…" He stared at the spot where the Heartless had been.

"Those are Heartless. We'll take care of them," Sora told him.

Char nudged him. "Sora, don't take it so lightly," she muttered. "Just because we know how to take them out doesn't mean that things will work out as well for him."

The young man hesitated; clearly he didn't know whether to agree or take offense. "She has a point," he conceded.

"So… you really think we're that good?" Sora put his arms behind his head again, only to lower them at once when a burst of pain suddenly became tangible in his skull.

_Oh, come on, Roxas, you're not _that_ good yet…_

_Try summoning your Samurais again…_

_Again…_

_Perhaps if Number XIII worked harder we would see more results…_

"Hey Sora, you okay?" Donald asked, concern etched into every feather on his face.

Sora shook his head to clear it. Fortunately, that seemed to work. "Yeah, it's fine." He didn't even want to imagine the pained look that must have contorted his facial features a few moments ago.

The young man was giving Sora an odd look, but his chocolate-colored gaze went to Goofy when the knight spoke. "Did you find your friend?"

"No," the young man sighed, his eyes falling toward the ground. "I was too late. But –" he jerked his head up determinedly – "I must rescue her!" He looked pleadingly at the group. "Would you help me?" The look on his face was so honest, so sincere, that Char couldn't help but wish that all people loved like that.

"Of course," Sora agreed immediately. "I'm Sora."

_I think he gathered that much from earlier…_ Char thought; nevertheless, introducing himself had been the best course of action at that time.

"This is Donald, Goofy, and Char," he continued, looking from one companion to the other as he said their name. Char realized that she didn't mind the fact that Sora had introduced her.

"And I'm William Turner, but call me Will," Will answered.

"Okay, Will. Let's go!"

"Right – we've got to get to the docks!" And with that he took off at a steady run through the corridors.

Char put one hand to her temple. "Geez, just run in there without even thinking of the danger, why don't you?"

* * *

They reached the docks relatively quickly and the five of them skidded to an unsteady halt along the dew-soaked grass. Char followed Will's gaze and felt a twinge of sympathy for Will as he stared out at the departing ship, visible only due to the lights showing from its windows. From what Char could glean from just a few minutes ago, the woman that the pirates had taken was far from a "friend" in Will's eyes. _Must be tough on him,_ the redhead thought.

"We're too late," Will murmured, his eyes despondently following the ship as it made its way out toward the all-but-concealed horizon. "Those pirates kidnapped Miss Swann and took her to their ship, and now that they've sailed, I'll never be able to find her!"

"Then she's long gone," a cocky, distinctively masculine voice reached them from one of the boats nearby. The group turned and spotted a man standing on the ramp leading up to one of the ships. Char blinked at the sudden interruption, but then narrowed her eyes as she took in the man's scruffy look. After the previous encounter with that captain and his crew, she couldn't help but feel a bit disinclined to trust this pirate; for that was definitely what this man was, if the loose white shirt and dreadlocks were any indication. Sora, Donald, and Goofy just looked curious as to who the man was, observing him in the quiet way they'd apparently gained from their journeys.

"The _Black Pearl_ is nigh uncatchable," the man continued loftily. To Will, he continued, "Best find yourself another girl, mate." As he spoke, the pirate turned and started toward the deck of the ship, casually hopping down from the upraised ramp to the floor of the ship.

Will surveyed the man cautiously. "You…" he murmured warily, stepping forward. Instinctively, Sora followed, his curiosity piqued. "What are you doing aboard the _Interceptor?_ She's off-limits to civilians."

"Something tells me that that's not going to stop him," Char muttered.

"Yeah," Sora agreed under his breath.

"Ah, fortunate that I'm going to commandeer her, then. She'll make a fine pirate ship."

Sora abruptly stopped in his tracks. "A pirate?" he asked incredulously, a grin weaving itself across his face. He knew that his words before about "taking a pirate ship for a spin" had been just what he'd said – a joke – but despite that, he did feel a certain amount of awed fascination for them. After seeing all the men that stopped by at Destiny Island's mainland to get supplies and haggle, it wasn't like Sora was unfamiliar with the concept; if anything, he reflected, perhaps he was a bit too familiar.

"Aye," the man grunted, and as the five of them approached, they got a better look at the pirate – for that was obviously his "occupation" – that had spoken to them. His long dreadlocks swayed in the chill nighttime air and he lifted a finger to make a point. "Captain Jack Sparrow, if you please," he sighed, almost as though any reference to him without an honorific was an insult.

Char glanced over to the others. Sora still looked slightly in wonder of the fact that he was getting to meet a real live pirate, but Will had a suspicious look on his fine features. She hesitated, but then decided to let Will make the decision; he was the resident of this world, after all.

He finally let out a sound between a sigh and a murmur. "Take me with you," he said steadily, meeting Sparrow's eyes in what was clearly an effort. "Help me hunt down the _Black Pearl_ and save Miss Swann." He broke the eye contact and put his hands on his hips. "I got you out of that jail cell, Sparrow. Do this and your debt's repaid."

"Wait, you know this guy?" Sora asked.

Will gave a half-hearted shrug, shame clouding his countenance at the memory. "Unfortunately, yes, I do."

"Let's just say our dear lovesick boy here saved me from a fine predicament," Sparrow cut in. Returning his gaze to Will, who now looked indignant at being referred to as "lovesick", the captain continued, his dark eyebrows slightly raised in skepticism. "But you'll have to win fair lady's heart alone, mate. I see no profit in it for me."

"Oh, come on," Char said, folding her arms and tilting her head to properly glower at him. His eyebrows lifted slightly more as he fully took her in, but she continued nonetheless. "A captain can't run his ship all alone, can he? You're going to need some help if we're going to catch the _Black Pearl."_

"Who said there was any 'we' involved?" Sparrow lifted one hand, a couple of his fingers raised in an odd thoughtful gesture. Then he lowered his arm. "But you've a point there, darling." He stepped over to the entrance to the ship and swept his arms out in a mock welcoming way. "All aboard."

"All _right!"_ Sora murmured, his grin returning as they all entered, with Will in the lead. Aside from a few crates and barrels here and there, the deck looked devoid of actual life.

"Thank you, Sparrow," Will said to the captain.

_"Captain_ Sparrow," Jack corrected instantly.

"I'm Sora," Sora introduced, his voice carrying just a bit more confidence than usual. "This is Donald, Goofy, and Char."

"Charmed, I'm sure," Jack answered loftily, and turned to Will. "And you?"

"I'm Will Turner."

Jack blinked; but just as soon as the surprise had appeared, it was gone, hidden behind his usual arrogant façade. "That would be short for William, I imagine. No doubt named for your father, eh?"

Will's eyes widened. "Yes. How did you –"

"Never you mind that. Well, then, Mr. Turner. Get the ship ready. I've some effects to liberate."

"Aye-aye. B-but hurry!" Will added hastily.

"Naturally," Jack tossed over his shoulder, waving his hand nonchalantly as he stepped out onto the ramp.

"Sora…" Char muttered.

"You really wanna be a pirate?" asked Goofy, looking a bit bewildered.

"Of course not!"

"Somehow I don't believe that," Char said. She stopped in her tracks abruptly when she noticed a certain mage wasn't following them. "Donald…?" she asked, voice trailing off as she turned around. Donald was standing there, one feathered hand on his chin in thought. She let out a sigh. "Oh, geez. Don't tell me…"

"Donald!" Sora chided.

The duck seemed to jolt in surprise. "Oh, right!" he squawked hurriedly, and rushed after them.

Sora started forward, but was stopped by a certain Jack Sparrow. "Hm?" he asked, not quite knowing what to say.

"What do you make of this Will?" the captain queried in a stage whisper, one hand slightly in front of his face in a conspiratorial manner.

Sora hesitated and glanced over his shoulder. Will was adjusting the sails a bit, and gave Sora a tentative smile when he saw him.

"I don't know," the Keybearer admitted, turning back to Sparrow. "We just met him."

"Hm," Jack mused, and a little smile appeared on his face. "I think my luck's about to change."

"What makes you say that?" Char asked.

"Oh, nothing. I'll stand by over here; let me know when you want to leave, savvy?" Without waiting for a response, Jack made his way over to the wheel that steered the ship.

"Hmph." Char didn't take her eyes off of Sparrow, her arms still folded across her chest in her trademark irritable gesture. "I don't trust him."

"You sure you're not just a tiny bit biased because of those other pirates?" Sora laughed sheepishly at the glare that his comment induced. "Look, I'm sure it'll be fine. Will seems to trust the guy."

"I don't know…" Donald muttered, his own dark gaze narrowed. "I think Will would do anything to save that woman the pirates kidnapped."

"My question is, why'd they kidnap her in the first place?" Char mused, reaching up to brush a strand of windblown red hair out of her eyes.

"Maybe it's got somethin' to do with that medallion," Goofy suggested.

"Yeah, maybe. We won't know until we catch the _Black Pearl."_

"Yeah," Char muttered. Sora guessed that she hated not knowing what was going on; for him, it was a familiar feeling, what with his previous journey and the Organization calling him "Roxas" and all, but he felt certain that she'd always known most of the answers. And even if she hadn't, she'd probably always been able to look them up in a book or something.

"We'll be fine," he assured her. She turned to face him. "It's not like Will's going to let those pirates get away with it. People do all kinds of things when they're in love, right?"

"It's not that I'm worried about," she answered. "It's just that…"

She hesitated then, and Sora blinked at how uncharacteristic the gesture was for her. For some reason, that worried him more than anything else.

He opened his mouth to reply, but then Will appeared next to them. "Are you all ready to set sail?" he asked, looking anxious for the positive response.

"Yeah," Sora responded. He moved in preparation to go inform Sparrow, but the captain in question's voice drifted down to them.

"I can hear every word you're saying, you know. Right then, let's go."

Almost immediately after the last words had escaped Jack's lips, the ship abruptly moved forward in a way that caused it to groan loudly. Will grabbed onto the rail of the ship to keep from falling, but Donald and Goofy were less fortunate. Char stumbled, but Sora reached out and caught her just in time.

"Oh, I probably should've warned you about that," Sparrow said, putting one hand to his chin thoughtfully.

"You think?" Donald growled indignantly, getting up and dusting himself off while glaring at the pirate.

"Oh, such animosity, mate!" Jack said, eyes widening. "I think it'd be better if we could all just get along."

"A pirate, suggesting such things?" Will sighed and shook his head.

"Yeah…" Sora chuckled.

"Uh, Sora?" Char's voice cut into his amusement, and he turned his head to look at her, very nearly bumping noses with her. "What?"

"You can let go of me now," she said dryly, her eyes flicking down to where he still held her waist.

Sora realized that little fact almost as soon as she'd spoken, and embarrassment promptly flamed inside him. "S-sorry!" he blurted out, releasing her at once and hastily stepping back for good measure.

Char brushed herself off and stared at him. "It's fine," she said; but at that moment the clouds revealed the moon, the silvery light shining down, and he thought he caught a glimpse of red staining her cheeks the same shade as her hair.

"They say young love never lasts." Sparrow's airy voice caused them both to jump in surprise and look over at him: Sora with surprise and Char with angry skepticism.

"Oh – shut up!" the girl shouted at him, and a low growl issued from her when her threatening tone produced only a wide grin from Sparrow.

"Tut-tut, what a temper," he sighed, staring back out at the horizon again. A flicker of movement caught Sora's eye, and the brunette watched Sparrow take out a strange-looking compass. Keeping one hand on the wheel and another on the compass, Sparrow kept his kohl-lined eyes on the compass, every once in a while glancing up at the sea around them.

"Why are you so fixated on that compass?" Sora questioned, walking up the stairs to where Sparrow was. Seeing as she had nothing much else to do, Char followed.

"It'll be she that leads us to the Isla de Muerta – where Barbossa's headed. Savvy?"

"Isla de Muerta – the Island of the Dead." Char leaned over slightly to get a better look at the compass, but as the clouds had obscured the moon again, she had to pull back again with no results. "It makes sense."

"Barbossa? Is that the name of that pirate captain back there?" Donald asked.

"Aye, that it is." Jack's grip tightened almost imperceptibly on the wheel. "He and I once had our eyes on the same treasure – Aztec gold. 'Twas hidden on the Isla de Muerta. But he turned traitor and stole my ship."

"The _Black Pearl_ was once yours?" A surprised look covered Will's countenance.

"So he's after that treasure, then," Sora assumed.

"Treasure's already his," Sparrow said. "So's the curse upon it. And I have no desire for such treacherous spoils." He ignored the way the other five's faces lit up with realization: that the Aztec gold had somehow caused the undead pirates to become the way they were. "But I will have back what's mine – the _Black Pearl."_

"Well," Char sighed, "as charming as all this is, I'm gonna go to the cabin for a while."

"Seasick?" Donald taunted.

"Of course not!" the redhead retorted, folding her arms. "I'm just… going to get some downtime, is all."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," Jack quoted. "Alright. I've no problem with it. The lady shouldn't be exerting herself too much, anyway."

Char was already halfway down the stairs that led to the lower deck, but she stopped and looked over her shoulder. "Excuse me?"

"All I'm saying is that maintaining the ship is a man's job. And you'll be doing your share of fighting when we get to the Isla de Muerta, anyway."

Char turned back around fully, her hands on her hips. "Just what is that supposed to mean? Just because I'm female doesn't mean I can't do my share of the work!"

"Whatever you say, darling." Jack looked back down at his compass, clearly having finished his end of the conversation.

Char glowered at him for a moment longer; then turned away again and started haughtily back down the stairs again.

As the door of the cabin was closed with a resounding slam, Sparrow sighed. "I was so certain that would've swayed her."

"Wait – so you _wanted_ her to work?"

"In a nutshell, yes."

"You're terrible," Sora murmured, his brow wrinkled in bemusement.

He walked over to the side of the ship and looked out, arms resting on the rail and his chin propped against his arms. Watching the sea go by was a feeling he knew, but somehow he got the feeling that this was unlike anything he'd ever watched pass him before.

"You okay, Sora?" asked Goofy. Sora realized that his two allies were standing on either side of him. The knowledge that he would never be alone was still there, but it nevertheless helped to have that reinforced every once in a while.

Like now.

"Yeah," he said, grinning at his companions. They smiled back, reassured as to their leader's status, and a sudden feeling of guilt went through him. Telling himself he had no reason to feel that way, Sora straightened. The ship was seemingly flying through the waters with the speed Jack was using, so they were more than likely almost to their destination. The brunette shivered; he couldn't help but wonder what was waiting for them at the Isla de Muerta – more of Barbossa's pirates, no doubt.

"We're here," Sparrow suddenly called. Sora rushed over to the other side of the ship, Donald and Goofy following after him, and looked over the rail, his upper body practically already over the side with the way he was looking. A series of strange-looking rock formations greeted his gaze, and a murmur of awe escaped him as they fully came into view.

"Are you sure this is it?" Will asked, his first words spoken since they had left the port. Until now he had been standing near the captain, tight-lipped and his teeth obviously clenched, probably tormenting himself with thoughts of what the pirates were doing to Elizabeth. Now, however, he spoke, eyeing Sparrow warily.

"I'd know this place anywhere," Jack answered smoothly. The ship came to a halt. "Go get your lady friend, Zola," he said, speaking in Sora's general direction.

The Keybearer sighed. "It's _Sora,"_ he tossed over his shoulder as he walked off in the direction of the cabin, ignoring Donald and Goofy's snickers that rang out behind him.

"Char?" he called, knocking tentatively on the door. He wasn't exactly sure what the redhead would do upon being interrupted, but he felt certain that it wouldn't be too pleasant. "We're here." Upon hearing no response, he rested one hand on the doorknob, hesitated, but then he took a deep breath and turned the knob. The door opened in response and he stepped inside.

In stark contrast to the outside of the ship, the inside was cluttered, with maps and binoculars and gods knew what all. A scroll along the wall read _East India Trading Company_ in ornate letters; papers were scattered all along the floor and a single chair was propped up in the corner. He scanned the room and caught a glimpse of red. "Char?" he asked quietly, stepping forward again.

When he spotted her, it came as a shock to him, mostly because she was… _sleeping? _He peered a little closer and realized that it was true; Char had fallen asleep on the floor, leaning against the back of the chair with an atlas still opened on her lap.

"Char?" he repeated, the fact that he now seemed to only have a one-word vocabulary nagging at him. She only stirred in response, and he stood by stupidly as she shifted. The word she spoke, slurred a little by sleep as it was, made his eyes widen and his body freeze up.

"Riku…"

_Riku?_ Immediately a mixture of shock and wonder shot through him with the force of a raging wildfire and much the same effect as one. How did she know Riku? If she did, though, that probably explained why she had been so determined to join Sora at the beginning.

But that just led to more and more questions, the query as to how exactly she knew Riku at the very center. Sora reached up and raked his fingers through his brown hair, stopping at his temples so he could rub them in confusion.

"Hm… mm… Sora?" Char's eyes opened a bit so that only a sliver of ice-blue was visible. "Hi," she mumbled, her tone somehow sounding far too intimate for his liking.

Sora hesitated, not knowing how exactly to address her after what she'd just said. "We're here," was all he said.

"Okay." Char blearily lifted her body into a half-standing position, leaning against the chair with her eyes still narrowed against the light of the room. She blinked a few times and focused on him. "Sorry about that; I guess it's the time zone of this world or something, because I got in here and started reading and then… well…" She chuckled and shrugged. "Anyway, we're at the Isla de Muerta, right? Let's go," she said a little more briskly, adjusting her jacket.

"Right," Sora said, and turned away.

He heard a huffy sigh come from her direction. "All right, Key-boy, what's wrong? You're acting less annoyingly friendly than usual."

"Nothing," the brunette answered, carefully pausing just long enough to make her think she was being honest. In reality, her sleep-spoken mention of Riku was still whirling through his mind. Somehow, Sora couldn't convince himself that she had said something else.

"C'mon, guys!" Donald's somewhat-muffled voice called from outside.

"Keep your pants on; we're coming!" Char yelled back, and gave Sora a tentative smile. "Guess we should go."

"Yeah."

They stepped out of the cabin and found that the ramp had already been set up, so they headed down the ramp to the island itself. Donald, Goofy, Will, and Jack were already there. Donald crossed his arms as the two of them approached. "Took you long enough."

"Whatever, duck-boy," Char grunted. She looked over at Jack. "So, what's the deal here?"

"You all wait here," the captain said, gesturing to the four of them. "Young Turner and I will rescue the lady."

"Hey! What about us?" Sora protested.

Sparrow appraised the Keybearer carefully, if only for an instant, and then he spoke again. "You four," he fluttered his fingers toward them in indication, "get the task of staying behind and guarding the ship. It's a task given only to the bravest of pirates."

"All right…" Sora said after a moment, not trusting Sparrow's air of giving large responsibility to them.

Jack and Will turned toward the winding pathway ahead that led into the yawning cavern. "Shall we?" Jack said extravagantly, and they ran toward the entrance. As they vanished into the darkness, a noisy sigh was heard from Char's direction, causing the other three to look over at her. She folded her arms as she leaned against the side of the barely-shifting boat. "You do realize he just tricked us, right?"

"W-well, maybe we _are_ supposed to guard it," Sora said lamely.

"Whatever…" Char sighed again and looked up at the clouds.

Sora wasn't exactly sure how much time passed – though the sky did remain clad in the darkened garb of night, so it was probably about an hour or so – but the silence was starting to press in upon him. He knew Char was right, that Jack was pulling a bluff just to make them stay there. Donald tapped his feet in an irritated-sounding, impatient rhythm, while Goofy just kept his eyes on the ever-moving waves around them. As for Char, she watched the clouds go by above them, eyes narrowing every so often against the moonlight that occasionally revealed itself. Sora wondered what exactly she was thinking about. He stared down at the ground, watching a few bugs crawl past his shoes, and wondered what Kairi was doing right now; he took comfort in the fact that after defeating Ansem, though they had gone their separate ways, she was obviously safe. And then after that came a giant blank spot in Sora's mind, almost as though that part of the slate of his memories had been wiped clean, and then he had woken up in Twilight Town… and, not long after that, met Char.

Sora was allowing himself to think ahead, to himself fully telling the tale of his journeys to Kairi. The warmth at the thought of her listening attentively at his side was just seeping through him when he heard Char speak, the annoyance back in her voice in full force. "I think he was just trying to fast-talk us," she muttered, shaking her head.

"You think?" Donald commented dryly.

"And we fell for it," Goofy added, a little guiltily.

"What's keeping those two?" Sora mused. "They sure are taking their time…"

"That's probably because they're in trouble," Char pointed out. She straightened from where she'd been leaning against the ship and summoned her swords in dual flashes of light that briefly rent the thick darkness. "If Pete's hanging around here, there must be Heartless."

"And Jack and Will aren't used to fighting those," Sora finished, recalling the way Will had – or rather, _hadn't_ – handled the Heartless earlier. He called the Hero's Crest to his side. "Let's go check it out."

"Hey, Sora," Goofy suddenly said. The brunette glanced over and saw the dog leaned over. He approached the knight with his head of spiky brown hair tilted to the side. "What is it, Goofy?"

"Look," Goofy said, holding up something that caught the scant moonlight strangely. Sora took it from Goofy's gloved hand to get a better look and gasped when he realized what it was. "Another Keychain…" he murmured, eyes wide.

"So you have another Keyblade now," Donald assumed.

"Yeah," Sora responded absently. Even now, a good ways into his second journey, he still couldn't figure out for the life of him how he always found the chains for his Keyblades just lying around the worlds.

"Right," Char said briskly. "Let's go."

Sora couldn't help but feel surprised; he'd expected Char to ask to examine it herself. However, he swept that aside and led them toward the cave mouth.

They fought their way through a few pirate-like Heartless and some more of the dogs that had attacked them back at the port. Sora noted the easy way Char wielded her swords, despite how new they were, and knew that she must have gotten some practice in back at Hollow Bastion. He tore his eyes away from the impressive arcs her blades were currently carving into the airborne Heartless and lifted his Keyblade to block the claws of one of the Heartless pirates. Upon pushing the Keyblade forward, he managed to knock it to the ground, and promptly finished it off.

"About time," Donald muttered, shaking his staff. "Now let's –"

He didn't get to finish, because Will and the young woman Elizabeth appeared out of the darkness of the cave, approaching them at a sprint. "Quick, they're after us!" Will panted, skidding to an ungraceful stop before them.

The two of them whirled around upon hearing a few snarled curses coming from the cave, and the pirates came running out, weapons brandished and teeth bared. "Crap," Char spat, going into her battle stance. "Not you bastards again!"

"We'll hold them off," Sora said to Will and Elizabeth, readying his Keyblade. "Give us a sign when the ship's ready to sail!"

Will hesitated, as though reluctant to leave behind his allies, but relented. "Right; we'll light the signal fire!"

He and Elizabeth ran off toward the ship. "Look who's back again – the duck, the doggy, the key kid and his girlfriend!" one of the pirates sneered.

"I still can't fathom why she'd rather stick with such a scrawny lad," one of his comrades added, smirking with broken and darkened teeth.

Sora growled, feeling only party insulted.

"Breathe, Sora!" Char yelled, leaping away from a gunshot. "They're just trying to piss you off. Don't let them get to you!"

"Yeah, you heard the lady. Don't let us get to you," one of the pirates cackled, raising his scimitar and bringing it down hard on Sora's head. The brunette barely blocked it in time.

"Come on, Will…" he murmured urgently, glancing briefly backward toward the ship.

"Back off!" Donald snarled, and cast Thunder on the pirate attacking Sora. Being that they were in the shadow of the cave, it didn't do much, but it startled the pirate enough for him to step back into the light, where Goofy laid into him with his shield. Sora gave the mage a grateful look before joining Goofy.

They fought like this for some time before Char heard a sound from behind her. She blocked another gunshot with one of her blades and tore into the pirate in front of her with the other blade as she looked over her shoulder. "The signal!" she shouted, nodding furiously toward the light rising up from the horizon.

"Let's go!" Sora cried, striking one pirate down and racing toward the ship. The others followed him at a steady run.

"Well, I don't know what's more fun: running from pirates or getting hit on by them," Char grunted as she ran beside him.

Sora laughed, but the sound was a little obscured by his heavy breathing. "Same here," he responded.

They made it onto the deck of the _Interceptor,_ where the four of them stopped to catch their breath. Sora put one hand on a barrel and bent over, breathing hard. A thought struck him and he looked up curiously at Will. "Where's Jack?" the Keybearer panted.

Will hesitated. "Well…"

* * *

"_And now," Barbossa snarled, leering at Elizabeth as he brandished the Aztec gold in one fist, "the blood will be repaid to free us from this curse forever!"_

_His crew broke out into roaring encouragement, and Will fidgeted from where he hid behind a pile of gold with Jack. "I can't sit like this much longer," Will whispered, glancing urgently around._

_"Not yet," Jack hissed, shaking his head at Will. "We wait for the opportune moment."_

_Will snorted, anxiety making him testy. "When it's of greatest profit to you?"_

_"May I ask you something?" Jack said suddenly, causing Will to stop and blink. He certainly hadn't expected _that_ – but then again, this pirate was proving to be full of surprises._

_Jack stepped forward so he was very close to Will. "Have I ever given you reason not to trust me?" the captain asked quietly._

_Will hesitated, and Jack took that moment to speak. "Stay here – and try not to do anything stupid."_

_He made as if to walk right into the ring of pirates, and, suddenly struck by an impulse, Will seized one of the oars nearby and clubbed Jack on the back of the head with it. Without a sound, Jack slumped forward to the ground, unconscious. Will allowed himself a moment of disbelief that he'd been able to do that before remembering the situation. He dropped the oar and started toward the group._

_Elizabeth let out a gasp as Barbossa seized her hand and made a shallow cut on her hand with a knife. "Begun by blood… by blood undone," the captain hissed, releasing her hand so that the bloodstained medallion fell into the chest. It hit the pile of gold inside with a resounding clink, and everyone in the cavern seemed to hold their breath. Barbossa raised his head, arms outstretched to the sky, and stared down at himself. When nothing happened, he growled softly and grabbed Elizabeth's arm. "You! Maid!" he barked. "Your father – was your father William Turner?"_

_"No," Elizabeth answered defiantly._

_Barbossa stared at her, chest heaving, then snarled more loudly and tossed her away. Will winced as she fell to the ground, a mixture of anger and worry roiling through him; then he realized that this was his chance and, his heart pounding against his chest, made his way quietly toward her._

_While the other pirates murmured amongst themselves, shocked and concerned, Barbossa's demand rose above all of them. "Who brought this wench to us?"_

"She said her name was Turner!" one of the pirates said defensively.

_Murmurs akin to this followed, and Elizabeth raised her head with a groan. The bloody medallion clanked down beside her and she almost instinctively grabbed it with her wounded hand._

_A hand suddenly grabbed her wrist, and she jerked her head up, fearing it was one of the pirates; but she relaxed when she saw Will. The smile on her features vanished when he spoke. "Hurry!" he hissed, looking around frantically. She nodded in response and allowed him to help her up._

_"You there!" a pirate snarled, and both of them winced. "I knew I should've gone the other way around," Will murmured, his grip tightening on her wrist._

_"The medallion!" another pirate gasped._

_"After them, you ingrates!" Barbossa roared. Some of the pirates winced, and, not wanting to be subject to their captain's wrath, followed their orders and chased after them. _

* * *

"I had to," Will said defensively at seeing the shocked look on the group's faces. "Jack's no fairy-tale pirate. The real ones aren't to be trusted."

"Yeah," Sora sighed. "Well… I guess we have to head back to the port now."

"Right," Will acquiesced. "We'll be safe there."

"Can you steer the ship, Will?" asked Elizabeth, looking worriedly at him.

He glanced over at her, his eyes briefly flickering down to her wounded hand; then his face darkened. "Yes."

"Don't look now," Char suddenly said, her swords appearing in her hands, "but we've got company."

They all looked over and saw that she was right. A few pirates – obviously from Barbossa's crew, from their skeletal look and empty-looking sneers – were climbing over the rail.

"Oh, no," Sora cried. "Will, Elizabeth, get in the cabin. We'll handle them."

They defeated the pirates by driving them over the ship's edge and back onto the rock face, where the moonlight was brightest. Thankfully, no clouds currently passed over the moon, so the four of them finished off the enemies relatively quickly.

Char leaped back onto the ship when the last pirate had fallen, his body twitching on the ground alongside his crewmates'. "Sora, can you steer this thing?" she yelled at him.

"Uh, sort of…"

"Oh, fine, I'll do it then," she snorted, casting frantic looks over at the pirates in case they got up. She eschewed the stairs and just leaped over the rail, making her blades disappear so she could grip the wheel. "All right, here we go," she grunted, pushing the wheel as far to the left as she could.

"What are you doing?" Will shouted from below. He ran up the stairs and grabbed the wheel. "You don't know how –"

"Yeah, well, I never knew how to hold a single sword, but that's never stopped me," she growled, clearly recalling when the Hydra had bitten her old weapons in half. Despite her words, she let go of the wheel. "Just drive!"

"Of course!" Will cried back, and obeyed. A pirate that was trying to get onto the ship collapsed backward into the water with a roar of defeat.

"So long!" Donald laughed as the shore of the Isla de Muerta grew distant, but he winced as he caught sight of the pirate giving him a rather rude hand gesture. "Well, that's pleasant."

"Whew," Sora sighed, slumping down against the side of the ship. "That was too close."

"They really want that medallion," Goofy said obviously.

"Will said that Barbossa said something about 'freeing them from a curse'. Maybe the medallion has something to do with that?" Char suggested.

"Either way, I'm glad they're gone for now," Sora said.

"Sora!" Will called from above them, and they looked up toward the upper deck. "I've set the _Interceptor_ on a straight course back to Port Royal. I'm going to talk to Elizabeth in the cabin for a bit."

"Oh, yeah, she's still in there, isn't she?" Sora murmured. More loudly, he called back, "All right. We'll just rest for a while."

Will nodded and, jumping down from above so he was near the cabin's entrance, entered the cabin.

As the door closed behind him, Sora sighed. "I wonder… what it'd be like to live like this all the time?" he murmured.

"Like what?" Donald tilted his head to the side, plopping down beside Sora. Goofy joined them on Sora's other side.

Sora shrugged. "Like a pirate. Traveling the high seas… making narrow escapes from danger…"

"Don't we already do that last part too much?" Donald pointed out dryly, and Goofy and Sora laughed.

"But like I said, I wonder what doing this all the time would be like."

"Yeah," Char's voice suddenly sounded. Sora jumped in surprise. "Traveling the high seas, escaping from danger… _booze…"_

"Eh?" Sora blinked at that last part and turned to where her voice had come from. Char brandished a bottle of rum in each hand, a smirk stretched wide across her features. With a burst of slight dread, Sora recognized that face; it was the face she'd gotten when she'd asked if she could drive the Gummi ship to the Olympus Coliseum. Needless to say, he didn't expect a positive result this time around, either.

_"Bon appetit,_ guys," Char laughed, plopping down next to them and opening the bottles.

Sora wrinkled his nose. "Uh, Char? I don't really think that's such a good –"

"We're not out of danger yet," Donald pointed out, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

Char returned the glare. "I know that! It's just that I've never done this before."

"So why pick now?" the mage grumbled.

"It's _because_ we're in such dire danger, moron." Without waiting for a response, Char lifted one bottle and downed most of it in one gulp. Sora watched, his eyebrows gradually arching further and further into his bangs, as she swallowed it. Apparently it was more acrid-tasting than she'd first thought, because a small coughing noise escaped her and she shook her head.

"Oh, yeah… _so_ delicious," Donald snorted.

She gave him a glare that told him to shut up and finished off the bottle.

By the time she had gotten ready for the second bottle, she was actually getting a little cross-eyed. "Damn right it's delicious," she mumbled. "Nothin' like a little alcohol to get you feeling good, right?"

"You've never even had the stuff before," Sora couldn't help but point out.

"Oh, shut up," she ordered, though the edge of her command was slightly deadened by the slur of her voice.

And then she _giggled,_ which, really, shocked him more than her abrupt decision to drink all this rum in the first place. "Y'know, Sora," she hiccuped, "this reminds me of the good ole days, when Braig would sneak some alcohol from Uncle Scrooge's shop – yeah, your uncle, right?" she added at the look on Donald's face. "Yeah, that's what I thought… Anyway, yeah, Braig… he'd, like, sneak in the back when the guy wasn't looking and, like… just pluck 'em… pluck 'em right outta the storage. Pluck! Haha, that's kind of a funny word, isn't it… pluck…" She giggled a little more as she tilted her head back for another long swig. When she lowered the bottle, her body was starting to sway a bit.

As for Char herself, she had a faint semblance of what was going on, but to her alcohol-addled mind, her impulse to take advantages of the rum stores in the barrels around them had been a justified one. How long had it been, anyway, since she'd laughed like this? Too long, in her opinion. Not since the last few months with Riku had the feeling come so strongly – not the buzz of the alcohol fizzing in the back of her mind and throat, but just the pleasure and the _good_ feelings.

Besides, now that she thought about it, "pluck" really _was_ a funny word.

"Anyway, he'd, like, take it back to our rooms and sometimes share it with us… I mean, it wasn't… wasn't like Ienzo and I could have any of it, 'cause we were, like… gods, how old were we, twelve, thirteen, something like that? Oh, what does it matter… age is relative, anyway… So yeah, Xehanort sometimes… he sometimes had a bit of it, and then they'd start walking around weird and talking all funny…"

"Kind of like you're doing now?" Donald queried dryly.

"Yes! Exactly!" Clearly, sarcasm was lost on a drunken Char. "Dude, though, seriously, I don't regret a minute of this."

Sora was getting the feeling that she would before long, a feeling that intensified when she abruptly swaggered forward and sagged into his lap. Goofy and Donald let out cries of shock, while Sora simply stared down at her, eyes wide and face heating. It didn't help that a very, very traitorous part of him was actually _liking_ this.

"You smell good," Char mumbled into his leg.

Now that their initial surprise and bemusement were wearing off, Donald and Goofy produced reactions of their own; Donald was making the weird snorting noises of one who is trying extremely hard not to laugh, while Goofy looked caught between sympathy and confusion.

"Char, I don't think you should have any more of that stuff," Sora stammered, grabbing the half-filled bottle with one hand and moving it out of her reach.

"Hmph!" Char abruptly raised herself up to glare at him, and he leaned back a little at how disarmingly close she was, so close that he could smell the rum on her breath. "Joy-killer." She sat back, cross-legged with her elbows propped against her legs and her fists resting on either cheek.

"You know what, guys?" she suddenly announced. "Take it from me – love is fake. It's all just some stupid fricking hormones designed to make sure we reproduce before we die – I mean, like… Ienzo, he was nice, but it's not, like… it's not very fun. N-not worth it, really… It's just retarded."

"Char," Donald said bluntly, and his next statement was so obvious it nearly made Sora laugh aloud, "you're drunk."

"Pfft, shut up," Char said again.

"Char…" Sora hesitated; his face was still flaming from the incident a minute ago. "I hate to say this, but you should probably go to the cabin for a bit."

"No, I shouldn't," she retorted, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. "You're lying, Sora. You're a liar."

"And that just proves our point," Donald grunted, pushing himself against her legs – presumably, to make her move toward the cabin.

"At least until the alcohol wears off…" Sora's voice trailed off when Goofy suddenly let out a cry and pointed. At the same moment, Elizabeth, who had apparently followed Will onto the deck from the cabin, shouted, "Will, look!"

The man followed her gaze, and Sora, Donald, and Goofy leaped up so they could look over the side. The sight made them all gasp in horror: the _Black Pearl_, cutting an imposing swath in the sea as it approached them.

"What now?" Donald demanded.

"I wonder what Jack would do," Sora commented, folding his arms. He cast a glance at Char. She'd gotten unsteadily to her feet and was now clinging to the rail.

"I suppose he'd run for it," Will sighed.

"Hey, isn't that the… the ship thingy?" she slurred, pointing out at the sea just next to the _Black Pearl's_ shape.

Will raised one eyebrow as he looked from Char to Sora. "Rum?"

Sora let out a noise of defeat. "Rum."

"I think for once, Jack might have the right idea," Elizabeth pointed out.

A sudden impact struck the ship, shaking it to its core and causing them all to stumble and fall. "Are we playing battleship now?" Char asked. "Can I be the one that wins?"

"Will!" Elizabeth suddenly screamed. They all quickly looked over and caught a glimpse of Will before he disappeared beneath the waves.

"Will!" she yelled again, practically throwing her entire body over the edge of the ship with how she was looking over.

"Everyone hit the deck!" Goofy shouted, the instant before another cannonball sliced into the side of the _Interceptor_ and they all fell to the ground again. Sora narrowly avoided falling face-first into the deck floor, catching himself with his hands. He looked around frantically before the telltale flash of gold caught his eye. Quickly he pocketed the medallion and got shakily to his feet. "I guess we're just gonna have to fight!" he said, his voice braver than he felt. He glanced over at Char, wondering how they were expected to make allowances for her – not to mention her absence in battle…

_This is gonna be hard._

Thankfully, though, no pirates emerged from the _Black Pearl_ to strike them down as the two ships connected, the impact rather gentle for the speed at which the larger ship glided into the _Interceptor._ Instead, Barbossa appeared, stepping languidly onto the deck, with a few of his crew following. Behind him stood none other than a bound Jack Sparrow.

"Captain!" Sora cried.

"Let me go!" a feminine voice shouted from behind him. Two pirates were pulling a struggling Elizabeth forward to stand beside Jack.

"Long time no see, eh?" Sparrow grunted.

"Now then," Barbossa purred, stepping forward with one hand outstretched. "I'll be having back that medallion."

"Pfft, you and what army?" Char challenged, getting unsteadily to her feet.

Barbossa's eyebrows lifted high on his forehead when he saw the redhead; then his eyes narrowed and his teeth glinted in an expectant grin, not unlike a caricature of a child waiting for a piece of candy. "So the lass is sweetly intoxicated, is she? That should make my job much easier."

In the moment of tense silence that followed, it was broken by Char's comment of "I think we're screwed."

* * *

Gee, Char, ya think? -sarcasm-

I love Jack's take on the Sora/Char thing. "Young love never lasts"... eheheh.

Anyway, a bit of shameless plugging here - if you're a Pokemon (games) fan, could you please check out my Legendary-lurve-triangle fic, Requiem for the Living? My fellow Legend shippers (who are really very nice people, by the way) seem to like it, but I'd like some more opinions, please. :) I am also considering starting a Kanda/Fem!Allen/Lavi (D.Gray-Man) fic, and maybe a Yuri/older!Rita (Tales of Vesperia) thing as well. (Yes, I like weird pairings. DEAL WITH IT.) If I do either of those, though, that means my .hack fic will probably be put on hold until this and RftL are finished.

Also, due to school (and, due to swimpractice, not getting home from school until 7, hurr), geometry, and pre-AP _Espanol,_ I will only be able to write on weekends. Buuut you already knew that, right? XD


	37. Chapter XXXVII

Me: So, in this chappie, we wrap up Port Royal! I rather like this one, actually, even though Barbossa has a pedo moment (don't worry, I still love him to death XD) and the boss fight was a pain in the ass to write, but at least we get a (small) SoraChar fluff moment, and a few flashbacks related to Falcon and Copperhead!  
Sora: :)  
Me: And today we've got my two favorite characters from the cast of Tales of Vesperia introducing the chapter.  
Yuri: Remind me again why we're here?  
Rita: Hell if I know...  
Me: Because I'm an immense shipper of you two, that's why! :P  
Yuri/Rita: WHAT?!  
Me: At any rate, do your thing, guys. (ominous voice) BEFORE HURRICANE IKE COMES AND WE ALL FUCKING DIE A HORRIBLE WINDBLOWN DEATH!  
Rita: You have _got_ to be kidding me.  
Yuri: Well, whatever, let's just get this over with. Chapter 37, guys. Enjoy.  
Me: 37's a weird number... I must get chapter 38 done ASAP!

**_Disclaimer-_** Like hell I do.

* * *

Sora glared at Barbossa, his fist clenching more tightly around the medallion. "And why should I give this to you?" the young brunette demanded, voice carrying more bravado than he felt.

"There's no particular reason, laddie…" Barbossa gestured toward Jack and Elizabeth. "Unless, of course, it's more important to ye than their lives. Or perhaps, the love of dear drunken lady here…"

"If you hurt Char at all…" Sora glared fiercely at Barbossa.

"Who made any comment about harming her?" Barbossa chuckled, pulling Char forward to stand beside him.

"Sora," Char warbled, her voice a little steadier, "I swear, if you let this guy kidnap me, then I will make sure my spirit haunts you for the rest of your life!"

"Barbossa!" The familiar masculine voice came from nearby, causing them all to look over. Will stood there, brandishing a gun. "Elizabeth goes free," he commanded, determination strengthening his voice.

Barbossa chuckled. "Go ahead, boy – shoot! We can't die," he reminded, waggling a finger on his free hand.

"Maybe you can't…" There was no trace of hesitation in his action as Will brought up the gun so that the barrel pointed to his head. "But I can!" He swallowed, fidgeting a bit, before continuing. "My name is Will Turner! My father was Bootstrap Bill Turner! His blood runs in my veins!"

The response came almost instantaneously, with the force of a slap across the face. Will's words caught even Barbossa off guard, while the undead pirates gasped and exchanged nervous glances. Sora could understand how they felt; Will was probably the only link to any possibility of the chains of the curse loosening from around the pirates.

"On my word, do as I say!" Will leaped down onto the deck from the rail, still keeping the gun pointed toward his head. "Or I'll pull this trigger and be lost to Davy Jones' locker!"

"Name your terms… Mr. Turner," Barbossa growled grudgingly.

"Release Elizabeth," Will said at once. "And Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Char, too!"

"Anything else?" Barbossa queried, giving Sparrow a sidelong glance and a smirk. Jack, still bound with the thick rope, frantically motioned with his head toward Will.

"Leave – now!" Sparrow blinked at Will's words, taken aback by the young man's decision not to free him. He stared down at the ground and shook his head, an action that startled Sora; he wouldn't have expected Jack to just give up hope like that.

Barbossa bowed, bringing his free hand up to his heart. "Agreed. Leave we shall."

"So let Char go," Sora couldn't help but point out, his eyes narrowing.

"Yeah, that might be a good plan," Char gritted out, her voice inching toward a snarl. She realized now that drinking all that liquor truly had been one of her worse ideas, as she found herself unable to focus enough to summon her weapons.

"Leave we shall…" Clearly ignoring their words, Barbossa's smirk widened. "But the Heartless stay!"

The hoarse cackles of Pete seemed to accentuate the Heartless appearing in dark smoke. Sora, Donald, and Goofy looked anxiously at each other.

"No fair!" Sora shouted; but then a bat Heartless swooped over and knocked him off balance with a single swipe of its claws. He fell to the ground, and even though he couldn't see what was going on, he heard Donald and Goofy's grunts of pain as they collapsed alongside him.

"Sora!" Char cried, and whipped her head to glare at Barbossa, a glare that was slightly deadened due to the fact that he still had her right at his side. "You –"

"Take them to the cabin!" Barbossa roared to his pirates, and they came forward with pleased snickers, their true statues becoming visible as they stepped onto the lighted part of the ship. The captain looked at Char and grinned in a way that made her shudder. She heard Sora, Donald and Goofy's cries as they were thrown down the stairs into the cabin alongside Jack and Elizabeth. For some reason, the redhead felt more worried for them than herself.

"All right, you bastard, what exactly are you going to do to them?" she demanded, trying to ignore the pounding in the back of her skull.

"Worried about your friends? How sweet," Barbossa sneered.

"Good work, Barbossa!" Pete laughed from where he stood by the cabin entrance. From the space between his body and the view of the cabin's interior, Char caught sight of Sora glaring fiercely at Maleficent's minion, and a defiant smile began to tug at Char's lips. _That's right, Key-boy. Keep it together._

"Barbossa, you coward!" Elizabeth shouted.

"That's the last time I trust a pirate," Sora muttered, shaking his head.

"The powder kegs are ready, captain!" one of the undead pirates called from outside.

"Powder…?" Jack's eyes widened. "Oh, bugger."

"What?" Donald demanded, practically getting whiplash from the speed at which he turned his head to look at the pirate.

"He's gonna blow us to smithereens!" Goofy moaned.

"I bid ye all farewell," Barbossa cackled, and fading footsteps signaled that he had walked away.

"What are you going to do with Will and Char?" Sora yelled.

"What else?" Elizabeth murmured, her shoulders slumping in a defeated sigh. "He's going to use Will's blood to break the curse… but after that…" Her voice broke at the very thought of the latter. Sora knew why; it was all too obvious that Will's feelings for Elizabeth were mutual. He stared despondently at the ground.

"And Char?" Goofy dared to ask, dread audible in his voice.

"Who knows," Jack sighed. "Probably going to 'teach' her a few things, if you get my meaning."

Sora's eyes grew wide at the thought. As naïve as he could be sometimes, even he understood the hidden meaning of those words. He shook his head, his eyes squeezing tightly shut at that. Strangely, Barbossa's possible intentions nauseated him more than the fact that the undead pirate had kidnapped Char in the first place.

"Let go of me!" Char snarled from outside, struggling furiously in Barbossa's hold. Seeing as how she couldn't use her weapons, she hoped fervently to any gods watching that only tooth and claw would be enough – a hope that, she knew, was futile.

Her feeling of hopelessness intensified when they stepped onto the _Black Pearl_ itself. Char could now understand why Jack felt such animosity toward Barbossa, though the sentimental value was probably also there; the _Black Pearl_ had seemed magnificent, if in an overly pirate-like way, from the outside, but now that she was actually seeing all of it, she knew why Jack missed it so much.

Barbossa simply looked down at her, a mixture of delighted anticipation and annoyance on his unshaven face; then he suddenly glared out at his crew, who had stepped on before their captain and his unwilling prisoner. Nearby, Will stared wide-eyed at her, his arms having been locked behind his back by ropes instead of Barbossa's vice-like grip.

"This one's going to be a problem," the captain snarled, his eyes darting from one pirate to another. "Make sure she won't cause any problems until we reach the isle!"

"Excuse me?" Char twisted in his grip, and he threw her to the ground, as though he hadn't just been pushing her practically up against his chest. The view of the wooden planks blurred before her and she barely caught herself with her hands in time. She glowered over her shoulder at him. "And what exactly is that supposed to –"

But then something heavy landed across the back of her skull, and darkness oozed across her vision briefly before taking over her consciousness entirely.

* * *

"_Everyone," the teacher announces, gently pressing her hand to the small of the girl's slender back to push her forward – and the girl flinches upon seeing the other children's fascinated gazes focused on her – "this is Falcon Gracebreeze, our newest student. She just moved here from…"_

_"I'd really rather not talk about it," the girl – Falcon – mumbles, staring down at the ground and twirling a lock of short dark hair in one fidgety finger._

_This, predictably, induces a curious, none-too-subtle reaction from the class, a reaction consisting of a whispered "ooooooh"._

_"I bet she's from one of those lowdown areas," a boy with dirty blond tresses snickers. He leers at Falcon as best an eight-year-old can, and she recoils instinctively from the condescending look in his strange violet eyes. "See? She knows I'm right."_

_"Nigel!" the teacher reprimands instantly, eyes reproachful from behind the lenses of her glasses. "That is not a very pleasant way to greet a new student!"_

_The boy snorts. "I told you, call me Copperhead. That's a deadly snake, y'know," he adds to Falcon, and the grin that his countenance acquires already sets off his features quite handsomely. Then his eyebrows rise, his smile fading. "Or did you not even know that?" he asks cockily.  
Falcon determinedly avoids his gaze, tears blurring her own eyes. _

_"That's quite enough," the teacher says firmly, and turns a kinder eye to Falcon. "Take a seat, Falcon. There's an empty one near the back of the class."_

_"Yes, ma'am," Falcon murmurs miserably, trudging past all the probing stares and sliding into the chair without taking her eyes off the floor._

* * *

"_Mom," she says upon entering her home and seeing her mother working tenaciously at the stove like always, "can I change schools?"_

_Her mother is a slender, pale woman, with dark hair and emerald eyes not unlike her daughter's, green eyes that are currently focused inquiringly on Falcon. "Oh, Falcon, why would you want to do that? We just got settled in here."_

_Falcon hesitates; her reason sounds pretty stupid when set against that kind of logic. "It's just… there's this boy at school, and he's so mean to me!" she bursts out. "Please, Mom, can we go to some other world or something? Why did we have to pick this one to move to?"_

_"Because Daddy works in the Shadowed Desert now." Her mother always manages to sound both reassuring and reprimanding at the same time. It must be a mom thing, Falcon decides. Her mother smiles – a little tiredly, Falcon notices – and runs two fingers gently through her daughter's hair. "It'll be fine, honey. He's probably only picking on you because he likes you."_

_Falcon blinks. If that's the way boys' brains work, then she wants nothing to do with them. When she voices this thought, however, her mother only laughs in her telltale lilting chuckle. "I'm making grilled cheese tonight," she then tells Falcon. "It's your favorite, I know, but it won't be ready until Daddy gets home."_

_"Okay," Falcon says, a tentative smile appearing on her face._

* * *

"_Psst, Falcon," Copperhead hisses, leaning over conspicuously to talk to her. She glares in his general direction and tries to scoot away, but unfortunately she's already reached the edge of the cafeteria bench. _

_"Did you do that homework we had in algebra last night?" he queries, still speaking in that idiotic stage whisper. Glowering at him, Falcon reflects that if he'd been annoying six years ago, then a fourteen-year-old Copperhead was certainly worse. She curses the creators of their schedules for putting them in both the same lunch and algebra period and decides that someone upstairs must truly despise her. _

_"Because you didn't, I'm guessing," she groans. "Leave me alone, Copperhead. You never do the homework and we both know it," she adds at the innocently startled look on his handsome face. _

_Then she mentally kicks herself. Did she just call Copperhead Sandgale, the most egotistical pervert, the pervert who had personally dated and dumped ninety-nine percent of the girls in the school, _handsome? _She must not have gotten enough sleep last night._

_"But why should I, when _you_ can just give me the homework?" he asks, lazily tapping the tip of her nose with one finger. Disgusted, she jerks her head away and gets to her feet. _

_"Because I won't give you the homework," she retorts, a little lamely._

_He just smirks and stands as well. "I'll keep that in mind," he answers loftily with a wink, and before she can grab his hair and demand what the hell is going on, he's left._

_She stands there, panting slightly with the force of her anger, glaring after him with narrowed eyes. Either Copperhead had just flirted with her, or her tired mind was playing tricks on her._

_Must be the latter._

* * *

Anxclof shook her head, a snarl issuing from her lips as she pushed her hair out of her eyes. She sat up in the bed that Hercules and that goat guy had so kindly secured her and shook her head.

Had Roxas gone through this – all these memories of his Other, playing back through his mind like a film just waiting to be finished?

* * *

_Agh… my head…_

_What the hell happened back there? I had all that alcohol… damn it all, who keeps their rum right out there on the deck, anyway? No self-respecting pirate, I'm sure… Maybe that's why my head's pounding so damn hard – I've got a hangover. Great. Terrific._

_No, wait… There was Barbossa, the pedophilic son of a bitch, and then that guy hit me in the head…_

_Oh, crap…_

Ice-blue eyes gradually became visible from behind previously-closed lids as Char slowly came to herself. The first thing that she noticed – other than the headache, of course, which she knew she couldn't blame entirely on the rum – was the dully-throbbing pain in her wrists, and the feeling that something was digging sharply into them. She summoned up her strength to turn her head in a tangible effort. Her eyes flew wide open at the shackles just visible through the hair that fell down in front of her face. _Double crap…_

Fully awake now, she turned her head toward her other side, but however she looked, it was clear that the pirates had chained her to the wall. _Triple crap…_

"Hey captain, the lass is awake!" a raucous voice shouted from nearby, and the next thing she knew Barbossa was leering into her face. She narrowed her eyes, but said nothing; what _could_ she say in this situation? The pounding in her head intensified.

She now noticed the two pirates that had been guarding her, and a gleam caught her eye and held it. The pile of medallions in the middle of the clearing, the moonlight spilling onto it in a blend of silver and gold, told her that she was probably in the place where Barbossa had taken Elizabeth. Across the cavern, his white clothing barely visible in the shadows, stood Will, his arms only tied behind his back. _Looks like somebody has a little bondage fetish,_ she thought, bringing her eyes back to Barbossa and narrowing them into a glare as she did so.

"Had a nice nap, have we, now?" the captain purred, his voice turning into a tone that pulled another shudder out of Char; but to her relief he didn't touch her.

She inclined her head in mock courtesy. "Why yes, captain, I have."

"Cheeky little brat, are we?" Barbossa asked dryly, leaning back and folding his arms. Char let out the breath she'd been holding, feeling free to breathe now that he wasn't so close to her face. "I'll soon fix that, believe you me."

A snarky reply sprang to her tongue, but she held it back. Perhaps she could glean some more information out of him first.

"So," Char said, looking around the cavern, "is this the place you took Elizabeth? Pretty nice little dump, if you ask me."

"Whether it's a 'dump' or not makes no difference," Barbossa answered, his expression guarded. "The blood must be repaid here."

"And so that's why you needed that medallion?"

"I wonder if your little key-brandishing wretch is going to come for you?" the captain suddenly said. Char tried to hide the way his question startled her, but a little grunt escaped her nonetheless, a fact that drew a smirk out onto his countenance. "Or Mr. Turner's wench…" he added, to a gasp from across the cavern. "If they got out of that ship alive, of course…"

"Sora's alive," Char spat, her temper bubbling up to the surface. "He might be naïve, and stupid, and way too nice for his own good…" She hesitated at remembering the way DiZ had spoken of Sora – in almost the same words she had – but then continued quickly, staring defiantly at Barbossa with her neck craned out to glower properly. "But he's resourceful and strong. He's alive, and he's coming for us, whether you like it or not! And then you're screwed," she hissed.

"Aw, shut her up," Pete groaned from nearby, sauntering up to them with his meaty paws on his hips. He glared at her through dark slits. "Her whining about that brat's getting to me."

Char panted a little with the force of her suppressed rage, but her pants turned into a gasp when Barbossa's rough fingers seized her chin and pushed her head back against the wall. A burst of agony shot through the back of her skull as he did so, and she had to fight the urge to flinch with the force of it. "That may be," he snarled, his breath blasting into her face with every word he spoke. "But we'll just see how quick that Keybearer and Sparrow are."

He turned away, and Char's head hung limply on her shoulders. Her heart was still pounding from her ire, worry joining the anger that was roaring through her entire body when she heard Will's cry from nearby. Clearly, they'd unchained him from the wall so Barbossa could use him for his plans.

"Now," Barbossa growled, "let's be trying this again." Char lifted her head and saw the group standing around the pile of gold. "The last of the Aztec treasure has been returned! And now the blood will be repaid to free us from this curse forever!" He drew the knife across his throat in an invisible line and added, "This time for sure!" His crew let out cheers of excitement as he looked back to Will. He'd just lifted the knife in preparation to cut him much the same way he had to Elizabeth, and Char turned her head away, suddenly unable to watch,

"Ahoy!" a young voice called out, causing Char to look up. The smile that had been threatening to push the hopeless look aside appeared on her face when she spotted the group of four running toward them, with a certain Keybearer at the front. "Treasure, mateys!"

"Sora!" she cried, just as the pirates turned and saw Sora and the others.

Upon hearing his name, the brunette's gaze shifted to her, his own face brightening when he saw her. "Char! You okay?"  
She angled her head a little impatiently. "Do I look like I'm okay?"

"Not possible," Barbossa gaped in shock at them. Char fought the urge to laugh as Donald and Goofy rushed over and began working on the chains that bound her.

"Not probable!" Donald corrected, and lifted his staff to zap the chains with a small blast of lightning, which broke the shackles on one wrist. Char easily undid the chains on her other wrist. The mage continued, "We're alive, and we're pirates!"

"Captain Jack Sparrow!" Sparrow said.

"Sora!"

"Donald Duck!"

"Goofy, too!" The latter two stepped up beside the pirate and Sora.

"What'm I, nothing?" Char snorted, following the others' actions.

"Think you can fight?" Sparrow queried, shooting her a sidelong glance.

"Hm…" Char concentrated, and to her relief and extreme surprise, her blades appeared in her hands. She smirked. "Guess so."

"So you want to play pirate?" Barbossa snarled. "Best save your play-acting for the nursery." He whirled toward his crew. "After them!"

Just as the pirates stepped into the moonlight, their skeletal bodies becoming visible, Sora swept his Keyblade across the line of enemies, and they fell to the ground. "No more playacting now," he commented, grinning.

Char glanced over and found her curiosity piqued at the sight of the anchor-shaped shaft on his Keyblade. "A new one?" she asked.

He gave a single nod in her direction, his relief as to her status becoming clear as he did so.

"Thank you, Sora," Will said gratefully, running over to them.

"Uh, where's Jack?" asked Goofy.

The sound of steel clinking against steel caused them all to look over. Char saw Barbossa clashing swords with Sparrow and shook her head. "Does he really expect to beat him when he's not in the moonlight like that?"

"Jack! Get him!" Sora shouted.

Clearly preoccupied, Jack glanced over. "Huh? Didn't quite catch – ergh!"

Sora and the others gasped, their eyes growing wide as they took in Barbossa's now-bloodstained sword. "Jack!" Sora yelled.

"You're a fool, Jack Sparrow," Barbossa taunted, pulling his blade away. He grinned at the sight of his adversary stumbling back, blood still leaking in a steady dark stream from his stomach wound. Sparrow stepped backward into the moonlight, where, strangely enough, his features turned skeletal. He lifted one hand, gazing in mild fascination at the way the joints bunched together to move his fingers, then lifted the other, where the medallion moved consistently across his fingers.

"Jack…" Will gasped.

Barbossa looked briefly startled, then he barked, "Show yourself, Pete! The tide has changed!"

"See?" Pete laughed smugly, his paws on his hips. "I told you you'd be needin' old Pete!" He whistled, and, as twin orbs of light appeared out of Sora's peripheral vision, Sora looked up. A lizard-like Heartless, its eyes glowing gold, slithered across the wall toward Barbossa's side. It flicked its tongue tauntingly, a gesture somehow set off by the way Barbossa smirked and drew his sword.

_"En garde," _he sneered, and leaped back into the darkness. "Once again, Jack!"

And just like that, the room went black.

"Dammit, where'd he go?" Char spat, swinging her head about. It didn't help that Barbossa was chortling in a way that echoed around the darkened cave.

"Quick, over here!" Goofy called, pointing to the yellow pinpricks of light. "Get that Heartless, and I betcha the room'll light up again!"

"Hey, yeah!" Sora raced toward the twin lights and attacked them furiously with his Keyblade; Jack followed the Keybearer and with their combined efforts, the Heartless fell, writhing, to the floor.

The room became bathed in moonlight again, and Char blinked at the sudden change in lighting. "All right, where is that – dammit!" she suddenly snarled as Barbossa's blade whipped toward her shoulder. Her anger turned to pain when the sword sliced shallowly across her upper arm.

"Come on, now!" Barbossa cackled. "Is this truly the best you can do?"

"Of course not!" Sora yelled, leaping up from the pile of gold and slashing at Barbossa. However, due to them all standing in an area of darkness, the Keyblade only went through him.

Seeing this, Jack danced backward into the moonlit area, where his now-deathly appearance showed. Sora stared at the pirate in shock. "Jack… But if you do that, you'll…"

"I think we've got more important things to worry about," Jack answered loftily. He lifted his blade to block Barbossa's strike. "Now, Zola!"

Sora sighed and yelled, "It's _Sora!",_ but followed Jack's advice nonetheless. Donald managed to freeze the undead captain in his tracks so that he couldn't dart back into the shadows, and Sora, Char, and Jack cut into Barbossa on all sides.

A few moments later, however, Barbossa was freed from the ice, whereupon he promptly lashed out with his sword. With cries of pain, Sora and Char leaped back, bleeding from multiple cuts; but Jack stayed there, his blade continuing to carve arcs into his enemy. "I'll be getting my ship back now!" he finally grunted, in as close to a snarl as any of them had heard him get; and slashed into Barbossa once more.

Char and Sora rushed back into the fray, with Donald and Goofy serving as support on either side. Donald lifted his staff as he looked at Sora, clearly intending to heal the Keybearer, but Sora shook his head frantically. "Char needs it more than I do," he panted, delivering an aerial combination of attacks to their enemy.

"Don't be stupid," Char grunted, dodging another series of attacks from Barbossa. "If you die, we're all dead!"

Sora shook his head again. "If any of my friends died because of me, I'd…" He abruptly cut himself off with a cry, bringing up his Keyblade to block just in time.

Barbossa snarled. "Try a piece of this, then!" he roared, and lunged to the side, toward Char. The others tried attacking him from the rear, but despite how he winced, the captain would not be dissuaded from his attacks; he laid viciously into Char's body with his sword and finished with a slash to the belly. She fell back onto the ground, with Sora looking on in horror.

"Heal!" Donald shouted, and cast Cura; the fairer of her wounds closed up instantly, but the injuries from Barbossa's previous attack mostly remained.

Sora didn't know why, but anger suddenly overtook him, and he charged at Barbossa, crying out as he leaped high into the air. Barbossa turned just in time, but Sora's uncharacteristic rage caught him off guard and so he couldn't block the series of blows that followed. The Keyblade rained attacks down on the pirate's head and as Sora landed, swaying a bit from the force of his strikes, Barbossa stumbled backward. Everyone looked on, hearts pounding, dreading the thought of what he would do next, but the heat of the battle proved to be too much for Barbossa and he collapsed.

"This ain't over!" Pete yelled. "Not by a long shot!" And with that, he raced off into the tunnel that led into the cavern.

"Think we should go after him?" Donald muttered.

Goofy just shook his head in response.

"Right, then," Jack said, as Barbossa unsteadily rose to his feet. "Care to surrender, Barbossa?"

Barbossa simply drew his sword in response, panting heavily and glowering with bared teeth at Sparrow.

Jack sighed. "Well, enough of this, then…" He dropped his sword and drew his gun. "What say you we call it a draw?"  
Barbossa stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and laughed. "Jack, how many times do I have to tell ya –"

But Jack simply threw the medallion in Will's general direction before firing the gun. Sora stared helplessly at Sparrow. "Jack… why…?"  
Cackles rent the air as the gun smoked, cackles that ceased abruptly when Will spoke. "Laugh while you can, Barbossa!" he said, and dropped the medallion. Sora's hope grew when he saw the knife held in one hand, along with the blood staining the medallion. One could have heard a pin drop in the cavern as the gold landed among the other pieces.

Barbossa looked down at himself and saw the blood spreading underneath his clothes. And as the others watched, they could have sworn they saw a glimmer of happiness in his rapidly-dulling eyes.

"I feel… cold," he rasped, and fell.

Immediately, Sora ran over to Char's side and knelt next to her body. "Heal…" he murmured desperately, reaching out a hand and placing it on her side. It glowed green, and the emerald tendrils spread over her remaining wounds, healing most of them instantly. However, the deepest one along her belly and chest still bled shallowly.

Sora stared at her for a long, heart-stopping moment, and was just about ready to give up and walk away and let the tears spill down his cheeks when he heard a ragged gasp come from her. "Char?" he asked hopefully.

She coughed again in response, a bit of blood dribbling down her chin. "Ow… dammit, Key-boy, you think you could get Curaga next time?" she groaned, clutching her stomach.

Sora's eyes were comically wide as he gazed at her. Then an impulse seized him and he reached out, hooking his arms behind her back to pull her close to him.

"Ow!" she yelped almost instantly. "Wound… wound!"

Strangely, though, the instinct to let her go never came to him. He missed the amused glances that Donald and Goofy exchanged, but he did hear Jack comment something about being a glove upon a hand, and that was enough to snap the brunette out of his impulse. Quickly, he released her, certain that he'd felt the heat from her face soaking into his shoulder.

"Shall we head back, then?" Jack asked. The events of the day didn't seem to have affected his demeanor much at all.

Will nodded. "Right."

"Oh," Jack said casually, "did I mention Elizabeth is waiting for us?"

"W-well, then, let's go!" Will had left almost as soon as the words finished issuing from his mouth.

Sora laughed as he followed him out, Char leaning heavily on the Keybearer's shoulder. "He loves her, doesn't he?"

"More than you could ever imagine," Jack sighed.

When they all got outside, Will glanced over at Jack. "So what now, Jack?"

The captain shrugged. "Whatever I want, now that the Pearl is mine again."

In all this, Sora had almost forgotten about Jack's reason for helping them in the first place.

"That she is," Will agreed. "Thank you, Jack." He reached out his hand to the pirate, which oddly caused Sparrow to flinch back.

"I didn't want ye hitting me again, mate…" he explained, a little nervously – but then again, with Sparrow, one could never tell.

"Hey, Jack – good luck," Sora said, smiling encouragingly at him.

"And remember to be good!" Donald reminded.

"I'm off," Jack announced, and turned. However, Will had spotted Elizabeth running toward them far sooner than the pirate had, and promptly swept the young woman up into an embrace. Sparrow rolled his eyes and shook his head before starting toward his ship.

Sora let out a tiny, satisfied sigh as he watched Will and Elizabeth. "Good for them," he said.

"Uh-huh." Goofy nodded.

Char snorted. "Che. They could stand to wait a while."

Sora rolled his eyes at Char's ever-present cynicism, but that feeling softened at the sight of the young couple. He could recall vividly the way he'd always dreamed of holding Kairi like that, and a blush came to his face at the memory.

"Hey, Sora – how come your face is all red?" Goofy suddenly asked, peering closely at the Keybearer.

Sora started. "What? It is not red!"

"Aw, I know who _you're_ thinking about!" Donald teased, and he and Goofy laughed.

Char's amusement came a little more sedately. For some reason, disappointment was currently roiling through her.

Jack suddenly let out a murmur of surprise. The others looked over and saw a beam of light shining from the currently-opened compass. Sora sighed. "Of course…" Gently, he let Char down before summoning his Keyblade and raising it high in the air. The compass followed the path of his Keyblade, and like before, he managed to open the gate to more worlds.

"You know," Char suddenly said, even as Sora propped her back up onto his shoulder, "for a minute there, I thought we would lose Donald to the curse of the treasure."

"Yup, me too," Goofy chuckled.

"What?!" Donald squawked indignantly, and then looked away, grumbling to himself.

Sora glanced over to Jack. "Do you mind if we borrow your ship, Jack?" he asked. "We need to get back to our vessel."

"Anything for a fellow pirate," Sparrow acquiesced.

Char snickered. "He thinks you're a pirate."

Sora sighed. "Oh, come on…"

* * *

Me: Oooh... Char likes Sora, yes she does!  
Char: I DO NOT!  
Me: Not yet, anyway... We're gonna wait until the Pride Lands or so for you to actually admit it to yourself.  
Char: Grar...  
Yuri: You know, it just occurred to me how like Rita you are.  
Char: Hm? How so?  
Rita: Yes, do tell.  
Me: You both have the "tsundere" stereotype down pat...  
Rita: The... _what_ stereotype?  
Me: Well, I'ma wrap this up, since THE WIND IS BLOWING AND WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! (sarcasm)


	38. Chapter XXXVIII

Me: -dies-  
Char: She's just annoyed because even though her house got power back, she has school tomorrow.  
Me: AGH...  
Char: Oh, and the fact that she was repressing herself from adding any Falcon/Copperhead flashbacks in this chapter, because A) it didn't really fit, and B) she doesn't want to exhaust her ideas. And not to mention the fact that she's short on time right now.  
Me: Pretty much. But I _am_ happy that the chapter number isn't freaky 37 anymore! And that I almost have 100 reviews :D

**_Disclaimer-_** No.

* * *

After the entire group, including Jack, Will, and Elizabeth, had been fed – with Sora and Will working in the galley and finally preparing a meager, but filling, sort of stew – the captain of the _Black Pearl_ set them back on their journey back to Port Royal's mainland. As her wound still hampered her movement slightly, little bursts of pain shooting through her belly almost every time she moved, Char took her respective bowl of stew and moved relatively steadily to the cabin, where she could sit down and eat. Much to her own shame, the events of the day had strengthened her appetite, so the stew vanished from the bowl, froth and all, within all of about five minutes.

She could hear Sora talking to the others outside. The obvious happiness in his voice still made her cringe a bit, even though over the course of the past eleven days or so she'd gotten used to him. Only now could she admit without flinching in self-reproach that Sora had grown on her, if not rather grudgingly. Yet, nevertheless – it had happened. She had let him in, and now, it seemed, there was no way to go back to the days in Twilight Town when it had just been her and Riku.

The memory of the way Sora had held her back in the moonlit nook of the cavern still was whirling through Char's mind. For some weird reason, she imagined the areas on her back where his hands had been were still tingling, but she shook _that_ thought away almost before it entered her mind. Char was no hopeless romantic, and she knew she never would be.

Besides, she had to think realistically. Sora had only done that because he was so relieved that Barbossa's attack hadn't killed her. Sora had started this journey for Kairi and Riku, and he was going to finish it for Kairi and Riku. Not for Char, a catalyst that had been unexpectedly added to the mix of these events.

Predictably, that failed to reassure her. She let out a groan of frustration and raked her fingers back through her bangs.

Idly, she began scraping at the bottom of the bowl with her wooden spoon, blinking when a few small flakes of material promptly fell off of the bowl. _Well, _she thought dryly, _this _is_ a pirate ship; I guess it makes sense that some things are pretty crappy._

Gods, this was just another sign of how bored she was. She put her free hand on the side of the chair and got to her feet, fully intending to head out to the deck and watch the waters for a while.

Another memory of her days in Hollow Bastion rushed back to her, and she replayed it back in her mind as she left the cabin, a small grin curving her lips. She came to a stop in front of the rail, near one of the ropes that tethered the sails to the ship, and closed her eyes for a moment, deeply breathing in the salt-encrusted air. The slightest hint of silvery moonlight pierced her lids, and she opened her eyes to see that the clouds had revealed the moon again. It was a beautiful night, she thought.

"Char?"

She turned, almost but not quite surprised into jumping, and saw Sora, standing there beside her. His arms hung loosely at his sides, and a bandage adorned his cheek where, apparently, he'd been wounded. Whether it was from Barbossa or traveling to rescue her and Will, Char couldn't tell.

The redhead inclined her head to him. "Hi, Sora."

He smiled, apparently relieved that she hadn't snapped at him, and she made a mental note to amend the faint fear he still felt toward her. _I was pretty bad back then, _she reflected, thinking back to when they'd first met and he had demanded her purpose.

"Hi," Sora answered, his voice quiet.

Char glanced around. "Where are Donald and Goofy?"

Sora shrugged. "Up by the helm, talking to Jack, Will, and Elizabeth."

That unnerved Char a bit. If everyone else currently stood up in the upper part of the deck, then she was left alone with Sora.

She wasn't sure why that sent such a weird, traitorous, warm feeling tracing fingers down her spine, but it did. _Stop,_ she ordered firmly.

Char hadn't noticed that Sora had made a questioning gesture until she saw him tilt his head to the side. She realized that he wanted her to make room for him beside her, so she dutifully moved a ways to the side, setting down her bowl and spoon as she did so.

For a while, the two of them just stood there, forearms resting on the rail of the ship, letting the salty wind wash over them. The companionable silence was broken when Sora spoke, causing Char to turn her head in his direction.

"What a day, huh?"

"Yeah," Char agreed, looking back out at the currently-calm sea. "Pirates, and curses, and bondage fetishes…"

"Bondage… fetishes…?" Sora blinked, but he seemed to realize her meaning when she rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah," he chuckled. Then his face contorted into a serious expression. "But my question is, what about you? Barbossa cut you up pretty badly."

"I was hoping I could go half an hour without you asking that question." Char let out a huffy sigh. "Sora, I'm fine, I told you. It still hurts occasionally, but I think it'll be better in no time. You and Donald practically jumped on me when Barbossa finished slicing at me."

"All the same, I think we should take the rest of the day to rest," Sora said, his concerned expression not wavering in the slightest. "I already talked about it with Donald and Goofy, and they think it's a good plan. They're hurt too, so it's not like it's just you."

Char was a bit taken aback. "O-okay," she acquiesced, and narrowed her eyes. "But we set off first thing _tomorrow morning, _got it? It wouldn't do to put off your journey for too long."

"Of course," Sora said.

Suddenly feeling the need to fill up the silence with some sort of conversation, Char spoke. "This isn't the first time I've traveled like this."

"Hm?" Sora's eyes were glowing with curiosity as they met hers. "You've been on a ship before?" he asked, sounding a little envious. Char wondered how, with Destiny Island being how it was, he'd never traveled by boat before. Then again, though, it was precisely that kind of isolation that had spurred the start of all this in the first place.

"Yup," Char answered, making sure to pop the final consonant. She smirked at the jealous look on Sora's face and had to fight the urge to laugh at his wide blue eyes and his slightly-open mouth. "Don't worry, Key-boy; you weren't missing anything."

The reminiscence flowed back into her mind with the gentle, pleasant force of a stream. She looked away, struck with the strange desire to cry; Char told herself that that little impulse made no sense at all, and with that she was able to snuff it out.

"Yeah," she repeated, a little more subdued than her last word spoken. "Master sent Ienzo and I out to a world called Atlantica, supposedly to take some notes on the aquatic life of the area. And," she chuckled, "there was a lot of fish, let's just say that."

"We've been there!" Sora said enthusiastically. "Did you see any –" He abruptly broke off and looked down.

"Don't bother, Sora; we already knew about the mermaids and mermen before we got there." Char didn't look over at him, fearing that the waiting tears would be reborn anew at seeing him. She did hear him let out a little "oh" of recognition, and she opened her mouth to continue.

"You mentioned Ienzo when you were…" Sora hesitated.

"Drunk?" Char inquired dryly. She still cringed at the vague, but humiliating, memory of what she had done under the influence of the rum. However, thank the gods, Sora seemed to have forgiven her for the things she had said and done. "You can go ahead and say it, Sora; I know what I did. Ienzo…" The mention of his name sent a weird feeling spiraling through her, a feeling that brought back everything she'd known as Ienzo: his gray hair; his violet-blue eyes; the way he would always gnaw the tip of his thumb when he was thinking hard. She shook it off, knowing that all of his gentle qualities had died with the birth of Zexion.

"He was one of my fellow students," she said at last.

"Was?" Sora queried.

_Damn. _She'd let her tongue slip again. "It's nothing," Char muttered.

She glanced back and saw that Sora's eyebrows were furrowed ever so slightly, his face tight with concern. "Don't worry about it," she grunted, feeling very much like a parrot with her repetition of her previous words.

"Right," Sora murmured after a moment, but there was still a trace of skepticism on his face… almost as though he _wanted_ to worry about it. Char ignored that and continued.

"When Master sent me with him, it was one of my first trips out of Hollow Bastion. But Ienzo was a year older than I was, so he knew exactly what to do."

Listening to her story, Sora could almost imagine Char, raring to go to other worlds – the thought of her being nervous about it was too strange; this was _Char,_ after all – with Ienzo ready to help her. Then a thought struck Sora. "How did you leave Hollow Bastion to go to Atlantica?"

"We had our ways," Char answered, a little too smoothly. Sora felt an irrational burst of annoyance; even though he could call her a friend now without feeling like he was lying, she still was hiding things from him.

But he chose not to dwell on that fact and just kept listening.

"Before we left, everyone was teasing me about how I'd supposedly get 'seasick' or some stupid crap." Char snorted. "Apparently the first time Ienzo had traveled by boat, he'd gotten sick and emptied his lunch over the side. Something told me it wasn't a very pleasant trip." The last sentence was filled with a kind of sardonic acknowledgment.

"And did you?" Sora asked.

"No," Char replied proudly. "I ate before we left, so my stomach was relatively empty when we got on board the ship. The captain was pretty nice about the whole thing, considering that to him, we randomly decided to tag along on his voyage at the last second.

"So we stood there on deck, and the sailors pummeled us about the reason why we were there. Thankfully, I was only eleven, so I didn't have the issue we had with the pirates today. I like to think I was a cute kid, though," she added sarcastically.

"I think you were," Sora laughed, and then blinked at his own audacity. He mentally hit himself on the head repeatedly. _Why did I say that?!  
_Fortunately, Char didn't flare up or bristle. She just narrowed her eyes playfully. "Don't push your luck, Key-boy.

"Finally, we got out to sea. I was rambling about how great it would be if we saw a mermaid, and Ienzo kept telling me to keep dreaming." She shrugged a little self-consciously. "We never did, but it was a nice thought."

Sora couldn't imagine Char doing something like that – being the dreamy one and not the voice of reason. Clearly, she had changed in the five years between then and now.

"But then there was this _massive_ school of fish, and – gods, Sora, it was great. Ienzo and I couldn't even take notes for a bit, we were so awed. The sun was going down, so it was shining along the fish's scales, and…" Char exhaled, as though even the memory playing back in her mind filled her with wonder. "You should've seen it; it was – dare I say it? – it was beautiful."

It occurred to Sora that he had never seen her like this: eyes wide and glowing with awe, her face so absolutely _open_ and a breathless smile covering her features. It was strangely… nice.

"Zola!" Jack's airy voice drifted down to them and they looked up to see the captain gesturing at them. "We've arrived at the port."

While Sora huffed out a sigh and called, "It's Sora!", Char merely nodded before looking back at him. Donald and Goofy were descending the steps and approaching them. "Well, you heard the captain, Sora. Let's go."

"Right," Sora agreed, still looking a bit indignant at Jack's constant memory lapses of Sora's name.

The ship stopped, and Will tethered it to the docks with a rope. "What are you going to do now, Will?" asked Donald, tilting his feathered head to the side.

Will shrugged. "Head back home with Elizabeth, I suppose." Elizabeth approached from his other side, a warm look on her face at being home again.

"Think I'll stay with my ship," Jack said.

"Of course," Char muttered, grinning. "Wouldn't want your dashing presence dazzling the civilians too much."

"Touché, darling." Jack sighed. "Well, after you all leave, I'm off."

Will stepped down onto the pier first, and extended out a hand to help Elizabeth, who followed suit delicately. Sora looked back and figured that he wouldn't have to do the same for Char, as she was now placing one foot on the docks, gritting her teeth visibly.

"Don't your wounds still hurt?" Goofy asked, looking worriedly at her.

"Of course they do," Char answered, her response somewhat muffled by her clenched jaws. "But I can deal with it; I've had much worse."

Donald and Goofy looked doubtfully at her, but said nothing.

"Thanks again, Jack!" Sora called.

"Naturally," the pirate responded.

"So," Char said as the group started back to town, "where to next, Sora?"

Sora put one hand on his chin in thought, his index finger resting against his lower lip. "I guess we'll just check the map to see if any new worlds have popped up," he finally decided, making sure to keep his voice quiet so Will and Elizabeth wouldn't hear. That worry turned out to be groundless, however – the two residents of Port Royal were clearly off in their own world. Char rolled her eyes. If this was what being in love was like, then she wanted nothing to do with it. She couldn't afford to let her guard down, even for a moment.

"You didn't check before we left?" Donald growled, hitting Sora with one feathered hand.

"I didn't see any more new worlds when we left!" Sora protested.

"We won't know till we look," Goofy pointed out, looking bemused at his comrade's belligerent action.

"Yeah," Sora said.

Char wasn't listening anymore; in her mind, she was still reliving that time with Ienzo, on the blessedly-non-pirate ship in Atlantica. Eventually they _had_ taken those notes, but the notebooks allotted to them had remained mostly empty. Naturally, when Even had come to take them back to Hollow Bastion – using a prototype DTD that could transcend the boundaries between worlds – he had chided them endlessly on how they had wasted their time in aesthetic matters of Atlantica. It didn't help that DiZ – Master Ansem, whatever she wanted to call him – had mostly repeated the older apprentice's words, with a bit of a softer edge to his voice. Needless to say, Ienzo and Char had never really been sent back there again.

And now, here she was, five years later, repeating that experience of traveling the sea. So much had changed since then that it made Char's head hurt with the force of it.

Or maybe that was just the fading hangover. She made a mental note to drink all the water she could when they got back to the Gummi ship, to decrease the lingering alcohol in her system.

"We'll leave you here," Will said, smiling at Sora and the others. They stopped in front of the stairwell that led up to the rampart where they had left the Gummi ship; Char looked up and saw the garish colors of the vessel shining out at her through some gaps in the dark stone.

"Thank you," Elizabeth said to them. "I would never have escaped if not for you four."

"I-it was nothing," Sora rebuffed her statement, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Will and Jack helped just as much as we did." Donald looked away, his facial feathers reddening slightly, while Goofy kicked the ground lightly and muttered something like "aw, shucks".

"But you took out those Heartless," Will pointed out. "I owe you a great debt."

"It's fine, really," the Keybearer laughed. "Just be safe. We'll be back."

Will and Elizabeth exchanged a glance before returning their gazes to Sora's group and nodding. It struck Sora then, how completely and utterly at peace they looked.

His fist clenched. Hopefully this journey of his, this journey that had extended out for so long, would be finished as well.

"Come on, guys," he told Donald, Goofy, and Char, and the four of them left Will and Elizabeth there, the two Port Royal residents lightly clasping hands as they watched the others leave.

Char groaned as they entered the Gummi ship; one hand found its way to her forehead and her thumb extended out to massage her temple, the finger pressing down harder when another pang went through her skull.

"What, too much love for you?" Donald asked sardonically, referring to Will and Elizabeth, folding his arms across his chest.

"Of course not, duck boy," Char retorted gruffly. "I just… that damned hangover's still there. And I need a shower, and a nap…"

As she spoke, feeling somewhat bratty at voicing her complaints, Char walked further into the interior of the Gummi ship, not taking her hand off her face. A flash of dark red along her body caught Sora's eye and he stepped forward, fear widening his eyes. "Wait, Char – take off your jacket for a sec."

"Che, why should I do that?" Char shied away from Sora's fingers. Unmoved by her attempts to shake him off, Sora seized her jacket at her shoulders and tugged it away.

A thin, ragged-looking line of ruddy red extended from the bottom of her ribcage down her abdomen, finally stopping right before her hips; the dried blood was visible through the fabric of her white top. As Sora, Donald, and Goofy watched, filled with shock, the line thickened ever so slightly.

"You're still bleeding, aren't you?" Sora asked, one hand already lifted and glowing a soft green.

Char snatched her jacket back from him and held it protectively over the wound. "I'm fine, okay? Some wounds aren't meant to heal from spells; sometimes they just have to close up on their own."

"Don't be stupid," Donald snorted, putting his hands on his hips. "You almost died from that! It only makes sense that we healed you up."

"Oh, would you leave me alone?" Char growled, pushing Sora's hand away.

"Char," Sora suddenly said firmly, and something in his voice made her glance up. His features had tightened with irritation and concern, and his eyes were full of something that made her do a double take.

"Let us help you," the brunette continued, sounding a little less annoyed at her stubbornness and a little more earnest. "You don't have to just let it go away on its own."

She stared at him for a moment, then relented. "Oh, all right," she growled.

Sora smiled, putting his hand against her abdomen. "Heal," he whispered, and the emerald droplets danced briefly over the wound before vanishing.

Char gingerly touched the wound and sighed in relief when she felt no pain. "Thanks," she muttered.

Only then did she realize that his hand was brushing very gently against hers, and she abruptly yanked her arm back.

"Right then," she grunted, averting her eyes and trying to ignore that stupid fluttering feeling in her stomach. "I'm going to go shower." A thought suddenly struck her and she raised one eyebrow. "Did Cid even put a tub in the bathroom?"

"Yeah, he did," Sora told her, refusing to meet her eyes. The thought that he was offended by her previous action flitted briefly through her mind before vanishing. "I think there's a shower head in there, too."

"Gotcha." Without further ado, Char set off toward the door so inconspicuously labeled "bathroom" in blocky-looking handwriting.

As the door closed behind her, Donald looked at the brunette with one eye narrowed more than the other in the illusion of raising one eyebrow. "Sora, I thought you liked Kairi," he commented.

Sora blinked. "I do," he replied, confused. He removed his jacket and plopped down in one of the seats.

"Gawrsh, Sora, it didn't really seem like it a bit ago," Goofy remarked.

"What's that supposed to…"

And then he remembered Char's slightly cold hand resting near his. _Oh. Right._

"That was nothing," he said quickly. "Anybody would be embarrassed if somebody of the opposite gender was nearly holding their hand."

"The way you hugged Char back on the Isla de Muerta didn't seem like relief, either." Donald sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "Sora, I hadn't pegged you for the hormonal type."

"I'm _not!" _the Keybearer protested, his voice arching toward the high notes in his effort to get his point across. "I was relieved, okay? That was why I hugged her."

Though he had to admit, the feeling of that red hair sweeping over his hands had been nice, not unpleasant at all…

_Ack, no, stop thinking like that!_

He quickly glanced back toward the door to see if Char could hear; but the sound of water running reached him and he knew she couldn't hear them. Oddly, he felt relieved at that.

She was his friend, Sora told himself. It was perfectly natural for him to act relieved when she came back from what could have been the brink of death.

He looked away quickly from Donald and Goofy, leaning one elbow against the dashboard and propping his cheek against his upraised palm. He heard the two animals snickering and narrowed his eyes slightly, but he didn't speak.

About twenty or so minutes later, Char emerged from the bathroom, still massaging her wet hair slightly. She had dressed back into her old clothes, but they too looked slightly damp, and the mark that the blood from her wound had made on her white top had all but vanished.

"Hey, guys," she greeted, then blinked at the sight: Sora looking determinedly away from his other allies, while Donald and Goofy wore the expressions similar to a child about to get a piece of candy. "Geez, what happened in here?" she inquired dryly, dropping her hands and sitting in the seat next to Sora's. "Did a duck-and-dog-benefiting hurricane pass through or something?"

The mage and the knight exchanged a slightly bemused glance, and she sighed irritably. "Che, you know what I meant by that. What's got _you_ all pissy?" she asked Sora.

He looked up in her direction and felt a surge of annoyance at seeing her narrowed eyes. "Nothing," he answered, giving a little smile. "I'm gonna go shower too."

He got up and headed for the bathroom, not daring to look back at the others. Char stared after him, then abruptly glared at Donald and Goofy, the two of them cringing visibly at the venom in her eyes even as the bathroom door swung shut.

"All right," she growled, "what did you two say to him?"

"Well…" Goofy began, looking a little guilty; but his friend beat him to it.

"What do you mean?" Donald asked innocently, dark eyes wide. "We didn't say anything."

"Bull," Char said bluntly. "He wouldn't act like that unless something happened. And seeing as how the Gummi ship can't talk, the blame automatically falls to you two." She put out her first two fingers and wiggled them in Donald and Goofy's general direction on the last part of her comment.

Donald hesitated, as though seeing her point, and Char took that moment to pounce again. "So what did you say to him?"  
Quickly Donald and Goofy looked over to the bathroom door, presumably to see if Sora was listening. The water had started running again, though.

"Just tell me," Char sighed, raking her fingers through her wet hair. "He's not even listening; it's not like he can."

"We… kinda…" Goofy fidgeted.

"We kinda said that we thought he…" Donald stopped abruptly and let out an uncomfortable murmur, suddenly finding the ground very interesting.

"Oh for the love of… Look, either you two can tell me, or I'll ask Sora myself later. Which will it be?"  
"We said we thought he had a crush on you!" the mage said hastily.

Char blinked, taken aback by this. Well… _that_ was unexpected. She had thought that they had insulted Kairi and Riku or something. But _this…_

_We thought he had a crush on you._ The words sent an odd tingling feeling running through her body, traitorous thing. As of late, he _had_ been acting strangely, yes, but not… It didn't remind her of the way Ienzo had behaved toward her, she decided.

"You know he loves all his friends," she finally said. "It's probably just the fact that we're friends that motivates him."

"I think you're right," Goofy said, glancing a little nervously over at Donald.

The duck looked skeptical for a moment, but when Char gave him a threatening glare, Donald grumbled to himself. "You've got a point," he muttered.

No wonder they had jumped at the chance to tell her when she gave them the ultimatum of that or making Sora tell her. The thought of the latter was too awkward to even consider.

She looked away, to the seat where Sora had been sitting. And no wonder he had seemed so put out about the whole situation; Char knew as well as anyone else that his heart lay with Kairi, and Riku, and the home he had lost. The thoughts she had had earlier came rushing back to her; she had no right to disrupt his moral compass, not now, when they were so close to the Organization.

Which, of course, reminded her of the real reason why she had accompanied him: to guide him on her path to revenge, and no more. Char felt a little prick of guilt; she hadn't exactly been living up to that purpose lately. She wanted to see Riku so badly, if only briefly; wanted to see that flash of silver hair and the joking arrogance in his turquoise eyes, if only in a glance – but it was hardly likely that Riku would be lurking around the worlds. He was probably sitting with DiZ, bored out of his mind, with her old master's constant droning on and on about darkness and hearts and all that. Char chuckled to herself at the thought.

Besides… A twinge of bitter knowledge caused her stomach to clench.

She hadn't seen that silver hair and turquoise eyes since Riku had allowed Xehanort's Heartless to take over his appearance.

"Char?" Goofy waved a hand in front of her face, causing her to stir and glance at the knight. "You okay?" Goofy asked.

"Yeah," she answered, folding her arms. "Just thinking."

"Didn't know _you_ could do that," Donald remarked dryly. Char's first reaction was to insult him back, but then it occurred to her that maybe he was just trying to get the normal atmosphere back.

"Whatever, duck boy," she grunted.

The rest of the day passed relatively quickly, with Sora returning from the bathroom a few minutes after the conversation. After a while of debating what to do for the rest of the day, the four of them decided that Sora, Donald, and Goofy would go out to the town for supplies while Char rested at the Gummi ship. Naturally, the redhead vehemently protested this arrangement, but eventually relented when Sora said something similar to his previous comment about "letting them help her". In the end, the Keybearer set out with his two long-time comrades.

Surprisingly, the market around Port Royal was rather active. Sora knew he should have suspected that, since the sun was a ways above the horizon in a way that glittered almost blindingly off the gentle waves of the sea beyond. Yet he still felt a bit overwhelmed at seeing all the people swarming the market, haggling and selling their wares. Clearly, Donald and Goofy felt the same way, both pairs of dark eyes wide with surprise and excitement.

The three of them eventually spotted a general food area and made a beeline over to it, trying not to elbow their way past too many patrons as they did so. The person manning that part of the market reminded Sora strongly of Jack Sparrow, as this man's hair was also bound in dreadlocks. The brunette wondered how and what the captain was doing right now. _Probably sailing around with that compass open,_ he answered himself, laughing quietly. He voiced this thought to Donald and Goofy, and not surprisingly, they had the same opinion.

It was late in the afternoon by the time the three of them returned, loaded down considerably by the amount of groceries they had purchased. Sora shuddered a little at remembering how the man had nearly forced Sora to give up his Keychains in exchange for all that food. Fortunately – and a little predictably – Donald had somehow filched a couple of medallions from the gold pile back on the Isla de Muerta, so that more than served as enough. Sora and Goofy still weren't sure whether to scold Donald or thank him. The duck was obviously aware of that; he still was, if the lingering smugness on his feathered face indicated it at all.

"Hey, Char!" Sora called as he ascended the ramp that the hatch provided and entered the main section of the Gummi ship. He set the bags down as gently as he could on the floor, sighing in relief at being freed of the burden; his arm muscles seemed to sigh with him. "We've got some food for later."

The situation reminded him far too much of the days back in Destiny Island, when his mother would open the door and make much the same remark as he just had. Knowing this, Sora carefully skirted around the words _we're home._

He bit back a sigh. Gods only knew when he'd be home again.

There was no response, and Donald and Goofy turned their gazes to him curiously. "Think she's sleepin'?" Goofy asked.

"Probably," Sora answered. "Well, let's just go store all this."

As they were putting up the last of the food, practically stuffing it into the portable refrigerator in the kitchen-like room, Char entered from her own designated dormitory. She certainly didn't look groggy at all, but she was stretching her arms high above her head and letting out a half-stifled yawn as she entered.

"Think you guys could _try_ and be a little quieter?" she inquired, lowering her arms and walking closer. Her eyes widened. "Damn, how much food did you guys get?"

"A lot," Goofy said, giving her a dog grin. "Didja sleep well?"

"Mostly," she replied, blinking her eyes to get all the sleep out of them. "How'd you pay for all of that?"

"Donald stole a couple of medallions." Sora shrugged, as though the matter was nothing.

"Hey!" Donald squawked. "If it weren't for my supposed 'greediness', we'd be starving right now!"

"Calm down," Sora laughed. "We appreciate it, Donald. I was just kidding."

"Typical duck boy," Char chuckled, shaking her head.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?!"

"Oh, nothing…"

In reality, Char had dreamed, and that, not the sound of the others returning, had roused her. In the dream, she and Riku had stood on the clock tower in Twilight Town; she reflected on how happy she was that he hadn't accused her of abandoning her this time.

Though he was clad in the black Organization coat she had always known, he had let the hood down so that the wind toyed playfully with his long silvery hair. He had looked at her with green eyes that glowed in the late afternoon sun, a sun not unlike the one that currently shone down upon Port Royal, green eyes that held almost the same warming effect as the sun.

And he had looked at her and said, _"Char, have you ever been up here before?"_

She had shaken her head. _"An – DiZ never took us here before. As you know, he didn't create the virtual version of Twilight Town until a while ago; but the seven of us never actually saw this place. Unless you count books, of course."_

_"Up until a while back, I'd never been here either." _Riku sighed. _"Good thing DiZ let us walk around town."_

_"Yeah," _she laughed. _"I was starting to go a little crazy, staying cooped up in that mansion all the time."_

Then she had awoken, right when Sora and the others had walked into the Gummi ship.

The four of them ravenously dug into some macaroni and cheese that, miraculously, Goofy had managed to cook without _too_ much interference from Donald. They had found the box of pasta and cheese in one of the drawers, some more food that Cid had probably supplied them with. The sun slowly began to dip below the horizon as the four of them ate.

During the entire meal, Char had had a contemplative look on her face, staring out at a fixed point in the window of the Gummi ship. Now, however, she took a final, decisive-looking sip of her water and stood up. "Sora," she addressed him, crooking her index finger in a gesture that told him to follow her.

"But I'm not done yet," he protested around a mouthful of noodles.

Char's eyes narrowed at his words and she suddenly pointed to his face. "Chew," she ordered. Sora promptly obeyed, his jaw moving in a way that set off the bemusement and light indignation that had taken residence on his face.

He swallowed and stood. The brunette gave Donald and Goofy a glance. "Could you guys put the dishes up?" he asked, a little apologetically.

Goofy gave a nod that made his ears swing, while Donald grumbled a "whatever." Without waiting for a response, Char immediately turned on her heel and headed briskly toward the second largest room – the room that had been in the Gummi ship before Cid's quick renovations. The room where Char and Sora had done some sword training a while back.

The thought of another training session sent mixed feelings of dread and excitement roiling though him. Since his sword skills had improved since that last time they had trained together – what felt like so long ago – he anticipated a slightly longer session.

Char closed the door to the room behind them, and the two of them took the time to survey the room. Cid had made almost no changes to this room; it was as empty and cold-looking as it had been the first day Yen Sid had given the ship to them.

"All right," Char said, taking a deep breath. "You probably know what's coming next, but I'll refresh your memory anyway. We're going to have another training session."

"Yeah," Sora confirmed. He summoned the Hero's Crest in a flash of light and got into his battle stance. "So, what are we going to do today?"

"Slow down there, sparky." Char sighed. "You might want to go out there and warn Goofy that you're going to be using Valor Form for a bit."

"What?" When she rolled her eyes and put her hands impatiently on her hips, her words seemed to sink in. "Oh, right!" Sora chirped, and opened the door slightly ajar. "Uh, Goofy? I'm gonna use Valor Form for some training, okay?" he called, a little awkward knowing that Char was watching carefully behind him.

"Sure, a-hyuck," the dog called back.

Sora turned back to Char and let the door ease shut again. "Uh, so… are we going to practice dual wielding?"

"The boy learns fast," Char remarked sardonically, and chuckled when the pout appeared on his face. "So, go ahead and do… whatever it is you do."

Sora nodded once and concentrated; after a few moments of reaching deep inside himself for the power he needed, he finally got ahold of it, and he rose up into the air as a flash of light temporarily obscured his vision. When it faded and his body touched gently down, Sora tentatively cast a glance down at himself. The sight of the scarlet garb and the lavender Star Seeker in his normally-free hand made him sigh in relief. _It worked._

"Okay," the girl abruptly said, pacing around him. "You're obviously… not used to twin Keyblades yet." For some reason she hesitated, and a brief shadow crossed her eyes, as though she didn't believe her own words.

"Heh, yeah, kinda," Sora admitted.

Char rolled her eyes, but continued. "So, I thought I would give you a few tips." Her own, triple-bladed swords appeared in her hands, and her fingers clenched around them as the flashes of light heralding the swords' appearances faded. "There are a few things you need to remember when you're using two swords instead of one. The first obviously being that you need to make more allowances when you're attacking. It requires more concentration, and remembering that you have more than one way to guard against enemy attacks. It's part of a little thing I like to call the three C's."

Sora was surprised despite himself; he hadn't expected her to use such a method to remember it. "The three C's?"  
"Concentration, control, and conniving," Char explained.

"What's the 'conniving' for?"

Char folded her arms across her chest, being extremely careful not to cut her body with her swords, and smirked. "Because when the enemy's blocking one of your blades, you can lay into them with the other."

That seemed a little… well, _conniving,_ for lack of a better word. But Sora told himself she knew better than he did, and waited for her to continue.

"But I guess the only way for you to really get it is some hands-on demonstration." Char swung her blades out to the side; it reminded him strongly of the previous session, only the swords she held now were shorter and had two other blades extending out to the side of the main blade.

And she actually cared for him as a friend; he couldn't forget that little detail.

"I think you know the drill," Char commented, and charged forward.

Instinctively, Sora brought up one Keyblade to block her attack; when she spun and made as if to drive the unoccupied blade into his belly, he hastily guarded with the other Keyblade.

"Oh, come on, Key-boy," Char grunted. "Don't be so predictable. Get off the defensive and attack!"

She pulled back, only to crouch slightly and dart to the side. Sora whirled to follow her path, tracked her carefully with his eyes, and jabbed forward with the Star Seeker. She lashed out with one of her own swords, aiming not for his body, but for the Keyblade itself. Startled, Sora yanked the lavender Keyblade back. Remembering her strategy, he whirled before returning to face her and lunged forward with the Hero's Crest. Caught off-guard, she stumbled back, and he took that moment to charge at her. She barely blocked all of his attacks, and only when her back hit the wall did they both realize what had happened. Sora panted slightly, his body flaming with exertion, the Hero's Crest dangerously close to her neck. Char stared at him, their eyes meeting in a mutual understanding; and Sora grinned, knowing that he had won.

"Not bad, Sora," the redhead conceded after a moment of breathless silence. Her swords vanished, and one hand flew to her stomach. "But now my wound hurts."

Sora blinked, his previous triumph replaced by concern. "I'm sor –" he began.

She waved her free hand at him for silence. "Don't be sorry; it was my own fault for exerting myself so much in the first place. I just need a good night's sleep and I'll be fine."

"Okay," Sora reluctantly agreed, and instantly reached out with his hands when she straightened shakily. "Can you get to your room by yourself?"

"Of course," she answered, but the tightness in her face belied her words. She started slowly toward the exit of the room.

As the door closed behind her, Sora felt something leave his body, and just like that, he was back to normal: darkly-attired and only holding the Hero's Crest. Goofy materialized beside him.

"Gawrsh, Sora, you're sure getting good with that form!" the dog chirped.

Sora smiled at his ally. "Thanks." He made his Keyblade disappear and yawned. "I'm tired. Let's get to bed."

For the night had already descended upon them, as had the exhausting events of the day. After saying good night to Donald and Goofy, who shared the room directly across from his, Sora went to his own room. Stripping down to his pajamas, the Keybearer slid into bed without pulling back the covers and was asleep in minutes.

* * *

Rushed ending is rushed. Again, I'm short on time. I, like, JUST finished this.

I hope the way they got to Atlantica from HB seems possible. I think they would go to other worlds for research and stuff, not just look it up in books; and for that, they must need SOME way of travel.

One more thing: I have a gift for you guys:

**_Ask the main characters any question you want._**

I'm serious. Ask Char, Anxclof, even any of the canon characters anything about anything in TSA, and they (I) will answer to the best of their (my) ability in a review response. (If you're reviewing anonymously, make sure you leave an email address to reply back to.)

Ask away.


	39. Chapter XXXIX

Me: Gah, sorry for taking so long. School and swimming and geometry and... yeah...  
Char: Excuses, excuses.  
Me: Shut up. At any rate, even though this took ages, it's one of my shorter chapters. For me, that really isn't saying much, but still. It could also be because _Aladdin_ is the one Disney movie in KH2 that I HAVEN'T seen, so I probably don't have Aladdin/Jasmine/etc's characterizations exactly right. And the SoraChar fluff I have in mind later probably won't fit...  
Char: Ugh.  
Me: Yeah, let's just say it involves dancing and Char in a dress. -wink- Enjoy the chapter!

**_Disclaimer- _**I only own Char, Anxclof, Falcon, Copperhead, the Shadowed Desert, and anything else of my own design.

* * *

"_How was school today?" Falcon's father queries._

_Falcon cringes despite herself. She knows that her father's question is innocent, yet she can't help but feel a little backed into a corner. The girl sighs, plopping down in an empty chair at the table. "Horrible. I hate algebra."_

_"Some people are just good at different kinds of math," her mother suggests, putting one hand on Falcon's shoulder. "You'll get your grades up."_

_Falcon looks up at her parents. Her father's dark blue eyes are sincere and her mother just gives a reassuring smile. Well, Falcon thinks, it could be much worse – one girl actually burst out into tears today because apparently her average was just below par with her parents' standards._

_That's not the only reason Falcon's just a bit more irritable than usual, though. The way Copperhead treated her at lunch today won't get out of her mind. _

_And why can't she stop imagining that her nose is tingling where he tapped it?_

He's just messing with me,_ she tells herself, and that is that._

* * *

_Falcon is fourteen when the strange dreams start coming. After one particularly exhausting day – complete with Copperhead pissing her off by parading over to her with his little fan-mob, of all things – she collapses into bed without even bothering to turn back the sheets._

_And normally her dreams aren't so vivid, so that's how she _knows_ that something's wrong. Dreams should not give her such sensitivity to the icy wind blowing; should not let her feel the stained glass platform under her feet like she's standing there in real life. _

_The first time she has the dreams, a strange blade appears in her hand. A "Keyblade", her mind tells her. Now how does she know that?_

_Mythology, she recalls. This year her class had been studying the wars of old. Falcon loves history; it's the only thing that makes school bearable, since her shyness keeps her from making easy friends and Copperhead is all but a golden-haired shadow. She recalls the name "Keyblade" from the discussions of the wars by that very name: warriors who took out creatures of darkness with those strange, fearful weapons._

_So, now she has one. Very strange, for why would she of all people be chosen to wield such a sacred power?_

_Naturally, she keeps it a secret. She doesn't think her parents would believe her, and it's not like anyone else would care anyway. _

_Nonetheless, it still scares the hell out of her when she comes home from school one day to find the Keychain in her bag, an icy-blue, flame-shaped charm dangling from the chain. And a little feeling of anxiety – and the sense that the path before her is wreathed with shadows, and the unwelcome, weighty feeling of a burden being dumped upon her shoulders – shudders through her when she manages to summon the Keyblade for the first time. The "Azure Ice" Keyblade, her mind tells her. _

_And she has no way to explain how she knows _that_ little fact._

* * *

_Fortunately, it's not as though she needs the Keyblade. She never lets her guard down, not even for a minute, keeping the Azure Ice's Keychain in her school bag at all times just in case a Heartless or Chaser pops up out of nowhere._

_Somewhere in the back of her mind, though, is the nagging premonition of trouble ahead. So, she trains herself with it: goes to the back of the school courtyard at lunch, where the surroundings are wreathed in the shadows cast by surrounding trees and she can practice. _

_No one spots her heading to the shaded area, because Falcon has always managed to stay on the edge of the school's gossip radar, much to her own chagrin. However, she welcomes the chance for privacy now._

_Her heart is thrumming a little staccato pattern in her ears as she stops in her tracks and sets down her bag: gingerly, as though someone will spot her here. She knows she doesn't want to get caught, but she doesn't know why._

_She reaches into her pocket and tentatively withdraws the Keychain, fingering the charm attached to the chain. Once her father showed her his collection of guitar picks, because he's been everywhere, even to the worlds normally divided, and he had allowed her to touch all of them. The charm feels about as smooth and thin as one of those guitar picks, and she takes comfort in the mental comparison._

_Falcon shakes that thought out of her mind, replacing it with the uncomfortable feeling of keeping a secret and a tiny spark of determination. She's learned that in order to concentrate enough to bring forth the Keyblade, one has to wipe one's mind of all emotions except the determination to summon it._

_Yet the feeling of slight guilt won't go away. She growls to herself when the Azure Ice fails to materialize in her hand and concentrates just a little harder, narrowing her eyes and furrowing her brow in her effort. This time, she manages to push away the thought of the secret she's keeping in order to summon the Azure Ice. _

_Falcon stares at the iridescent Keyblade, panting slightly in the aftermath of her efforts. A distorted vision of the ground is visible through the icy-colored blade. The hilt feels so _right_ in her grip, like she's been wielding this kind of sword her entire life instead of just a few weeks._

_"Falcon?"_

Damn!_ Falcon jolts in shock and whirls to face the speaker; though she recognizes him even before she sees him, and her heart sinks at the thought. The long, dirty blond hair greeting her, stark against the dark green trees, doesn't help. He's wearing his hair in a ponytail today, and the stray locks that find their way out of the hair tie sway in the wind as violet eyes watch her._

_Because who else would find her here, other than Copperhead?_

Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap…_ Falcon quickly orders the Keyblade to vanish in a mentally-barked command, and thank the gods, it heeds her, and returns to its chain-and-charm form in a flash of light. It's too late, though; Copperhead's seen the Keyblade. She meets his eyes defiantly, and for some reason, she nearly flinches away at the shock clear in his liquid gaze._

_"The bell rang, and I didn't see you, so I thought… Falcon…" Copperhead's eyes are comically wide as he reaches out one hand, wearing a look much akin to a dumbstruck animal._

_Falcon suddenly seems to come to herself and twists away from his touch. "Go away," she snarls pathetically._

_Copperhead pulls back and sighs, folding his arms. He brings up one hand to brush his bangs out of his eyes. "Kind of hard to do that. We have the next class together, you know."_

_"How could I forget?" Falcon mutters, tearing her eyes away. She hears a little exhalation of breath from him, and she brings her head up to stare at him again. He's smiling, shaking his head with his eyes closed, and she realizes that he's just chuckled at her._

_"I'm not gonna tell," he assures her, opening his eyes so he can stare right at her. The grin widens as he looks at her; she doesn't even want to think about how idiotic her expression must seem right now. So, she sighs in relief. He looks surprised for a brief moment – had probably expected her to snap back at him – but then the arrogant mask is back in place._

_"Now let's get back to class." He winks. "I'm ditching my fan-girls because of you, y'know."_

_Falcon snorts, but she follows him out of the small copse anyway. It occurs to her that Copperhead has trapped her; they've got a secret now, and neither of them can take that back._

Dammit.

_When she voices this thought, however, Copperhead just laughs, even as they enter the school building. He doesn't reply._

* * *

"So," Char began after swallowing her last bite of pancake, "where to next?"

Donald shrugged. "The only world that popped up on the map looked a lot like Agrabah."

"So we thought we'd head there," Goofy quipped.

Sora gave a nod, speaking around a mouthful of food. "Yeah, we can go check in on Aladdin and Jasmine."

_Oh yeah, those guys…_ If Char remembered her days watching Sora's memories properly, Agrabah was the world where Jafar had attempted to transform himself into a powerful genie, only to be stopped by Sora and the rest of the group.

Not for the first time, she was struck by how much Sora had been through since all this had started – not just Sora, but Riku and Kairi and even Donald and Goofy, who, as the mage and knight of Disney Castle, had to be used to this kind of danger. Yet, through it all, Sora had grown.

"You're going to like Aladdin and Jasmine, Char," Sora was saying, sapphire eyes setting off his grin as he looked at the redhead. "Jasmine's a princess, but Aladdin still loves her as if she were in his class." Sora sighed in a playful way and shook his head. "In fact, I'd be surprised if he hasn't taken her on at least one magic carpet ride by now…"

"Yeah, I've read about Agrabah," Char answered, trying to keep her voice level and to not sound too startled after Sora had just knocked her out of her reverie. "It shows up a lot in the books." And she was being honest – Agrabah held a prominent spot not only as the location of the Keyblade War's turning point, but it was also the center of many mysteries that seemed to wreath around the world like mist.

Donald finished his fourth pancake – _the guy's a bottomless pit and he still doesn't get any bigger,_ Char thought wryly – and rose to his feet. "We should get going," he said.

"Right," Sora agreed, and Goofy gave a nod of acquiescence.

Char realized that they were all waiting for her consent, and she quickly nodded herself. As the duck left the room with the door still ajar, she reflected on how just a couple of weeks ago, she had been anticipating that the trio would never truly warm up to her. But still, that had changed, hadn't it? Goofy treated her as loyally as he would treat Sora and Donald; Donald had formed at least a grudging respect for her; and Sora?

She still wasn't absolutely sure what Sora thought of her, and for some reason, her heart beat faster considering it. But she knew he considered her a friend; that much was certain.

At least, she thought with a kind of sardonic acceptance, the feeling was mutual.

* * *

"Agrabah! We made it!" Donald spoke while stepping down off of the Gummi ship's ramp.

"Gawrsh, I wonder how Aladdin and Jasmine are doing?" Goofy wondered aloud.

Char shrugged. "Probably fine, considering how you guys sealed off this world to Heartless and all."

"I don't know…" Sora murmured. He took his place at the front of the group and turned his head slightly so he could address the entire group. "We thought the Coliseum was safe, and then it wasn't, remember?"

"But we sealed Jafar away," Donald pointed out. Then he seemed to realize something and growled under his breath. "Don't tell me somebody set him free…"

"That'd be… kind of a problem, yeah," Sora laughed, a little nervously. The thought of Jafar's genie form being resurrected struck a chord of anxiety deep within him.

The four of them walked a ways longer, and then, abruptly, they found themselves in a marketplace of winding corridors and towering buildings. "Wow," Char couldn't help saying, staring around in awe. "The pictures in the books never showed this place as this big…"

Her voice trailed off when a flicker of movement caught her eye, and she whirled toward it. A blur of scarlet greeted her, scarlet that, she was sure, wasn't just her hair.

"What is it?" Goofy, who was walking on that side of her, asked, looking and sounding worried.

"Think we've got company," Char muttered, poised to summon her blades if she had to.

The crimson shape appeared in her peripheral vision again, and she pointed. "There it is!"

"Wait, wait, wait!" the shape squawked, even as Sora and Donald whirled around to see what it was. "Hold on a sec!" it protested, coming out into the dim light of the marketplace. Surprisingly, it took the form of a small crimson-feathered bird with azure-tipped wing and tail feathers, a bird that was currently flapping its wings frantically to both stay in the air and make its point.

"Uh-oh, it's… uh… um…" Goofy hesitated, trying to place the name of the bird, his eyes following the bird as it swooped in panicked loops around the knight's head.

"It's Iago!" Goofy suddenly blurted. Sora and Donald let out cries of shock and instantly drew their weapons.

"Who's this guy?" Char muttered.

"He was with Jafar," Sora answered through clenched teeth. "That's who was controlling the Heartless in this world."

"Wait, you got me all wrong!" Iago cried.

"You're Iago, all right!" Donald snarled, already positioned to cast Fira.

"No, I mean it's not the old me! I turned over a new feather! I'm legit. No scams, I promise!"

"Bet _that's_ your new scam," Sora pointed out sarcastically, folding his arms.

"Ya gotta believe me!" Iago flew closer to them, turning his head frantically from one to the other. His eyes finally landed on Char and he approached her with a desperate look on his face. "You weren't with them last time, right? You gotta know I'm tellin' the truth here!"

One eyebrow rose over an ice-blue eye. "Yeah, sure. Problem is, I trust them more than you."

"Sora, let's go," Donald said haughtily.

"I was stuck inside that lamp with Jafar, remember?" Iago asked in one last attempt to gain their trust. "Well, I finally escaped. But then some things happened and…" He sighed, shaking his head as he lighted down on the broken stairwell nearby.

"So, free as a bird, huh?" asked Sora, rolling his eyes.

"Have fun!" Donald snorted.

"Gawrsh, guys, I dunno… he looks pretty sad," Goofy pointed out, casting a sympathetic gaze at Iago.

"Tch, sure. And the Organization is actually going to save us all in the end." A snort of skepticism tore itself from Char's lips.

But Iago was already talking to them again. "I wanna apologize to Aladdin and Jasmine!" the bird confessed, landing in Goofy's hands. "Could you guys maybe put in a good word for me?"

"Sure!" Goofy said, a little loudly. He gave Sora, Donald, and Char a hard look. "We can do that, can't we?"

"Watch out!" Iago suddenly screeched, pointing behind them and lifting off. The four of them turned and saw a group of dual-scimitar-wielding Heartless with scarves over their dark faces, much in the manner of a desert bandit.

"Geez, these Heartless have no creativity whatsoever," Char grumbled, summoning her swords.

"At least there aren't any Nobodies with them," Sora remarked, already charging into combat.

The four of them fought the Heartless back fairly easily, with Donald casting frantically and healing when necessary while the others attacked the enemies, but it seemed like with every Heartless they sent to Kingdom Hearts, another one appeared. It finally ended up with the four of them standing back to back, slumped a little with exhaustion, with Heartless surrounding them on all sides.

"Where are they all coming from?" Sora panted.

Iago had landed on the staircase, watching with wide dark eyes, but when a couple of the Heartless started moving toward him, he screeched and darted out of the way. The two bandit-like Heartless bumped heads and were lying on the ground, dizzy. Iago backed up in midair and soared past the group, continuous cries of panic rending the air as boxes and crates collapsed from the wind he created while flying past. The boxes landed on the Heartless' heads, upsetting their internal balance even more, and Sora spotted an opening.

"This way!" he shouted, and ran after Iago. Donald and Char let out irritated grunts, and the brunette stopped in his tracks to stare incredulously at them. "We can't win this," he insisted. "Now let's go!"

Donald grumbled to himself and started after Iago at an awkward-looking run, but Char remained staring at the Heartless a moment longer before following suit.

The group followed Iago into a room closed off from the rest of the marketplace by a multicolored curtain, and they stopped to catch their breath inside as Iago landed on a ledge. Sora glanced around and saw that a lot of merchandise was scattered haphazardly about the room, and that a pale blue, ragged, rug-like curtain was on the wall.

"Gawrsh, we would've been goners if Iago hadn't helped us," Goofy said gratefully. "Ain't that right, guys?"

"I _guess_ so," Donald muttered.

"I guess we owe you one," Sora said, a slight grudging undertone audible in his words.

"Perfect!" Iago cheered, lifting off of the ledge in pure joy.

Char felt a smirk tug at her lips, but kept it back. "But you're gonna have to win over Aladdin and Jasmine yourself," she said. "So don't screw up, got it?"

"Yeah, I got it." Iago sounded a bit dismissive, but the grin didn't leave his countenance. Char rolled her eyes.

"Where _is_ Aladdin, anyway?" Goofy queried.

Iago thought for a few moments, enough to make the group a bit impatient. "Betcha he's at the palace," the bird confirmed at last.

Sora turned to the others. "Then let's go!" Donald and Goofy nodded.

"One problem," Char said. "What'll we do about the Heartless?"

Sora hesitated. "Oh yeah… we'll just have to run from them, I guess."

"But you're the Keybearer!" Iago said disbelievingly, looking in shock at Sora. "Can'tcha kill those guys with just a swing of that big old key of yours?"

A stream of guilt actually ran through Sora at the way he was about to let Iago down. _He was our enemy once,_ the Keybearer reminded himself. He shrugged, avoiding the bird's curious gaze. "Sometimes it's not that easy," Sora murmured.

"Besides, didn't you see the way they kept popping up like that?" Donald pointed out. "I'm not dealing with that!"

"Yeah," Char agreed, after a moment of switching her glower indecisively from Sora to Donald and back again. Sora knew she wasn't happy about their plan at all, but he figured she was just going to have to put up with it.

"You stay here," Sora told Iago, and when the bird opened his beak to protest, the Keybearer shook his head firmly. "Don't worry, we'll put in a good word for you when we find Aladdin and Jasmine."

"Oh, okay," Iago finally grumbled, looking away. "Guess I'll wait here till you get back."

"Right." Char sighed as she followed the others back outside.

"What's the matter?" Goofy asked, casting a concerned glance in Char's direction.

"Oh, nothing," she answered, at the same time summoning her swords in dual flashes of light. "Just thinking, is all."

She didn't notice the knight give her a skeptical look before drawing his own shield.

The group headed through the marketplace toward the palace, which they could see looming up in the distance in a conspicuous blend of golden-brown against the pale blue sky. They traveled in relative silence, silence that was further emphasized by the lack of merchants selling their wares or people wandering around the marketplace. Clearly, the residents of this world had realized the presence of Heartless and had duly taken shelter; whether out of fear or preparation, Char wasn't sure.

At least in Hollow Bastion, though, she and her fellow apprentices had had time to master a certain style of fighting or weapon to combat the Heartless, so they hadn't had to lock themselves up _too_ much. Most of their time, however, had been spent inside their designated building or Ansem's study, working on a project or conducting research. It was a lonely prospect, but Char had had the presence of her fellow apprentices to alleviate the boredom.

She clenched her fists more tightly around the hilts of her blades. _That_ friendship had certainly gone down the drain, as soon as Xehanort had become a Nobody and formed Organization XIII.

"Heartless!" Sora suddenly cried, and Char snapped to attention. More of the bandit-like Heartless had appeared, with a couple of large, ball-like enemies, which glared down at them.

_Still no Nobodies,_ Char noted, and strangely, she felt worried at that. _Anxclof surely would be back in commission by now…_

And then the redhead inwardly smacked herself, because she should be rejoicing at the absence of the one who wanted to cut Sora down.

"Careful, these can breathe fire!" Sora shouted, barely blocking a blast from one of the round Heartless. The fireball turned to ashes against the Hero's Crest, but just as Sora lowered the Keyblade, another stream of flame came roaring toward them.

Char instinctively lifted her own swords to guard, realizing at the last moment that her blades would only get incinerated against the heat and bracing herself with a sinking heart. However, the impact never came: she opened her eyes from where she'd closed them in anticipation. To her shock, she saw Sora in front of her, Donald, and Goofy, Keyblade raised and with a translucent shield formed around them.

"Sora! You never told me you learned reflecting magic!" Donald squawked, almost indignantly, Char thought.

Sora gave the duck a self-conscious, sidelong glance. "Uh… I didn't even know either, until just now," he admitted, his voice slightly strained from concentration.

The shield made a strange, laser-like sound as it vanished, one of the beams cast by the disappearing reflection bursting against the round Heartless. The large enemy stumbled backward.

"Now's our chance; let's go!" As they took the opportunity to flee through the nearest doorway, Sora couldn't help but notice that Char squeezed herself against the wall a little more hastily than the rest of them.

"Glad that's over…" Donald sighed in relief, and gave Sora another reproaching look. "How did you get shielding magic? _I_ don't even know how to do that!"

"Seriously, I don't know," Sora insisted, looking away a little sheepishly. "I… I was just thinking about shielding you guys, and then the next thing I knew I was using it." His gaze fell upon the marketplace beyond the wall they were hiding behind, and the brunette sighed in relief when he spotted no Heartless. "I think they're gone for now."

"Thank goodness…" Goofy murmured.

They stepped out from behind the shelter of the wall. Sora halted in his tracks when he noticed that a certain redhead wasn't following.

"Char?" he asked hesitantly, and Char jerked in surprise, as though she hadn't been paying attention until just then. "Are you coming?"

"Y-yeah," she answered. The audible tremble in her voice shocked him; his feelings must've showed, because she sighed irritably and growled, "Oh, come on. I'm fine; let's just go."

"Don't tell me you're _scared,"_ Donald taunted.

"I'm not," Char said icily, but her fingers tightened just a bit around the hilts of her swords. (1)

Sora raised one eyebrow and after a few moments of trying to figure out Char's problem, he shook his head and turned his eyes to the obvious palace walls. "We're pretty close. I think we can make it from here."

"I _hope_ we can make it from here…" Char sighed.

They found themselves eventually in front of the massive oaken door to the palace, and Sora let out a "wow" as he stared at the walls. If it was this splendid-looking from the outside, he couldn't imagine what the interior looked like. As they wandered past the shrubs planted on either side of the stone path, the sun reflected off of the tan-colored walls and cast a small glare around them.

A flash of turquoise caught his eye, and somewhat to his relief, Sora spotted Jasmine standing in front of the palace gate. He called her name, approaching her a little tentatively. For some reason, just by looking at her from behind, he could tell she was a little anxious.

She turned at the sound of her name and smiled at the sight of them. "Sora, Donald, Goofy," she greeted enthusiastically. Her dark eyes fell upon Char and she raised her eyebrows.

"Your Majesty," Donald said extravagantly, bowing. Sora and Goofy followed suit, and after a moment, Char rolled her eyes and gave a little awkward curtsy of her own.

Jasmine delicately lifted one hand to her mouth to stifle her giggle. "Did you find who you were looking for, Sora?" she queried, tilting her head to the side.

It took a few moments and a not-so-subtle elbow in the ribs from Char before Sora realized what Jasmine meant. "Oh, erm, no," he said hastily. "This isn't Kairi. This is Char. She started traveling with us a little while ago." The words held more truth than any of them realized; Char wasn't anything like Kairi at all. The only similarity that could be drawn between them was the shade of their hair, and even then, Kairi's was more of a reddish-brown, while Char's was a dark crimson.

"Sora's told me all about you, Your Highness. Pleased to meet you." Char dipped her head politely.

Jasmine nodded in response, her terse gesture contrasting with her lingering smile, and glanced back to Sora. "I never had the chance to properly thank you, for before. You helped Aladdin defeat that awful Jafar and saved Agrabah."

Sora grinned and put his arms behind his head. "All in a day's work." But then the memory of the fire-breathing Heartless came into his mind and he hesitated, lowering his arms. "But, uh… it looks like the Heartless are up to no good again. Is there any way we can help you out?"

"I think we're all right for now." Jasmine's strong words belied the fear Sora could see growing on her face. And he really couldn't blame her for feeling that way: he could still remember how terrifying it had been, watching his island being devoured by the Heartless.

"And ya always got Aladdin," Goofy reminded.

Jasmine sighed. "He… he hasn't been himself lately."

"Is it because of the Heartless?" Donald demanded, already brandishing his staff.

Jasmine shook her head. "I'm not sure. Usually, he's the same cheerful Aladdin…" she mused, turning away and beginning to pace. "But sometimes, he just seems sad."

"Hm…" Sora put a thoughtful hand on his chin.

"He leaves the palace and goes off by himself all the time. I've asked him about it, but he says nothing's wrong. He left again today… what if he doesn't come back this time?"

"Hey! Maybe he's got a secret girlfriend!"

"Don't tell me…" Char whirled around and spotted the owner of the telltale squawk. "Iago!" she growled. "What the hell – I thought you stayed back there!"

Iago soared out of reach of the group and continued, shaking just a bit at the threat clear in Char's voice. "I know – I'll go find out who she is!" he offered.

Jasmine gasped and took a step back. "Iago!" she cried, already trying to strike at him. "Quick, Sora – catch him! And I'll warn the guards and everyone in the palace!"

Iago gulped audibly and hid behind Sora, who cast a brief reprimanding look at the bird before meeting Jasmine's eyes. "That's the thing… Iago's not…"

His voice trailed off as he watched her rush through the gates. As the door closed with a muffled thud, Sora's shoulders slumped in a sigh. He gave Iago a pointed glare. "Nice move," he commented sarcastically.

"Maybe it was somethin' you said?" Goofy quipped weakly.

Iago shook his head and let out a little disappointed murmur of his own.

Goofy turned to Sora. "Gee, maybe we should go talk to Aladdin," he suggested in an attempt to change the subject. "He's gotta be somewhere in town, right?"

"Good idea," Sora agreed. "I wonder what he's been doing."

Upon leaving the palace gates behind them, they promptly heard another voice: somewhat high-pitched with indignation, and raised in a shout.

"Stop! Thief!"

A little chittering noise made them all look down, and the strange sight of a monkey loping past them greeted them. Following close on the heels of the monkey was a dark-haired young man in an open purple shirt.

_Aladdin!_

"Hi, Sora!" the young man called breathlessly, running past them.

"Come back here!" the high-pitched voice shouted, and they spotted a diminutive-sized peddler chasing Aladdin and Abu, his size making his gait awkward-looking. Sora followed their paths with his eyes, but then a pang of agony in his head forced the brunette to his knees. The sound and sight of Char and the others kneeling at his side – in Iago's case, hovering – and demanding as to his status dissolved into blackness as another vision took its place.

* * *

_"Thieves!" the same peddler yelped, chasing after a trio of young people. The three of them were sprinting side by side, their strange hand-me-down-looking clothing stark against the garb of the people in the marketplace. Hagglers and merchants alike turned and stared as the four of them passed. In the middle of the trio a brunette ran, her green eyes glittering and her lips pulled back in a devious grin. On one side an older-looking man with spiked-back crimson locks and eyes a slightly paler shade of grass-green kept pace easily with the girl, taking one stride for two of hers. _

_The youngest-looking, the boy on the other side, looked faintly disapproving at his two comrades, who were obviously enjoying the whole thing. The wind tugged at his honey-blond, spiked-up hair, and despite the reproach clear in his sapphire gaze, his face was also filled with friendship for his companions._

_The brown-haired girl laughed, clearly exhilarated by the thrill of the chase. "Hey, Axel – catch!" she shouted to the spiky-haired redhead, and she tossed the object she was holding to him. A flash of golden chain caught the light of the sun, and Axel caught the necklace by the emerald jewel on its end._

_"Guys…" The blond sighed and shook his head, but he didn't slow his pace. "I told you this was a bad idea…"_

_"Does it matter?" Axel panted. "Look, you were the one who thought this thing looked cool. We're just doing you a favor, Roxas!"_

_"A _favor?" _Roxas snorted. "You guys sure have a strange way of doing 'favors'…"_

* * *

"Sora!"

Sora let out a grunt of surprise. He found himself still kneeling, with Char, Donald, Goofy, and Iago hovering over him. Aladdin was peering over their shoulders, dark eyes worried, with Abu perched on his own shoulder.

"Thank goodness, you're alright…" Aladdin sighed in relief. "What happened?"

"I'm… not really sure," Sora admitted, sitting up gingerly and putting a hand on his head. He raked his fingers through his brown spikes uncertainly. _Another flashback with Roxas…_

The question was, who _was_ Roxas, anyway? He had had that strange girl with him – and what had they called the redhead? Axel? Yeah, that was it. The name struck a chord within Sora, a chord of almost-maybe-guilt, as though it was a childhood friend that he couldn't remember. And that made no sense.

Sora shook himself out of his reverie when he saw the others still eyeing him concernedly. For some reason, Char was avoiding his gaze, but when she saw him looking at her, she gave him a look that mirrored the others' expressions.

Sora sighed. "Well, it's nothing," he said, and got to his feet, however shakily.

"Sorry about earlier," Aladdin said. "Abu just can't keep his paws off that lamp," he added, giving the monkey in question a pointed look. Abu made a few hasty gestures and chattering noises, as though in protest. "No talking your way out of this one!"

"So, was that Jafar's lamp he was holding?" Char queried.

Aladdin nodded. "Yeah, that was it." He tilted his head to the side. "Did you just join Sora?"

"Yup. That's Char." Sora received an irritated glower from Char when he introduced her, but the brunette ignored it and looked at Aladdin instead. "It doesn't sound like _you're_ too down in the dumps…"

Aladdin blinked. "Who said I was?"

The four of them exchanged a glance, then Goofy spoke. "Princess Jasmine."

"She's worried because you're always in town," Donald added. He cocked a teasing eyebrow. "Got a new girlfriend?"

"No way!" Aladdin fervently protested. He hesitated. "Though… I guess there's no foolin' Jasmine, huh?"

"So what's the problem?" Char asked, curiosity prevailing over belligerence in her voice.

"See, Genie and Carpet took off to see the world," Aladdin explained, turning away. "It's what Genie always wanted, so I wished him the best and all, but…"

"You miss him," Goofy finished.

"Man, things must be _really_ quiet with Genie gone," Sora remarked, remembering the madcap antics of the blue genie.

"Yeah," Aladdin confirmed. He swept his dark gaze over the marketplace, currently bustling with an early morning crowd. "That's why I come out here. The action – the people. There's always something goin' on."

Sora thought back to the vision of Roxas and the others, stealing the necklace, and knew Aladdin was right.

"I mean, think about it – I met you guys here today, right?" Aladdin chuckled. "This place is full of surprises." He narrowed his eyes. "Speaking of which… why do you guys have Iago with you?"

"Oh, he wants to apologize for what he did," Sora said. He cast his eyes about and spotted the little red bird, who was currently shivering and shuddering on the ground.

"Uh, Iago? You feelin' okay?" Aladdin blinked.

"That lamp – it was _the_ lamp!" Iago suddenly blurted, nearly crashing into Aladdin's face with how quickly he flew up to him. "I was locked up in that thing for months; there's no way I'd mistake it!"

"Then we'd better go back and talk to that peddler," Aladdin said, his face clouded with anxiety.

"Right." Char glanced at Sora. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Sora nodded, giving what he hoped was an encouraging grin. "Yeah. I just had a little headache there, is all."

"Sure…" Donald muttered skeptically.

* * *

(1) If you're not sure why Char's freaked out about those Heartless, think about it. Hades nearly crippled her with that fireball, remember? Sora's just an oblivious idiot, is all. :D  
Sora: Oh, thanks a lot.

So, kind of a filler, but at least I got to polish my flashback-writing side a little bit! The little "Ask a Character" thing is still going on, btw. Feel free to ask any character anything. :)  
Char: You're in an unnaturally good mood...  
Me: It's probably because I got my new iPod yesterday!


	40. Chapter XL

I rather liked writing this chappie, actually :D Anywho, sorry for the late update. Life/swimming/midterms called.

So yeah, this chappie involves some KH2 plotline, some info as to Anxclof's powers (because come on, as a member of the Organization, she's got to do something besides be madly skilled in swordplay), foreshadowing as to what Anxclof's gonna do next, some Char-to-Sora reminiscence, and one of my wittier lines IMO.

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** Oh yeah, I so own Kingdom Hearts. That's why Roxas never found a way to get his own heart and travel with Sora. D: WHY ROXAS WHY?

**

* * *

**Sora normally wouldn't mind sticking his neck out this far to help someone, and the feeling was amplified even more so when he performed this kind of task for a friend, but even he had to admit that the peddler's request had been a little… over the top.

"I can't believe you told him we could pay him in 'royal treasure', Donald…" A sigh issued from Char's mouth, sounding like it had been dragged from her throat, and she shook her head with a reproving glare at the mage. "Nice job. Now we actually have to go get some treasure worthy for a sultan."

"Oh, like this is _my_ fault!" Donald squawked indignantly.

"Calm down, guys!" Aladdin urged, shifting his anxious dark gaze from girl to duck and back again. He addressed Sora. "I wish I could say that we could just go get some from the palace, but it's not mine to take. And I don't want to worry Jasmine or the sultan…"

"Still, where're we gonna get that kind of treasure?" Goofy wondered aloud, one nervous hand braced against the bottom part of his face.

"I bet if we'd told him that the fate of Agrabah rested on us having this lamp, he would've relented," Char remarked.

"But this has to stay as secretive as possible," Sora reminded her. "We stopped Jafar from destroying Agrabah last time we were here, before he could cause too much damage. We don't want to send these people into a panic."

"Yeah, that'd make things much harder on the sultan and Jasmine."

Up until this point, Iago had been unnaturally silent – probably because earlier, he'd had to wait outside the peddler's shop with Aladdin while Sora and the others negotiated with the short peddler; an awkward affair, to put things lightly. Now, however, the bird spoke, his voice rending the unnaturally-quiet air in a way that made them all jump slightly before turning to him. "How about the treasure in the Cave of Wonders?" Iago suggested, flying up to Aladdin.

Sora folded his arms, not taking his eyes off of Iago. Until then, Sora had been starting to nurse a grudging little seed of trust for the bird – after all, he hadn't tried to betray them _yet_ – but at Iago's words, the brunette couldn't help but feel a little surge of suspicion. How did they know that Iago wasn't ready to lead them into a trap?

He glanced over at his friends and saw that they felt the same way; Donald's eyes were narrowed and his feathered arms crossed, while one of Char's eyebrows had vanished into her bangs, and even Goofy seemed a bit perturbed.

However, Aladdin's suspicion didn't last very long. "All right, Iago. You lead the way! And after we get the treasure, I might believe your apology."

"You can count on me," Iago chirped, oblivious to the others' emotions.

He took off toward a tunnel leading out of the marketplace, his crimson form conspicuous against the adobe of the buildings. "Wait up!" Sora yelled, charging after Iago with his companions behind him. Abu let out a chattering cry that seemed to mimic Sora's demand and the monkey hopped onto Aladdin's shoulder.

"You're really gonna trust him?" Char muttered to Aladdin, slightly breathless from running.

The young man shrugged. "It's not like we have a choice," he pointed out, his voice steady. Clearly, he was used to this kind of dashing through town. "If he's really telling the truth, then I'll believe him. If not, then we're gonna have to be ready for whatever happens."

"I guess," Donald panted.

They emerged in an area that merely looked like a smaller version of the marketplace they had just entered; Aladdin explained that this was the bazaar of Agrabah. The five of them made their way carefully through the town, keeping their eyes open for any Heartless that might come along. Char in particular kept a sharp eye out, somehow worried and relieved that the sight of Avenger Nobodies materializing never greeted her eyes. It struck her as odd, that Anxclof still hadn't shown up yet. _Maybe she's just in a different world; it's not like she could plant some sort of tracker on Sora, after all,_ Char reasoned mentally. While Anxclof, as Number XIV and the Organization's Blade of Vengeance, did have an array of skills unlike those with her Keyblade – as Axel had specialized in fire, Roxas in light, Vexen in ice, and so on – Char was fairly certain that tracking wasn't one of those skills. From the limited amount of Roxas' memories that Char had seen – and she cursed the fact that she had just _had_ to get hungry and bored then – she had also watched Roxas and Anxclof train together, and seen their elemental powers develop.

"The palace walls are right outside," Aladdin announced after cutting a shadow Heartless down with his scimitar. He pointed with his blade toward the wooden doors along the opposite wall. "That should be our best bet for getting to the Cave of Wonders."

Sora had just barely caught his breath and lowered his Keyblade when a series of translucent dark orbs announced the arrival of still more Heartless. This time, however, the bandits were accompanied by gypsy-like members of their species, gypsies that balanced icy-blue orbs in their dark hands and glared out with pale eyes. Sora groaned aloud. "Looks like we'll have to take care of these guys first," he called back.

_At least they're not the fire-breathing ones,_ Char thought, more than a little relieved. She drew her own blades and charged into battle.

After a few moments of thought, Sora gave a running leap toward one of the gypsies, deciding it was best to take out the unfamiliar enemy first. It made as if to give an aerial dodge, but the shaft of the Hero's Crest caught it in the side of the head, knocking it to the ground. Aladdin, who was nearest, let out a cry as he slashed at it with his sword. However, the gypsy had already regained its senses and it seemed to concentrate for a brief moment before a shard of ice suddenly shot from one of its blue orbs, grazing Aladdin's arm as it went past. Donald was busy casting an ice spell of his own on one of the bandit Heartless, so Goofy took it upon himself to give Aladdin a Potion. The young man nodded gratefully and downed the light blue liquid; the wound on his arm seemed to close up immediately and he threw himself back into combat.

As for Char, she had already pinned one of the gypsies against a crate and was currently rending its pink-clad body with both swords at once. She crouched for a brief moment and then lunged forward, driving all six blades into the Heartless' middle; it quivered and then disappeared. A blunt object suddenly struck her in the back and she whirled around to see one of the bandits with one of its scimitars raised. However, the impact of its blade never came – it froze in that position, and then vanished in a puff of dark smoke to reveal Sora standing there, slightly slumped with exhaustion and his Keyblade still poised where the Heartless had been.

"You okay?" he asked, sapphire eyes anxious.

Char rolled her eyes. "Of course," she replied. "I think right now the only things we have to worry about are Jafar and those lard bucket Heartless."

"Good point." Sora closed his eyes for an instant, during which the Hero's Crest disappeared, and then opened them again. He turned to the others and opened his mouth, but Iago beat him to it. "C'mon, let's go!" the parrot was shouting, looking around nervously and fluttering his wings frantically in order to stay in midair.

Donald growled under his breath and raced over to Iago. "Then _you_ help out!" he shouted, shaking his staff threateningly. He got a whimper and the action of floating a ways backward as a response.

"Breathe, duck boy," Char sighed, tapping the top of Donald's head with the hilt of one of her blades as she passed him. She ignored the indignant retort her gesture induced – a snort that sounded suspiciously like "hypocrite" – and focused on Aladdin. "You said that this was the way out, right?" she queried, nodding toward the gate. At his nod of response, she turned toward the doors. "Let's go, then."

* * *

"Back again, Anxclof?" the larger of the two demons inquired, leering at her with sharp teeth bared.

The brunette rolled her eyes and slapped a few coins into the obese creature's claws, and both demons' smirks promptly widened at the sight of the munny. "Just get me into another round of the Underdrome, got it?"

"Of course," the skinny demon simpered, and lifted a claw. Across the fog-wreathed lake, a bridge coalesced from the central cavern to one of the walls bordering the toxic water. Anxclof didn't give them the satisfaction of a thank-you, merely inclining her head and stepping carefully onto the crude bridge; she had learned all too well the first time that just sauntering casually across was entirely the _wrong_ approach to take toward anything in this part of this world.

Inside, she was still cursing herself for not being constantly on the move, not searching eternally for Sora and Char. But, well, Hercules and Phil had mentioned that the Keybearer and the redhead had passed through; that had to count for something. Anxclof felt her lip curl in the beginnings of a sneer. She felt certain – no, scratch that; she _knew_ – that Char had been sent along as a guardian to Sora, and that had it not been for Char's timely intervention when Anxclof had shown herself, Roxas would be walking at Anxclof's side right now and Sora would be suffering in Kingdom Hearts.

Besides, taking out Heartless helped to vent some of Anxclof's lingering stress. From the looks on Hercules and Phil's faces when the brunette returned every night from the Underworld, she figured that they had to suspect something. She had already spent a few days in this world, most of which were spent entering the Underdrome; fighting Heartless, sometimes using her Avengers when things got too difficult, much to the awe of the demonic audience she gathered; and then killing some more Heartless within the Underworld itself to get more munny and repeat the process. The demons that were always at Hades' side didn't seem to mind the extra publicity; if anything, they reveled in the fact that she was spending so much cash on this. She mostly ignored the "sweet" façades they gained when she approached.

Almost the instant her foot landed on the small platform within the cavern used for the coliseum fights, light flashed briefly, blinding Anxclof for a moment before she became used to it. She mostly tuned out Hades' commentary – the first time, the way he had scorned her as just another novice had grated massively on her nerves and she'd had to fight the urge to use a few gamma rays to slice into Hades and the audience's flesh, just for the hell of it; the next few times, it was just annoying. However, she couldn't hold back a small smirk when he mentioned her occasional use of her Nobodies. Obviously he had heard of the Organization and he was bound to suspect something. The pervasive use of her Keyblade didn't help much, either. She guessed that the only Keybearer Hades had seen before her had been Sora, and that he wasn't too fond of them due to that little first impression.

Strange, she mused as the first few Heartless materialized and she summoned her Keyblade. Only a little while ago, Anxclof would be concerned about keeping her reputation and identity to herself; she would be banging her head against the wall for making that information so public. But, well, it was just one world; and things weren't like before. All of the villains that had previously challenged Sora had dissolved their alliance to one another when Sora had last defeated Maleficent.

And to think that Anxclof wouldn't even have known that if Roxas hadn't relayed it to her.

Then again, Roxas had almost always been ahead of her in everything. He had discovered his light powers before her radiation powers had become clear to her; he had approached her with a triumphant smile and glittering blue eyes after he'd summoned his Samurai Nobodies, while Anxclof herself had been struggling with her own Avengers. And memories of Sora had begun flowing to Roxas in the form of dreams long before Anxclof's own true name had become clear to her.

She figured that that little complication just came with Nobodies whose Others were still alive; after all, Xemnas and all the ranks up to her and Roxas had obviously never had to deal with that little issue. So, that meant that Falcon was still alive somewhere. For some reason, that gave Anxclof a small amount of comfort.

The brunette shook that thought out of her mind and charged forward with her blade in hand.

For the most part, the round went fairly smoothly, except when one fire-breathing Heartless proved to be nearly too much and she'd had to summon some Avengers to keep it distracted while she pounded on it from the back. As the crowd roared its approval of her victory, Anxclof glanced up at where Hades stood on his platform. "Think you could start bringing out some harder enemies next time?" she called cockily, to 'oohs' from the crowd.

Hades rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly. "That concludes the first round, folks!" he called to the audience, who began murmuring amongst themselves. "You guys know the drill – come back later and all that." He narrowed his eyes at Anxclof, and she swore she saw the tiniest tip of golden yellow flame take over the ice-blue fire on his head, if only for a moment.

She mentally told her Keyblade to return to its chain form and stepped back outside. In the back of her mind, the knowledge of how she was failing to accomplish her task nagged at her, jabbed at her with near-mosquito-like fingers. Her brow furrowed and she sighed, bringing up one hand to massage her temples.

How was she supposed to find Sora, anyway? It wasn't exactly like he was just waiting for her at the World That Never Was… And Char would always be a setback.

Yet Anxclof couldn't help but feel like she was just making excuses in that regard.

But then memories of her and Roxas and Axel, traveling the worlds and fulfilling missions for Xemnas, rushed back into her mind, and she gritted her teeth with the force of her newly born determination.

Still… there was almost no way to find Sora at the moment, was there?

Unless…

Anxclof had been trudging along the bridge, head bent with her hair falling to obscure her face in thought, but now she jerked her head up, eyes wide in realization. She ignored the way the long piece of land precariously trembled at her sudden action.

_Of course…_ She felt like smacking herself upside the head and then hitting it against the wall; she had been approaching this entirely the wrong way. The only issue now, however, lay in how exactly she was going to lure Sora to her.

Anxclof's shoulders slumped in a sigh and she resumed her journey across the bridge, muttering a small curse when something from the depths of the lake bumped against the underside of the path and caused it to tremble. As she walked, only half-focused on putting one foot in front of the other, she searched her memories for anything that could possibly be important enough to Sora to instantly drop everything and come running. Of course he held Donald and Goofy in high regard, but they were currently accompanying him. And while Char and Sora had a kind of mutual respect for one another – Anxclof nearly snorted aloud; from the way Char was constantly protecting him and vice versa, even Anxclof could see that that little "respect" had evolved into something more – the redhead was also traveling with him, so that possibility was out.

Something Roxas had said came back to her, and the recollection of the way he'd looked at her, hand tentatively grasping hers while honey-rimmed sapphire eyes earnestly met hers, the Twilight Town sunset framing his form in an iridescent gold, summoned forth tears to her eyes.

_"Well, Sora did like Kairi, after all, so I guess that emotion must have carried over to me, because Nobodies remember what their Others felt…"_

_Kairi._

Abruptly Anxclof lifted one arm and put out her hand; at her mental command, a portal of darkness formed in front of her, tentacles of wispy black and pale purple twisting together almost invitingly. Without hesitation, she walked right into it, not even looking back at the unpleasant scenery of the Underworld's caverns as the shadows swallowed up her former surroundings.

Because who said that Sora didn't still care for Kairi?

* * *

"This is the place," Iago confirmed, the energy in his wings replaced with weariness.

Sora gave a slow nod, more for Char's benefit than the others', as the redhead was the only one who had yet to set foot in the Cave of Wonders. Char herself was giving the parrot a slightly suspicious glare, but Iago returned the eye contact with an earnest stare of his own and lighted down on her shoulder. "Get off, you stupid bird," she muttered, waving him off.

Aladdin smirked just a bit at Iago's crestfallen face, but his expression became firm again when he focused his dark gaze on the eerie-looking entrance to the cavern. Indeed, even though Sora had once passed through the bright, treasure-lit corridors of the Cave of Wonders, the sight of the huge tiger-head-like entrance, yawning out with sharp fangs, didn't fail to make Sora or the others shiver just a bit. Sora still couldn't help but feel a little shudder of nervousness at the thought that the tiger was going to swallow them all whole if they weren't careful enough.

"Well, we still have to get that treasure, right?" Goofy quipped, almost as if to reassure himself.

"Yeah," Donald agreed, a little too hastily.

Sora sighed under his breath; when they had stopped to rest for a little while outside the palace walls, Donald had wondered whether there would be enough treasure to satisfy not only the peddler, but the mage himself. Needless to say, this had induced a none-too-gentle flick on the side of Donald's head from Char and chuckles from Sora, Aladdin, and Goofy.

The five – or rather, six – of them entered, eventually emerging down past the tiger's jaws after taking out a couple more of the gypsy Heartless. As solid ground became more defined after the slope of the tiger's "tongue", Char allowed a little murmur of awe to escape her lips. A few slightly-raised blocks were scattered about the valley-like area, blocks with treasure chests along the top of them, and the mostly-violet room sparkled conspicuously.

"This room…" Sora let his voice trail off, equally in wonder.

"It sparkles like this because of all the treasure embedded in the walls," Char briefly surfaced from her awe to point out.

"Yeah," Aladdin agreed, looking a bit impressed. "How'd you know?"

The redhead shrugged, averting her eyes self-consciously. "I've read a few books," she muttered.

"More than a few," Sora corrected, remembering something she'd told him while she had been recovering in Hollow Bastion. She had explained that she had had to cover most of her master's library in both his study and the smaller dwelling where she and her fellow students had lived.

Then he frowned just a bit at the remembrance that she had refused to disclose the names of her friends _and_ the identity of her master.

They all made their way through the large catacomb, and Char noted how un-cave-like the place seemed. No trace of the dankness or shadows typically associated with caves hid in the Cave of Wonders. _Maybe it's due to all the treasure,_ she assumed, for while the books she'd read about Agrabah had informed her of this place, she had never gotten an actual coherent picture of what was inside. She felt a small grin flash across her face. _Another one for the books: first, that Char Nightblaze actually listened to something Riku said, and second, she got an actual glimpse inside this place._

But at the thought of the former her smile faded just a bit, because the thought of Riku heralded so many dark thoughts and the painful knowledge that he wasn't here, of how she – and not just her, but Sora, Donald, and Goofy as well – of how they all were walking down a path wreathed in danger and shadows. Gods, she missed those days in Twilight Town, where the most troubling thing had been checking Sora's vital signs and her ever-growing crush on Riku.

Yet now, the thought of Riku didn't make her face and back feel hot, didn't make her heart pound as quickly as it used to.

She banished those thoughts hastily when a flicker of darkness announced the arrival of still more Heartless. She didn't need to inform the others, as they had already drawn their weapons and thrown themselves into the fray. Abu and Iago cried out in contrasting shrill and hoarse screeches, respectively, and made a beeline toward the edge of the path, away from all the Heartless.

Char cast her gaze about and spotted a swarm of small flame-shaped, lava-coated Heartless, accompanied by a gypsy, moving toward Donald. With a cry, she charged at them, her swords whipping through the air as she took out the smaller ones in a single twist of her body.

However, the gypsy Heartless still remained, and it raised its hand and fired a jagged shard of ice at Donald. Instinctively he brought up his staff to guard, and the fragment embedded itself into the witch-hat-like piece at the very top of the staff. The duck swore loudly and began shaking his weapon frantically, apparently trying to get a small bit of mana out of it, but it only gave off a few sparks before ceasing to work altogether. Fortunately, Aladdin's scimitar carved into the remaining Heartless before it could use another ice attack on Donald, and the enemy vanished, its energy depleted.

"Uh-oh," Goofy murmured, staring at Donald's impaled staff.

Char glanced sharply at the knight. "What?"

"The last time Donald's staff got hit like that, he had to have His Majesty go make him a new one," Goofy explained nervously. Donald himself looked ready to spit fire.

"Of all the stupid things!" he spat, hitting his staff against the ground as though that would get it working again.

"It's fine," Sora tried to reassure Donald. "We found plenty of new weapons for you and Goofy on our last journey, right? I'm sure it'll be the same now."

"Or maybe there's one in the treasure room," Aladdin added, raising and lowering his shoulders helplessly.

All they got in response was an irritated grumble from the mage. Char rolled her eyes. "C'mon, duck boy. I'm sure that there'll probably be _some_ kind of staff for you around here; it's the haven for this world's treasure, after all."

"I guess," Donald muttered. Somehow, Char got the feeling that he was only agreeing with her to make them all stop talking about his current inability to fight.

However, it did make the journey through the remainder of the long corridor more difficult, as they had to cover Donald and Donald himself was forced to pick a hiding place with Abu and Iago. The mage looked positively livid by the time they entered the next room.

Sora's vision was overcome by darkness for a brief moment before the sound of water splashing greeted his ears and a light source became visible. He blinked to get used to the sudden change in lighting and surveyed his surroundings. This new room was another hallway, except that it was devoid of the sparkling shine that had dominated the previous area, and the walls seemed to be covered by small waterfalls that were falling gently onto the flooded ground below. Abu, who had taken his place back on Aladdin's shoulder, suddenly chattered and pointed at the glowing jewel floating in front of them.

"No, Abu, don't –" Aladdin's protest was cut off when the monkey leaped up and snatched the jewel out of the air.

Abruptly, the walls began glowing an eerie pale blue that soon evolved to violet as the waterfalls vanished. Char's sense of urgency grew considerably when the ground began to vibrate violently below them. She summoned her swords as a few strange-looking statues emerged from the walls where the waterfalls had been. "Not good," she muttered.

To say that Sora agreed with her would be the understatement of the century: a feeling that intensified when the statues' eyes began glowing an ominous shade of tawny amber. Up until now, Abu had been glancing around anxiously, not taking his paws off the jewel, but he jumped back with a cry when a piece of ice shattered just a little ways away from him.

"Oh, no," Aladdin muttered. He signaled toward the statue at the end of the room, and, craning their necks to see, the others managed to spot a slot shaped vaguely like the jewel Abu was holding. "Get the jewel in there!"

Abu didn't need to be told twice; he raced toward it, frantically dodging the ice shards exploding near him along the way and leaping over the rising water. Goofy and Donald flanked him, while Sora, Char, and Aladdin blocked falling ice shards with their blades.

Char narrowed her eyes angrily when she heard Iago screaming, the parrot having just avoided getting crushed by the ice from the statues. "Oh, that won't kill our concentration at all," she grunted. She brought up her blades in the shape of an X when more ice fragments splintered against her swords.

Sora gave a breathless laugh. It reassured her to hear Char applying her dry wit to the situation as usual. As his muscles strained against a particularly strong piece of ice, which had shaken his Keyblade with the force of its shattering, he chanced a look over his shoulder and spotted the rose-colored gem in its slot. Char and Aladdin followed his gaze and lowered their weapons with sighs of relief.

A low whooshing noise caused them all to turn. Mist had briefly engulfed the walls and dissipated. Sora felt a brief burst of alarm when he saw the statues along the walls, but thankfully, their anger seemed to have abided. The main statue – the one holding the slot for the gem – shone a blinding golden before it too disappeared, turning into dust that then sprinkled onto the ground below.

"On to the next room," said Aladdin, raising his scimitar and giving a hesitant grin. Sora smiled to himself as he followed Aladdin, Iago, and Abu, the very latter of which taking his place back on his master's shoulder.

The sound of a little chuckle reached Sora's ears and he turned his head to see the very last remnants of Char's smile. She spotted him staring at her and gave him an expectant look. "What?"

"What's your deal?" he queried, dropping back to speak to her properly.

"The deal with what?" she answered coyly.

Sora sighed exasperatedly. "Char…"

A small huffing laugh escaped her and she shook her head with her eyes closed. She opened them and looked right at him. "Oh, Abu just reminds me of the pet Heartless I had back home, is all."

Sora blinked. "You can do that?" he couldn't help but ask, eyebrows arching up into his bangs in surprise. Perhaps it was all the time he had spent wiping out Heartless that made him so skeptical. And there was the tiny complication that, as the Keyblade wielder, he was practically the "jackpot" heart for those creatures.

"Yeah," Char answered. She seemed lost in memories for a moment, a distant look coming into her eyes. "His name was Shadow; I rescued him one day when one of the other apprentices wanted to kill him." She shrugged, focusing her gaze on the ground, as though ashamed of herself. "I guess I took pity on him – he seemed like… like he was just a baby when his heart was taken. He seemed so lost, like he was searching for his mother. He got attached to me because of that little encounter, so he was my pet for a little while after."

_It was a 'he'?_ Sora thought skeptically, but he said nothing.

"He always loved to follow me around town, even though everyone always treated him like dirt because of what he was." Char laughed softly. "And my friend always wanted to know why I kept him, why I didn't just carve Shadow into pieces on the spot. I guess… it was because clearly, he was destined to have a good heart." At Sora's questioning gesture of tilting his head to the side, she rolled her eyes and elaborated further. "I'm saying that had he grown up, he would have had a strong enough heart to create a Nobody."

"This is weird…" Aladdin suddenly remarked. Char and Sora halted in their tracks and craned their necks to peer around the others. Just past Iago's conspicuous plumage, Char could see that the tall gates before them had already been opened.

"Are you sure this isn't a trap?" Donald demanded of the parrot.

Iago jerked backward in midair and shook his head desperately. "I told ya, no more tricks! I promise!"

"Either way, we still need that lamp," Sora murmured, and he walked forward to take his place at the head of the group. He cast a wary glance at Iago. "If you really _are_ leading us into a trap…"

"I'm not!" Iago protested fervently.

"Thou doth protest too much, methinks," Char quoted, giving Iago a suspicious look. "Well, lead us on."

Iago entered the door, followed closely by the others. Sora spotted the golden glow cast by the treasure even before he had entered the room itself. The group found themselves in a carpeted room, and they actually had to squint with the lighting given by the golden coins dispersed throughout the room. Donald and Goofy's eyes widened and they murmured in awe as they looked on.

They all ventured further inside, looking around in wonder as they walked. They halted in front of a small stairway that led up to a trophy-like object. It reminded Char of the Struggle trophy from Twilight Town, but it was a much brighter shade of golden than the Twilight Town trophy; and the rubies embedded at the base and at the end of one "arm", along with sapphires and emeralds, gave only a vague resemblance to its less extravagant counterpart.

"There. That one should do it."

Without hesitation, Donald raced up the stairs and grasped the object by its base. "Oh, boy! It's perfect! That guy's gonna like this!"

"Sure looks valuable," Sora remarked.

"Great!" Aladdin said, relief clear on his face and in his voice. "Now let's go get that lamp. We gotta keep Jafar bottled up, or he's gonna destroy Agrabah!"

As for Abu and Iago, they were straining to lift a miniature statue – similar to the one holding the jewel from the previous room – that was holding a ruby toward Donald. The duck stood there with his feathered hands on his hips, tapping one foot impatiently and glaring at them. Finally he just shouted "Stop!" at them, and they promptly dropped it, albeit a little carefully. For a few moments, the pale pink glow of the gem caught Donald's eye and held it, and a greedy grin slowly began to spread across his face.

"Donald, snap out of it!" Aladdin called, and Donald shook his head, straightening with wide eyes.

Char had mostly been watching this exchange with no small amount of amusement, but a sudden noise behind her caused her to whirl around. _What was it? It sounded a lot like someone snapping…_

Then Sora cried out in shock and she whipped back around just in time to see the last remains of gold before shadows obscured it. The room darkened so that all anyone could see was the circle of light that surrounded them. All five of them backed up close together, with Iago and Abu fluttering nervously. They just managed to spot some Heartless materializing around them and closing in.

"Why does this always happen?" Donald wailed.

Char drew her swords and answered without looking back at him. "Because someone upstairs hates you, Donald."

* * *

Indeed, Char. Indeed.

I also get the feeling that people are really gonna like the end of this world XD; Dress/Hair in a Bun!Char plus Tux/Tame Hair!Sora equals love in my book.

-dismissive voice- Oh, and Anxclof and Axel and Kairi are gonna be there too. Lol. And if I'm feeling real inspired I might throw in a FalconCopperhead flashback.

But for now I have to think of a way to write that Lavi x Female!Allen oneshot that's been bouncing around inside my head for the past few weeks, BECAUSE THE BOUNCING'S GETTING KINDA OLD. KTHXBAI.


	41. Chapter XLI

x_x Holy shite, this chapter is a monster. I guess I shouldn't have tried to get the rest of this world along with the whole Kairi thing done in one chapter, but it was either that or have, like, a five-pager with just the ball. Anywhozer, I'm getting the feeling that everyone's gonna love this chapter. I know I loved writing it. :)

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** Sora and the rest of Kingdom Hearts aren't mine; I'm just playing with them.

**

* * *

**Sora briefly cast his eyes among the swarm of Heartless; his eyes eventually landed on a small silvery-white Heartless and he leaped for it. Already, his comrades were picking out their own targets and setting upon the Heartless with their respective weapons – all, of course, except for Donald, who was dodging around the enemies and tossing out healing items when needed, a disgruntled look on his face.

Sora made a mental note to get Donald a new staff as soon as possible; like Char, Donald couldn't stand being left out of the action for any length of time. This trait seemed to be amplified by the fact that, as Disney Castle's main mage, Donald had always been ready for anything.

As it was, the four of them took out the surrounding Heartless fairly quickly, and had but a split second to catch their breaths before four of the large fire-breathers materialized. Sora felt his heart plummet and a feeling of nervousness bloom within him; they had had difficulty just taking out one or two of these, and that had been with Donald's assistance.

So without the mage, how were they supposed to take all these on?

Aladdin and Goofy exchanged a glance with Sora, allowing themselves a moment of hesitation before the dark-haired man brandished his scimitar and charged. Aladdin dodged around one Heartless' flame attack, but the breath from one of the surrounding ones barely licked his skin, causing his allies to wince.

Char balked visibly, and the uncharacteristic gesture from her made Sora nearly falter as well. She hung at the very circumference of the small circle of light that the darkness allowed, casting her ice-colored eyes around frantically; it brought up the memory of her hasty escape from the fire-breathing Heartless at the marketplace. And like before, the question of _What's wrong with her?_ went through his mind.

He didn't have much time to dwell on it, however, because in the next moment one of the Heartless was lumbering toward him, its ample gut drawn back in preparation to engulf him in flames. Sora came to just in time to duck and roll out of the way as the fire roared above his head; he slid practically under the Heartless and jabbed upward with his Keyblade. Had it the ability to speak, the enemy would have grunted in pain, but as it was it just recoiled slightly. Goofy took that opening to bash the Heartless along the side with his shield, knocking it onto its back, where Aladdin promptly finished it off with a sweep of his blade.

"Char, c'mon!" Sora shouted at the redhead, who was still making a wide arc around the battle.

She gave a start of surprise, but that quickly morphed into annoyance. "I'm coming!" she yelled back, and transferred her glare to the Heartless. Sora didn't look that long or closely enough, but it seemed like she took a deep breath before charging at the round Heartless.

Char herself couldn't deny the way her heartbeat spiked tangibly at the slightest sign of the Heartless getting ready to burn her alive, but she knew that for Sora's sake, at least, she had to keep this newborn fear of fire from holding her back. She ignored the pang of self-reproach she felt at the way she justified her actions – this was her _own_ venture, not his – as she threw herself into the fray with her swords at the ready. She darted past the flames spat from one Heartless' maw and sliced into it from behind; this proved to be too much for it and it disappeared in a surge of dark smoke.

_Two down, two to go… _

Char did a quick mental correction when she saw Aladdin's sword slash into a prone Heartless and said Heartless vanished, defeated. That left just one remaining, which Sora and Goofy were already attacking with the rest of their waning strength. Thankfully, one final swing of the Hero's Crest made quick work of the final Heartless, and Char felt guilty relief wash over her at the fact that she hadn't had to put herself in front of those flames.

Then she suddenly had to blink to get used to the abrupt change in lighting, as the darkness had ebbed and the golden treasure gleamed brightly again. Sora lowered his Keyblade, panting just a bit at the effort from the previous battle.

"Sora?" Donald handed the brunette a Hi-Potion.

The Keybearer simply gave the duck a grateful look, too exhausted to do much else, and, uncorking the stopper, downed it without even disdainfully noticing the slightly-sour taste of one of the long-untouched elixirs. Almost as soon as he could sense the aftertaste, he felt strength return to his limbs and the strange feeling of his wounds closing up on the spot. Goofy and Aladdin were experiencing the same effect as Donald passed around Potions to them. Char, who hadn't participated much in the fight, stood off to the side with her blades at her sides, feeling a little guilty at the way she had almost let her fear get the best of her.

Sora inhaled and exhaled deeply and turned to face the exit. "Let's go!" he called over his shoulder to the others. He made a beeline toward the shadow-veiled stairway that led to the door, the footsteps and wing-beats telling him that the others were following.

* * *

Well, this was certainly interesting.

Number VIII of the Organization – Axel, the Flurry of Dancing Flames – had wracked his brain for what felt like hours the previous night, trying desperately to think of ways to bring back the days when it was just him and Roxas and Anxclof. The redhead didn't want to consider the possibility that those days would never return; it gave him a feeling of nervousness and – what was that, _sorrow?_ Axel was going to have to ask dear Superior about that one – when he gave even the slightest shadow of thought about their broken friendship.

While normally Axel would lay low and leave the Sora-stalking to Anxclof, it seemed like the Blade of Vengeance was sadly falling down in that regard. He hadn't actually seen her face to face since the night of Twilight Town's festival, but he was certain that his constant nagging her about tying herself down while Roxas was trapped within Sora had finally gotten to Anxclof, and that she was on the move again. Though it didn't seem that way most of the time, Axel was one of the few people whose opinion Anxclof valued.

That, and the fact that she probably just wanted him to shut up. Axel fought back a chuckle at the thought, though he did allow himself to reveal a countenance-covering smirk.

No, what had caught his attention was his luck today. After all, it wasn't every day that he traveled to Sora's – and, in a sense, Roxas' as well – old home to find something besides the gentle waves and boisterous atmosphere of the mainland.

Ever since Char and Riku had kidnapped Roxas – and even more so since Roxas had merged back with Sora – Axel had been coming to Destiny Island more and more often, if only to clear his head. The way he saw it, it was an all-too-welcome interlude from the constant stormy atmosphere of the World That Never Was, or the glaring whiteness of the castle's floors and walls. _No wonder Xemnas and the others are so depressed all the time,_ Axel thought, snorting aloud.

Besides, no one ever stared at Axel for his hair or his attire, because the tourists that usually visited the island were far stranger than even the Nobody. Hell, once he had even seen a brunette schoolgirl whose shoulder-length hair extended out past the width of her shoulders – a native, no doubt – along with a redhead whose own locks stuck up and clashed with the blue headband that the boy wore. So, Axel fit in all too well here.

Today, Axel had finally figured out his plan. If Sora wouldn't come to Axel or Anxclof on his own, then Number VIII was going to have to take matters into his own hands. And if Kairi happened to be the bait for his plan, then so be it.

Not only had that particular idea stricken him today, but the number of coincidences in the past few hours had increased.

Because what should Axel arrive at Destiny Island to find, but the sight of long brown hair, emerald eyes, and a distinctly-empty look in her gaze?

_Great minds think alike,_ he supposed.

The last time he had spotted Anxclof, she had been walking through the trees that lined the mainland's shore, her white jacket conspicuous against the constant brown-and-green of the foliage. So, Axel made his way in that direction with an anticipating grin on his face, his little kidnapping plan having temporarily been put on hold.

* * *

When Anxclof heard the twig snap behind her, she instantly whirled around to face the intruder, one hand already reaching out for her Keychain to summon her Keyblade. She figured it was probably just a native going to bask in the late morning sun, but she knew she couldn't take any chances.

"Relax, Anxclof." The arrogance in the voice struck a familiar chord within her: recognition, friendship, and, as of late, annoyance and dread. She took a step back, shaken despite herself as vibrant crimson hair caught her eye just before the Flurry of Dancing Flames revealed himself to her. "It's me – Axel. Take a chill pill."

_"You're_ one to talk about 'chill pills'," Anxclof snorted. "Pyro Boy."

"Hey, hey, hey, don't be like that," Axel laughed, but his pale green eyes were almost wolf-like as he approached. "I just spotted you in town and I thought I'd say hello."

He stopped in his tracks abruptly when he noticed a golden Keyblade extended in the direction of where his heart would be. Anxclof glared up at him, inwardly cursing the fact that he stood a head and a half taller than she.

"Like hell," she hissed. "What are you doing here, Axel?"

He met her gaze evenly, one brow lifting at the obvious animosity on her face. After a few moments, during which he considered just passing her by, he answered calmly. "The same thing as you, I'd guess."

Anxclof lowered her weapon, not taking her eyes off of him in case he decided to fight back. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Kairi," Axel responded simply.

Dark emerald eyes narrowed. "I might've known. This sounds like exactly the type of thing you might do."

"Anx, why the angry face?" Axel sighed, folding his arms and bringing up one hand to delicately brush a stray lock out of his eyes. "We're both after the same thing. We've both lost someone we care about."

"You told me yourself that you didn't trust me. I thought you didn't go back on your word, Number VIII."

"I don't, _Number XIV."_ The use of her rank was delivered in a sharp, mocking tone. "You said yourself that you guys cared about each other. Well, I care about Roxas, too. I want him back just as much as you do. _Got it memorized?"_

"How can I not 'have it memorized'?" Anxclof accented the last three words with a low-pitched imitation of Axel's voice and doing air quotes as she spoke them.

A sigh escaped her and she found the leaves below her feet very interesting as she realized the cleverness of his actions. In essence, he had just backed her into a corner: he had a point in saying that they both wanted the same thing, and while her instincts still told her not to trust him, to snap back at him wouldn't make any sense.

"I'm not saying we should work too closely together, if that's what you're thinking," Axel elaborated. "But all I'm saying is that we both have a common goal here."

He left the question _So who gets to walk off with Kairi in hand?_ unspoken, but it hung in the air like water vapor between them.

"Tch," Anxclof muttered, still considering. She looked up and just caught sight of him shifting his weight to one leg, arms still crossed over his chest and pale green eyes still on her.

"Whatever," she acquiesced at last, making no secret of her grudging acceptance on the matter. Her frown deepened substantially when he smirked.

"So on the off-chance that this little kidnapping attempt works, are we both gonna get Kairi, or what?" Axel queried bluntly, his smirk not faltering in the slightest.

Anxclof sighed, plopping down right on the leaf-clad ground. "Who knows. All I'm sure of is that she's probably not gonna go without a fight."

"You're probably right."

One dark eyebrow rose over an emerald eye. "And you're not the least bit concerned about this?"

Axel raised and lowered one shoulder, moving to sit cross-legged beside her. "I am. I just have a great poker face." (1)

* * *

"Hello?" Aladdin called, breathless from their dash through the desert here. "Anyone here?"

"He's not here." Sora spoke in a pant accentuated by incredulousness. Donald and Goofy looked around the small room that served as the peddler's shop, while Char ran her fingers through her sweat-drenched bangs. She reminded herself never to walk through the desert in early afternoon heat without a suitable supply of water again. Even though they had rested outside of the city and Aladdin had retrieved some water from the marketplace for all of them, Char still felt the remnants of exhaustion from the day, a feeling that not even potions could take away.

"Stop your whining and hand it over!" a sudden voice snarled from outside, slightly muffled. The group's ears pricked up and they glanced toward the entrance to hear better.

"Ohh no!" the peddler cried. "I'm trading it for treasure! This lamp is going to bring me riches!"

Sora exchanged a glance with his allies. "That sounded a lot like…"

"Pete!" Donald growled.

"Great," Char sighed. "After all the trouble we went to at the Cave of Wonders, he just shows up to ruin it all…"

"Come to think of it, he probably sent all them Heartless out to get us," Goofy said.

"Either way, we can't let him have that lamp, can we?" Aladdin was already pushing the curtain out of the way and running outside.

Upon following him, the others came to an abrupt halt when they spotted none other than Maleficent's minion, chasing after the peddler, who held Jafar's lamp in a death grip. "Oh, no, you don't!" Pete was roaring as he ran past. "Get back here, you little…"

"Seems like they're headed for the palace," Aladdin said, clenching one fist.

Sora nodded. "Right; let's go."

When the palace doors loomed up in front of them, Pete was still following close on the peddler's heels. Clearly, the lamp had switched clutches a couple of times, because the turban on the peddler's head looked just a bit more rumpled than before. "Lamp hog!" Pete barked.

"Go away!"

Char's eyebrows gradually arched further and further into her bangs as she watched Pete trip the peddler and seize the lamp in midair with a triumphant "Gotcha!" The peddler jumped up with arms outstretched, but Pete seized the man's turban-clad head to keep him from getting at it. "I win!" the minion crowed with a smirk, holding the black lamp high above his own head.

Then a dark red blur flashed, and the next thing they knew, Iago was flying back toward them with the lamp in his claws. Pete blinked upon the sudden emptiness in his hand.

"Nice one, Iago," Sora called, grinning. _Looks like he really meant it when he said he'd changed._

"Way to go!" Aladdin added.

"Don't drop it!" Char yelled.

"Look! Behind you!" Goofy suddenly shouted, for Pete and the peddler had given chase after the small parrot. Iago chanced a look back and squawked, darting out of the way just before the two hapless males crashed into the wall. The peddler collapsed to the ground, dizzy, but Pete merely extracted himself from the wall, ignoring the slight dent he'd made in it, and glowered at Iago. Ironically, an instant later, the bird hit the wall as well, sliding down to the ground while the lamp fell right at Pete's feet, much to everyone's dread.

Pete cackled as he bent down and picked up the lamp. "Nice try, bird brain!" he laughed. "Just wait till Jafar's free. He's gonna make one _beauty_ of a Heartless!" He dragged out the word 'beauty' as he leaned down to properly taunt Iago.

Sora summoned his Keyblade and ran at Pete with the others behind him, but they all stopped in their tracks when the ground began to shake. "What do you think…?" Char muttered to Sora, at the same time trying to keep her balance.

Sora shrugged tensely. "I just hope it's not another Heart – whoa!" he yelped, stumbling backward. Char instinctively reached out and caught him by the shoulders.

Then Aladdin cried out and pointed at the sky. The others followed his gaze just in time to see a light blue streak, practically invisible against the pristine ice-blue of the sky, crash into Pete, shouting something about being home and how it had been eons.

"Don't tell me…" Sora's words were filled with hopeful excitement.

"Genie!" Aladdin cried. (2)

"Al!" Genie clutched Pete closer, seemingly not having heard Aladdin. "You princely little muffin, you! Cosmic travel can get so lonely without a friend," he added, vanishing briefly only to reappear in a blaze of rose-colored smoke. "To think I left you forlorn and Genie-less… Oh, the _inhumanity!"_ he moaned theatrically, doing the disappear-reappear trick again and crying false tears. The others fought back bouts of laughter at how dizzy this was making Pete.

"Genie?" Aladdin tried again, snickering.

"Say, Al – you been putting on weight?" Genie inquired, inflating comically before disappearing and reappearing next to Pete. "Aw, of course, what am I saying? You're living at the _palace_ now!" He imitated Aladdin and Jasmine by creating a feminine copy of himself, much to the former's embarrassment.

"I can just picture it…" Genie sighed dreamily. Abruptly he straightened. "Say, am I being a pest? A big blue pest?"

"Genie!" Aladdin groaned, approaching from the side. Genie looked over to Aladdin, then back to Pete, and then to Aladdin again, bemusement making him frown. "Al!" he finally cried, practically throwing Pete to the ground and embracing Aladdin in a bear hug.

"Air, Genie," the young man choked out. "Air!"

"What was that?" Genie blinked. "Oh, yeah." He loosened his grip just a bit and looked around. "Donald! Goofy!" When his eyes landed on Char and Sora, his grin widened even more, if that was even possible. "Ooohh… Sora and… whatever your name is… sitting in a tree… K-I-S-S –"

"What?" Char realized as soon as the word escaped her lips that she was still supporting Sora by his shoulders. "Sorry," she grunted, pushing him gently away and avoiding his gaze. She told herself that the whole "blushing" thing was all in her mind. Honestly, before she'd met Sora, she used to blush relatively once every four or five years – yet in the past few weeks it was like the slightest thing set her face aflame.

Pete rose to a half-sitting position, his grogginess darkening into a furious expression as he fully took in what was going on. "I'll teach you to make a fool out of me!" he snarled, shaking his fist and getting clumsily to his feet. "Time for plan B! I'm finishing you mugs off right now!"

He brought his fist down hard on the ground. The ground began to tremble again, although this time substantially more violently than previously. One of the merchant's carts nearby broke apart as a spout of water shot up into the air, soon to be replaced by a royal-looking Heartless. It was mostly ice-blue in color, clad in a silver belt adorned with the Heartless insignia, and held a dark blue staff with a pale blue, wing-shaped piece at the top. The shrubs along the path leading to the palace gates exploded in three bursts of flame, and when the light from the combustion cleared away, there hovered a Heartless similar to the ice-colored one: except that this one's dominant color was crimson, the belt was gold, and its own staff was black with a lava-like piece at the top.

"Crap," Char muttered, stepping so that she was back to back with the others and her dual swords were at the ready. "We just can't catch a break today, can we?"

Immediately, the flame Heartless swung its staff in Sora's general direction; he parried the blow and delivered a flurry of attacks to its underbelly. He followed it up with an attack that knocked it up into the air, and it seemed to suddenly break apart into dozens of the lava-coated Heartless that they had seen in the Cave of Wonders.

"Good job, Sora; you finished that one off!" Aladdin grunted between words as he blocked a series of icicles thrown at him by the ice Heartless.

"I don't think so," Sora yelled back. He skirted carefully around one of the flaming circles that the group of smaller Heartless had created and focused on taking them all out. A single sweep of his Keyblade seemed to destroy them, but he still braced himself for the worst.

Sure enough, an instant later, the flame Heartless coalesced nearby, not too far from its ice counterpart. Char chanced a look at the flaming circles – circles that, strangely, seemed familiar to Sora, but when he tried to place it all he got was flaming crimson hair and an arrogant smile, so he left it alone – and she paled just a bit.

"Focus, Char!" Sora called at her, the question of her problem with fire going through his mind again. She shook herself as if letting his words sink in and gave a brisk nod in his direction. "Right!" she yelled, and threw herself at the ice Heartless.

The fire Heartless was already approaching, and as it shifted its form in a way that made its underbelly vulnerable, Sora suddenly had an idea. He put his Keyblade up toward the Heartless' body and concentrated, then, with a grunt of exertion that very nearly bordered on a snarl, he sent it around in a circle before throwing it toward the wall. It spun there, looking dizzy.

Seeing their chances, Goofy and Aladdin set upon the flame Heartless with their weapons – Goofy tossing his shield in a way that sliced through the hand holding the staff and that somehow brought it back to him without a trace of flame on it; and Aladdin delivering a series of well-placed blows to its large body. Its staff fell to the ground, shortening for some reason as it left the Heartless' hand.

"Donald! What are you doing?" Iago shrieked from the sidelines. Sure enough, the duck was charging toward the staff.

"Trying to make myself useful!" the mage snarled, picking it up and wincing, as though bracing himself for his feathered hand to be burned. When the impact didn't come, however, he held up the staff and concentrated; after a moment, a burst of lightning struck the flame Heartless down the middle and it crashed into the ground before becoming multiple Heartless again.

"Ha!" Donald shouted, waving the staff at where the Heartless had been.

"Great, duck boy," Char hissed through clenched teeth, fighting the urge to cry out at the wounds that the ice Heartless had sliced open along her arms. _Note to self: someday, get battle outfit with long sleeves…_ "Now can you focus on healing us so, I don't know, _we don't die?"_

"All right, all right," Donald grumbled, his triumph ebbing as he raised the staff: not without a look of slight wonder on his face. Char could understand that; she had honestly only expected the staff to be able to channel fire-related magic. She supposed that Donald wasn't the wizard of Disney Castle for no reason.

She breathed deeply through her nose and out through her mouth as the pain and dull ache throughout her arms and legs faded slightly. "Thanks," she murmured so that only she could hear it, and twisted in midair so that she could slash through the ice Heartless' body.

In her focusing on the ice Heartless, she had failed to notice that the fire Heartless had reformed itself again, and that it was creeping up behind her, fire gleaming on the edge of its body. "Char, look out!" Goofy yelled.

She turned just in time to see the near-blinding form starting to come down hard on her body, and swore loudly as she rolled out of the way. However, it didn't stop coming, and its body created at least four circles of flame around her before righting itself in midair. Staring down at the magma circles surrounding her, Char couldn't help but remember when she had taken that fireball for Sora, and it had hit her right in the leg and _oh gods it hurt, and it took her ages to recover and it had almost crippled her_ –

"Sora…" she choked out.

He glanced over at the sound of her voice and, seeing her immobilized there, unable to even leap across the circles of fire in her fear, Sora suddenly understood why she had balked so much at this world's fire-associated Heartless.

"Goofy!" he shouted, and when the dog looked over, Sora closed his eyes briefly in concentration, with no time to give the knight any more warning than that. A brief flash of light rent the air and Sora stood there, Hero's Crest and Star Seeker in hand, his black attire transformed to red, with Goofy gone.

Even as Aladdin's blade brought the fire Heartless to explode in a conflagration of flame, Sora leaped up high and, bringing his arms back, ripped the Keyblades through the ice Heartless. In a single blow, it fell to the ground, having had enough of the fight. It twisted about briefly before vanishing, twin glowing hearts soaring from its body up into the sky.

Immediately Sora raced to Char's side, only vaguely noticing the increase in speed that came with his transformation to Valor Form. "Donald, come on!" he called when he realized that he couldn't currently use magic.

"Right." Donald lifted the crimson staff and quadruple shards of ice fired out, obscuring the fire and putting it out in a sizzling hiss. Char's shoulders slumped just a bit and she stared at Sora, something almost like defiance on her face – something that asked whether he understood now.

He waited until she had made her swords vanish before a sudden impulse took over him and he rushed forward. Char had a moment's warning before his arms came around her and he was…

_…hugging her?_

_Again?_

"You okay?" he murmured into her hair.

Char blinked, her breathing suddenly more shallow than before and her heart pounding a rut into the inside of her ribs. _Stop it,_ she mentally commanded, and like the treacherous thing it was, it refused to obey. "Yeah," she answered, a little shakily. "Just… that was a little scary."

"You!" Pete bellowed, and Sora pulled back – taking his hands off of her, Char noted with a mixture of relief and… something else. "You've messed with me for the last time! I'm gonna get you yet!" he yelled over his shoulder, running off through the palace gates.

"All right!" Genie cheered, giving Aladdin a thumbs-up. Aladdin grinned in response and copied the gesture.

Sora tried to ignore the knowing smirks Donald and Goofy gave each other and chose instead to look at Donald's new staff. "Nice new weapon, Donald," the brunette commented.

Donald grinned smugly. "At least I won't be useless anymore."

"Thank the gods for that," Char couldn't help but say. "Now I won't have to fight with you looking even bitchier than usual."

"Hey!" Donald squawked.

They felt a gust of wind and noticed none other than the magic carpet, soaring around them in complicated loop-de-loops. "We could've used that earlier," Sora sighed.

"Well, too late now," Goofy pointed out, though he looked a bit in agreement with Sora.

"What's going on out here?" The feminine voice made them all turn to the palace gates, where Jasmine had emerged from. "I noticed you all fighting those dreadful creatures," she explained. When her eyes landed on Aladdin, though, she looked away. Aladdin blinked, as though Sora's words about Jasmine being worried about him were now justified.

"I've still got the lamp!" Iago cried, and dropped it into Aladdin's waiting hands.

"Oh, _no!"_ Genie shouted. "Jafar sent his little dodo back to get his lamp and –"

"Genie, relax," Aladdin laughed. "Iago's on our side now."

Iago gave a series of enthusiastic nods. "It's true!" he chirped. "And I promise – you won't regret giving me another chance, honest!"

Jasmine still looked a bit skeptical, but Genie shrugged. "Ah well," he said. "If Al trusts him then I shouldn't argue… _shouldn't…" _He glanced at Jasmine. "Uhhh… Princess Jasmine, are _you_ sure you want that pigeon in the coop?"

"I think he's shown that he means well," Jasmine said after a few moments.

"Aw, sure. You're probably right," Genie acquiesced.

"And how much trouble can one noisy bird cause?" Sora added.

"You just might have a point there, kid."

"So, Sora," Jasmine said, turning to the Keybearer. "What happens now?"

Sora shrugged. "It's been great seeing you all, but we have to get going to find Riku and the King." _And Kairi, too._

"But you all can't!" Jasmine protested. "My father is holding a ball at the palace tonight, and perhaps you all can come."

All four of them gave a start of surprise. "B-but… we kinda didn't bring anything to wear…" Sora blustered.

"Yeah," Aladdin added, although he himself seemed a bit excited at the thought of dancing with Jasmine. "And I don't want to have to borrow anything from you all…"

Jasmine waved a hand. "I'm sure we can work it out."

"Yeah, you never know what Yen Sid might've packed us in the Gummi ship," Donald pointed out.

"I guess," Sora murmured after a few moments of thought.

Char stared at him incredulously. "You're kidding, right? You're actually going with this?"

"Well, I assume you're still going with the whole 'follow us wherever we go' thing…" Donald taunted, and Char cringed when she realized he was right.

"C'mon; I'll have Chip and Dale bring our vessel around so we can look," Goofy urged.

Aladdin nodded, his enthusiasm escalating. "Yeah! I think that works!"

"You just want a chance to dance with Jasmine," Char sighed, causing both Agrabah natives to blush.

"Red's right there, you know," Genie said.

Char raised one eyebrow at him. "Don't call me that."

"Right-o, Red!" Genie chirped.

Char sighed. "Never mind."

* * *

Sunset currently garbed the sky in Destiny Island, causing the horizon along the sea to glow a beautiful gold. The clouds moving relatively steadily throughout the sky were stained a mixture of pink and orange-red, while the sun cast a golden glimmer on the island.

Kairi stood at the water's edge, staring out at the island and listening to the waves lap at the sand at her feet. Every once in a while she had to reach up and brush a lock of reddish-brown hair away from her face. Tears threatened to fill her violet eyes as she continued to look at the island.

Now that her memories of Sora had returned – gods, how could she have forgotten about him, when he meant so much to her? – all she wanted was to see him again: to play on that island with him and Riku; to look for materials for their raft; to forget about all these "other worlds" and how the darkness had taken her friends away from her. All she wanted was to return to her childhood.

"Maybe… waiting isn't good enough," she murmured.

"My thoughts exactly!" a feminine voice commented from nearby, and Kairi looked about before turning to the side. She spotted a long-haired brunette approaching her, who wore a strange white jacket adorned with black markings, along with golden elbow-length, fingerless gloves. At the brunette's side walked a tall, gangly young man, whose vibrant red hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. He himself wore a hooded black coat that touched the sand at his feet, and the tear-shaped markings on his cheekbones somehow set off his bright green eyes.

"If you've got a dream," the brunette went on, cocking an eyebrow, "don't wait. Act on it."

"It's one of life's little rules," the redhead added. "Got it memorized?"

Kairi watched the two of them carefully; something deep within her told her not to trust either of them. "Who are you?" she asked warily.

"Axel," the tall redhead answered smoothly. The brunette's response came a bit more sedately.

"Anxclof," she said evenly.

"We happen to be…" Axel put a gloved finger to his chin – _how strange,_ Kairi thought;_ who would wear dark gloves on a day like this? – _in thought, before continuing. "…_acquaintances_ of Sora's." He extended the same hand to her. "Why don't we go see him?"

"Sora?" Kairi's original opinion of these people shifted, just a bit. She hesitated. The thought of seeing _him_ again sent an unnatural flutter of excitement flowing through her, but at the same time she didn't want to trust either of them.

Then the sound of barking brought her to her senses, and she looked around in confusion; she hadn't seen anyone bring a dog out to the beach…

A yellow dog wearing a bright green collar scampered up to her and barked again in greeting, spinning around before coming to a stop and giving her a dog grin.

"Damn it," Axel hissed. "I didn't think the King's dog had followed me here."

"That's _Mickey's_ dog?" Anxclof muttered back, a sense of annoyance and dread beginning to slowly spread throughout her body and warm her blood.

"Yeah, he was somehow in the World That Never Was when I left. He must have gotten through that dark portal at the last second."

"You couldn't have made sure he hadn't followed?!"

"Oh, like I'm supposed to monitor my portals at all times!" Axel half-shouted, half-whispered. He straightened from where he had had to lean down to speak to her and sighed, shaking his head. "Oh, well. Guess we have to go to Plan B."

He snapped his fingers, and just like that, Dusks appeared around Kairi and Pluto, their lithe forms blocking off any form of escape. Kairi looked around, anxiety and anger intertwining across her countenance, while Pluto stepped protectively closer to her side, growling threateningly at the Dusks.

A dark portal appeared close to the circle of lesser Nobodies, and Pluto began barking, looking from the portal back to Kairi: almost as though he wanted her to go through it.

"We all have something in common, Kairi," Axel said silkily, locking his green eyes with Kairi's violet-blue orbs. "We miss someone we care about. Hey… I feel like we're friends already."

For a moment, she glared evenly back at him, and Anxclof almost wanted to smile: _almost._ Because no one, not even Marluxia, who had ruled Castle Oblivion before Sora had swept it clear of Nobodies, or Xemnas himself, dared to glower at the Flurry of Dancing Flames for longer than a split second.

Then Anxclof raised a hand, and an Avenger appeared, its single blade held close to Kairi's body. "We're all after the same thing here; why can't we just help each other?" Anxclof asked, only half joking.

Kairi pulled away from the circle of Nobodies and ran toward the portal, into which Pluto had already vanished. "You're not acting very friendly!" she shouted, and ran right into the portal…

…which, of course, promptly dissolved.

Anxclof huffed out a sigh, dropping the polite façade. She had never been that good an actress anyway. "Good job, idiot. You ran her off."

"You were the one that had to go all the way and put that Avenger at her neck," Axel snapped, angrily reaching up and pulling the hair tie out of his hair. As his spiky locks fell freely around his face, he snarled deep in his throat and used his power. With a single fireball that briefly illuminated his face, he had incinerated the hair tie right in his hand. "Damn it. I thought for sure…"

"She's less naïve than she seems," Anxclof murmured, unshaken by his use of his power. "I guess she's not one of the Princesses of Heart for nothing, huh?"  
"Princess of Heart, my ass," Axel spat. "That didn't go anything like I thought it would."

"So what if it didn't?" Anxclof's temper was roused at the tone of his voice. "So you left your precious haven in the World That Never Was for nothing. So you might get in trouble with the dear Superior. _So what?"_

"So we still don't have Roxas!" Axel shouted, and twin flames exploded in his hands with his anger. "That's _so what!"_ He raised his voice a few octaves on the last two words.

Anxclof stared at him, her chest heaving with ire. It occurred to her, dimly, that Axel was her friend too and she should trust him if she wanted her other friend… Yet the majority of her mind told her that with Roxas' merging with Sora, the friendship would never be restored to what it used to be, that even if she succeeded in bringing Roxas back, things would never be the same.

"Screw this," she whispered. "I just want Roxas back."

"You think I don't?" Axel hissed. "He was my friend too, Anx."

His words struck something deep within her: something that had been lying dormant since her time in Twilight Town. And she trembled just a bit at that feeling.

She gnawed her lip and blinked rapidly, trying hard to keep back the tears suddenly growing in her eyes. _Damn it,_ she hissed mentally, _don't cry don't cry don't cry don't –_

A single tear landed on the sand.

"I know," she whimpered. "Gods, I know."

Axel stared at her, mouth slightly open with how he was breathing. For a moment, the strange urge to gather her up in his arms and let her cry on his shoulder went through him, but just as quickly, it was gone. (3)

He turned away, and as he did so, Anxclof opened up a portal of darkness. Still biting her lip, hand over her mouth, acutely aware of her nose running, she dashed into the portal, leaving Axel standing there on the sand.

* * *

It was official. Char hated dresses.

It wasn't as though she had never dressed up back in Hollow Bastion. Occasionally, her master would allow her and her fellow apprentices to attend holiday gatherings, during which Braig and Dilan would always dig up some sort of dress for her; because while with the other six being _male,_ it was never hard to find a tuxedo or a suit, her being the only female made it difficult to find appropriate attire for herself.

Still, though, even then she had been with people she knew, people she had known for practically her whole life; even despite Braig's lecherous grin and perverted comments and Ienzo's blushes and stuttered offers to dance with her, she had enjoyed going out with her friends. Times like those had been so few and far between that she had always welcomed the brief interlude.

Now, though, she stood just inside the Gummi ship, nervous as hell and with a nauseating feeling of anxiety pooling in the pit of her stomach. Outside, the moon was just peeking over the lowest towers of Agrabah's palace – waning crescent, she noted – and from where Chip and Dale had parked the vessel, she could see people mooning about in the courtyard in front of the castle gates. Aladdin and Jasmine stood close to the window, awkwardly silent and refusing to look at each other, blushes visible in the dying sunlight. Char felt a smirk curl her lips at that.

For perhaps the hundredth time since she had finished getting ready, which she had done about three hours ago, she checked herself in the mirror. She just hoped the sight of her hair up in the tidy bun she had always used for research missions in Hollow Bastion didn't surprise her companions too much. Before, she had put her hair up just to get it out of her eyes, but now, she figured, she might as well use it now. A few extra pieces of crimson hair lay tucked behind her ears, and she had unearthed a necklace with a diamond-shaped silver charm at the end of it to wear around her neck. As for the dress – which had, conveniently, been lying in one of the Gummi ship drawers, along with a tuxedo for Sora; Donald had commented as to the psychic abilities of Yen Sid at that – it was a simple sleeveless, blue dress that, thankfully, didn't show too much in the chest area. Char felt her cheeks redden just a bit at that thought.

"I think you look great, Char!" Dale chirped from where he and Chip were monitoring the Gummi ship controls.

"Go out there and knock 'em out!" Chip added.

Char couldn't help but grin at the irony of it all: she, Char Nightblaze, being reassured by a couple of _chipmunks._ "Thanks, guys," she answered.

Steeling herself, she pressed the button for the hatch to open. It obeyed her unspoken command, and she took a careful step down onto the ramp.

Fortunately, it didn't play out like one of those cheesy romance novels Even had always frantically denied reading: no one turned to watch her as she made her dramatic entrance, and no men found their eyes caught on her in particular. For the most part, she got out to the courtyard without much of a problem, except that she had nearly tripped over the hem of the dress while walking back to solid ground.

She straightened quickly and glanced around. Of course, she didn't recognize anyone there, and the question as to Sora's whereabouts passed briefly through her mind.

_If only Riku and DiZ could see me now,_ she thought dryly, chuckling to herself.

"Char!"

The hoarse voice that greeted her made her turn. Donald and Goofy, looking dashing in their own animal-like ways, approached her, clad in a small tuxedo and suit, respectively; Goofy's typical hat had been replaced by a top hat. At their side fluttered Iago.

"Looking good!" the parrot complimented.

"Yup," Goofy agreed, and Donald gave a grudging murmur of acquiescence.

Char raised one eyebrow. "Thanks, duck boy. Really feeling the love here." She glanced around. "Where are Aladdin and Jasmine? I just saw them a while ago."

"They went to go talk to the sultan," Iago explained.

Goofy noticed her still surveying the area and knew who she was really looking for. "I think I saw Sora goin' out into town earlier," the knight informed her. "He needed to ask the peddler about somethin'."

Char tilted her head to the side, wondering why anyone would willingly go talk to that greedy little midget. "Okay," she answered, already making her way to the marketplace.

As soon as she had left the palace behind her, she allowed herself to breathe a little more deeply. It was clear that she felt much more comfortable out here in the open air, where people didn't eye her strangely or like she was a piece of candy they were about to devour alive.

The marketplace was also empty – almost eerily so, to the point where Char could practically hear the light breeze brushing against her body and causing the hem of her dress to sweep slightly outward. Nearby, however, she heard voices: voices coming from the peddler's shop.

She walked closer and pressed her ear against the curtain. What she heard made her barely suppress a gasp.

"…ever have a customer named… Roxas?"

_Roxas._

Immediately she turned away from the doorway and pressed herself against the adjacent wall instead, her heart pounding faster than ever before. How did he know about Roxas? She knew that when Roxas had been in Twilight Town, his memories of Sora had been returning due to DiZ's influence, but she never would have guessed that the same would be true for Sora; that he would be regaining memories of his Nobody…

This sent every bit of research she had ever done on the heart thrown out of balance. This was… something different.

_Or maybe he's just different… because he wields the Keyblade?_

If that were the case, then would Anxclof's Other experience the exact same thing if or when she merged with her?

Char was so caught up in her shock that she nearly missed the peddler's response, but at the sound of his avarice-coated simper she listened more closely.

"I might tell you… for a price."

An irritated sigh came from inside, and a grin flickered across Char's countenance when the peddler suddenly yelped, "All right, all right! Yes, a boy named Roxas did come here a while back." Sora must have held his Keyblade to the peddler's throat, a strange gesture for the Keybearer. Char figured that these visions of Roxas had been plaguing Sora for a while now, and that he would try to get his hands on any sort of information he could get.

"Did he have anyone with him?" Sora urged.

"Hmm…" The peddler hesitated, then squealed and cried, "Yes, yes, he did! He had a young woman and an older man with him! Now please, take your blade away from me!"

There was a brief moment of silence from inside, and then Sora sighed. "I'm sorry. That's all I wanted to know. Thanks for your time. And I really am sorry."

And then the next thing she knew she found herself face to face with a tuxedo-clad Sora.

In his time in the peddler's shop, Sora's annoyance had been growing at the peddler's greed and lack of a response; that annoyance increased on the spot when he realized that, were it not for his sudden feeling of guilt at his methods, he probably would have gotten so much more information from the peddler.

And then he left the shop, and he found himself face to face with a dress-clad Char, and every thought of Roxas and the peddler and everything else flew completely out of his mind.

As Sora took in the way she had done her hair, and the pale blue dress that somehow set off her eyes, for a few moments, he forgot to breathe, because never before had Char approached him and seemed so…

"Wow," was all he could say. "You look…" (4)

Char cocked an eyebrow, folding her arms across her chest, and sighed. "Sora, please don't be clichéd. You look pretty dashing yourself."

Yep. That was still Char in there. Sora felt vaguely disappointed, but then he saw the faint dapple of red across her cheeks that was just barely visible in the fading light and knew that his compliment hadn't been totally lost.

For a moment a strange surge of _panic_ went through Char, fear that she had said the wrong thing; but then she saw him smile and relaxed.

"Dork," she muttered, and grinned at his pout.

"Do you want to go back to the courtyard?" he asked.

Char winced visibly. "Er, not really… There are too many people there… Yes, I know you want to see Aladdin and Jasmine," she added irritably at the look on his face. "I… I _guess_ we could go back, for a little bit."

"Good!" Sora smiled and grabbed her wrist.

"Wait, wait, wait," she yelled as he led her back to the palace courtyard. "I can't walk too fast in this stupid dress; I'll trip over the hem! Slow down, Key-boy!"

"Sorry," he quickly apologized, and slowed his pace.

They came closer to the rest of the party and saw something that had definitely not been going on earlier. Music had started to play from inside the palace: classical, slow-tempo music. Char cast her eyes about and spotted Aladdin and Jasmine by the aqua-green of the latter's dress; the two of them were slowly moving to the music, with Jasmine's head against Aladdin's shoulder.

"Guess they finally made up," the redhead commented.

Sora followed her gaze to the couple. "What do you mean by that?"

Char shrugged. "Earlier they were trying not to look at each other and avoiding each other like the plague."

"Oh." Sora chuckled, watching the two of them. As he looked on, a vision of himself and Kairi began to slowly replace Aladdin and Jasmine, dancing with their bodies close together and in a tight embrace. Sora's smile began to fade as a pang of heartache went through him. For this entire journey he had been trying to avoid the thought of Riku and Kairi and how much he missed them – not just them, but Tidus and Selphie and Wakka and his mother; his home, his island.

He glanced at Char and, to his surprise, an identical expression of wistfulness had taken over her own countenance. For the first time he noticed that he had never let go of her wrist.

He wasn't sure what possessed him then, but he had to ask anyway.

"Do you want to dance?"

Char looked over, brow furrowed. "What?"

"I'm sorry," Sora hastened to amend. "I just, I thought since everyone else is –"

"No, seriously, what? I didn't catch a word of that."

Sora blinked and nearly groaned aloud. Great, now he was going to have to repeat himself.

"I said…" He hesitated. "Do you want to dance?"

Char's frown deepened. "I don't dance," she stated flatly.

Something told Sora to just leave the matter at that, but something else told him not to leave it alone. "Neither can I!" he pointed out. "I mean, I learned how, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed it…" He blushed slightly at the memory of how many times he had stepped on Kairi and Selphie's feet while learning how to properly dance.

"Anyway," he quickly continued, "at least if you look stupid, I will, too."

"So looking stupid isn't as bad if you have someone to look stupid _with?"_ Sora could have sworn that Char's eyebrows had nearly hit her hairline by now.

He looked back and noticed that a new song was starting; that a few couples were leaving the courtyard and heading into the palace.

"Come on," he urged more quietly, meeting her eyes. Since they were about the same height, it wasn't too awkward for him; aside from the whole looking-Char-in-the-eye thing, of course. "Just one song."

"All right, all right!" she growled at once, grabbing his hand. "If it'll make you shut up!"

She led him out to a relatively empty spot, just in case either of them screwed it up. Carefully, she rested her free hand on his shoulder, and tried not to shudder at the way his hand came to tentatively sit on her waist.

She anticipated an absolute bloodbath, but to her own shock, it… wasn't. As the song played on – a soft little melody that rose to a crescendo every once in a while, but not to the point of surpassing the slow-dance limit – she realized that the way her heart was pounding wasn't from nerves or disgust, but… _contentment._

And yes, he truly was as bad of a dancer as he had said; but he let her lead, so he only ended up stepping on her foot once. As the song played on, still unnaturally long but not uncomfortably so, she steeled herself and came to put her head against his shoulder.

As for Sora, he was absolutely certain that she could hear his heart screaming against his chest, and he was absolutely certain that his hands were clammy with nervousness, but strangely, he didn't care. The fact that Char had allowed him to do this at all was still making his head reel, but aside from that it felt… sort of _right_ to hold her like this. He tried to banish the thought from his mind, but it wouldn't go away, and after a little while, he stopped trying to make it go away.

Before they knew it, the song had ended, and Aladdin and Jasmine were parting from each other, and other couples were going inside, but Char and Sora remained there. Char hesitated; she had already removed her hand from his shoulder, and he had taken his hand off her waist, but they were still grasping hands.

Then his eyes slipped half closed and he started leaning forward, and Char's pulse suddenly spiked further than ever. Her mind shut down, seemingly only able to think the thought _oh gods, he's going to kiss me._

His head slumped onto her shoulder and she heard a faint snoring noise coming from him. She narrowed her eyes, strangely half relieved. _Of course._

"Sora?" she muttered, pushing his shoulder. "Sora?"

"He's tired," Aladdin said, coming to stand next to them. Char looked over and saw that his fingers were entwined with Jasmine's. "It's… kinda been a long day."

"Yeah," Char grunted in response. "But I refuse to carry him back to the ship."

"It's fine," Jasmine said, delicately putting one hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle. "Donald and Goofy will probably help carry him to his room."

"Hey!" Goofy's voice from nearby heralded the arrival of the two Disney Castle residents.

"What was that about carrying Sora?" Donald narrowed his eyes.

"The idiot fell asleep on me," Char explained, awkwardly pointing at the way Sora's head was still resting against her body. She shivered just a bit at the way his warm breath kept puffing against her collarbone, but tried to keep the action hidden from everyone else. "I think we should all turn in for the night."

"Yeah, we already locked up Jafar's lamp, so things should be fine around here," Aladdin said.

"Bye, everyone!" Goofy waved enthusiastically as they leveled Sora's body so he lay between the knight and Char's arms.

Char narrowed her eyes at Donald. "And you don't have to help… why?"

"Because I'm not tall enough," the mage answered rather smugly.

"Calm down, you two!" Goofy laughed nervously at the way Char and Donald were eyeing each other.

"Whatever," Char grumbled. "We'll set off again in the morning, then, I'm guessing?"

"Yup," Goofy nodded. "Sora already opened the gate."

"Really?" Char raised her eyebrows. "I missed that one."

"Probably because you were in the Gummi ship getting ready," Donald snorted.

"You know what, maybe I was!"

As night fell upon Agrabah, the memory of the dance with Sora ran through Char's mind again, and how she had felt when she had thought he was going to kiss her. Looking back, the notion was idiotic; why would Sora – the Keyblade-wielding, brown-haired, Kairi-chasing, dorky Sora – want to kiss her? Still, though, the thought made her just the tiniest bit excited.

_Do I like him?_ she asked herself, and was ashamed to admit that she had no straight answer for that one.

* * *

-cough-Yes-cough-  
Char: -_- -slaps-

(1) Credit for this little line goes to Yuri Lowell, the best Tales hero in the history of Tales heroes.

(2) Many apologies for any OOC for Genie from here on. For some reason, I have a really hard time writing him.

(3) Damn it, I kind of want to ship AxelAnxclof because of this part. D:

(4) ...beautiful? Go ahead, Sora, you can say it. XD


	42. Chapter XLII

And in this chapter we start one of my favorite parts of the game! -singing- Boys and girls of every age, would you like to see something strange? Come with us and you will see, this our town of Halloween -  
Everyone: GET ON WITH IT!  
Me: -covers ears and winces- Okay, okay. Geez. Monty Python references much? Well, anywhozer, this chapter is a mix of RikuChar flashbacks, FalconCopperhead flashbacks, and actual material from KH2. So, enjoy!

But first: -throws confetti- ONE HUNDRED REVIEWS, BITCHES! -happy dance-

**_Disclaimer-_** Unfortunately, I don't own KH2. -sobs- THANKS FOR REMINDING ME, GAIZE!

* * *

"_Riku!"_

_The young man turns at the sound of his name and sighs, folding his arms across his black-clad chest as he halts in his tracks to let the girl behind him catch up. "Would you not walk so fast?" the redhead growls, half breathless from trying to keep up with him. _"Some_ of us have trouble walking over the hem of this stupid coat, you know."_

_"Well, I've had to wear this coat longer, so it's only natural that I'm more used to it than you are," Riku points out, a smirk flitting across his face when she narrows her eyes in response. "I just don't like this place," he mutters after a moment, lifting his gaze to the gold-streaked, sunset-clothed sky. Silvery hair flutters in the light breeze as his turquoise eyes watch the clouds._

_The redhead's glower softens just a bit. "Because it's where Roxas is?"_

"Yeah," Riku answers. He hesitates, searching for the right way to word his emotions. "I think of Sora every time DiZ shows Roxas to us on the computer… and I can't help but feel like what we're doing is wrong."

_"Bringing your friend back? Getting revenge on the Organization for what they did to us?" Char queried, raising one skeptical eyebrow. _

_"Of course I don't object to _that_ part," Riku amends at once. His gaze switches briefly to their surroundings, and Char can't help but notice the shadow of a smile that appears on his face. _Is he thinking of the old days, on the island with Sora and Kairi?_ she wonders._

_But just as quickly, the expression is gone, so Char can't really be sure. _

_"I guess it's just the way we're going about it," Riku answers at last, and Char nearly flinches, because he's hit the mark of her own feelings as well._

* * *

"_Hey, Master…"_

_The redhead's characteristically boisterous voice sounds cut down as she enters the basement of the mansion. She hates this part of the building: where it's all too easy to lose oneself in the sounds of the beeping of the computers; where it's all too obvious that a copy of this place lies just beyond a flash of a beam and a flick of a switch. _

_DiZ doesn't even look to acknowledge her presence, so fixated is he on the computer screens before him. "Where is Riku?"_

"How should I know?" Char sighs, coming over to stand beside her master. Staring down at him, at the older man's form positioned in the chair, at his single visible amber eye focused on Sora's progress, it hits her: how far her master has fallen from the man she respected so much.

_"The two of you are always together," DiZ points out, and Char holds her breath, waiting for more, but thankfully he leaves it at that. A glove-clad finger raises and presses against one of the smaller screens, a screen that, despite its mediocre size, holds the most important goal of all: the monitoring of Sora's progress. "You see this? It means we are getting closer to merging Roxas and Sora."_

_Char hesitates, doesn't really know what to say, so she just utters a murmur of "that's great" and falls silent. After a moment, DiZ turns around fully in his chair and appraises her with his piercing orange eye._

_"Charisa," he says seriously, using her full name like he always does when he has something to say. And like she always has in response to this, Char straightens and listens up, because he never uses her full name unless it's important. "I have known you long enough to realize that all is not well with you."_

_"Why did you call him 'Riku', when you know what he's _supposed_ to be known as now?" Char fires back almost instantly. Without another word, she turns on her heel and flees the room, hating the way her vision is suddenly blurry._

* * *

He promised me, _she thinks to herself. _He promised he wouldn't give in to the darkness.

* * *

The first thing Sora knew when he woke up was that his limbs were strangely stiff. He shifted about, still caught between that world between sleep and the waking world; after a moment of inward self-debate, he forced his eyes open.

The memories of last night in Agrabah swirled together in his mind, making it almost impossible to remember everything. He laboriously pushed himself up to a sitting position, one hand running through his hair and causing him to wince as he hit a tangle in his unruly brown spikes.

And then he realized why his arms and legs were so unwilling to respond: he was still wearing the tuxedo that had, strangely, been conveniently waiting in a drawer in the Gummi ship.

Abruptly, the memories of the ball came flowing back to him with the force of a crashing river: talking to the peddler; becoming so desperate for answers regarding his vision of Roxas that he had pointed his Keyblade at the man's throat; seeing Char in that amazing dress… Sora inhaled just a bit too sharply at the thought of the dance that had followed afterward, and immediately wanted to hit himself. _It's fine to _think_ that someone is cute,_ he told himself, remembering something his mother had told him. _It doesn't mean you're in love with her or anything._

The self-reproach intensified when he realized what must have happened. "Oh, geez…" he groaned, slumping back onto the pillows and clapping one hand over his eyes. _Good job, Sora – you go and ask her to dance and then you fall asleep on her? Some "hero of the worlds"…_ He closed his eyes and sighed. "If she doesn't want to kill me the next time I see her…" he murmured, voice trailing off.

A brisk knocking at the door sounded abruptly, causing him to sit up and blink a little dizzily at the feeling he'd gotten from moving too suddenly. "Hey, Sora." It was Donald's unmistakable quack, greeting him from outside his room. "We're making breakfast and if you don't want the big lug to eat all your pancakes then you'd better come out here."

"Gee, Donald, I didn't say I'd be eatin' _that_ many…" Goofy's sheepish remark made Sora laugh under his breath. The brunette could already feel his spirits begin to lift. When he'd first met Donald and Goofy, he had felt like he was betraying Riku and Kairi in becoming friends with them, but the trio had been through so much since all of this had started that it had been impossible _not_ to become close friends.

"I'm coming!" the Keybearer shouted. "Just lemme get dressed, okay?"

He carefully discarded the tuxedo in favor of his normal dark attire, finished up by placing the crown necklace in its usual spot around his neck, and headed outside. The scent of pancakes wafted out to greet him and he sighed in pleased anticipation of breakfast.

"'Morning, Key-boy," a feminine voice called from one of the chairs at the table.

Shockingly, Char's voice seemed totally devoid of the anger he'd expected from her; but he still hesitated before turning to meet her gaze. He stared at her for a few moments, searching for some trace of lingering resentment for the night before, but before he could open his mouth to speak she sighed irritably. "Sit down," she urged, nodding toward the chair across from her. "Unless, of course, you like to eat standing up."

"I didn't say that!" Sora protested instinctively, taking the offered seat. "I just…" He paused and glanced over at Donald and Goofy; the mage was monitoring the pancakes, while Goofy was gathering syrup and whatnot.

Looking back to Char's expectant eyes, he leaned across the table with his hands on either side of his body so he could lower his voice and still have her hear him. "About last night…" he whispered, suddenly unable to meet her gaze for fear that he would see a glower in her icy orbs.

Char sighed quietly: and, Sora thought, a little wearily. "Don't worry about it. We had kind of a long day yesterday; it's only natural that you were tired."

"But right after…" Sora's voice faded as something hit him. "Wait, did you guys bring me back to my room? Is that why I was still wearing that tuxedo when I woke up?"

"Duh," Char whispered, casting a furtive look over her shoulder; seeming to hesitate for just an instant before bluntly stating her explanation. "You fell asleep on me and then we carried you back. Is _that_ what you wanted to hear?"

Sora gave a little grunt of surprise; he had thought that he'd felt something disturbingly warm just before he had yielded to sleep's temptation, but he never assumed that his previous thought about "falling asleep on her" was all too literal. "I'm sorry, I didn't –"

"And just what are you two whispering about?" Donald interrupted, teasing smugness clear in his voice. The two of them glanced up to see Goofy standing behind the duck, holding a large plate heaped with pancakes in one hand and four smaller plates in the other.

Not quite knowing how to respond, Sora opened his mouth, but Char beat him to it. "Nothing you need to know about, duck boy," she answered coolly, reaching out with one hand and taking the top plate off of Goofy's stack.

Donald growled at the nickname, while Goofy just laughed a bit nervously and said, "Er… breakfast time?"

* * *

"_Falcon!"_

_She stops in her tracks, allowing an irritated sigh to hiss out of her. Without turning around, she folds her arms, the charm on the end of the Azure Ice's chain dangling from her fingers. "Can't you leave me alone?"_

_"What can I say; I'm just drawn to you," Copperhead answers smoothly, voice sounding from just a bit too close behind her. She whirls around, eyes partly narrowed, and he chuckles; takes advantage of her moment of surprise to speak. _

_"So hey, listen. Have you been getting some kind of Keyblade training in?" the young man questions, his tone of playfulness hardening into a serious sense of urgency. "I mean…" He casts his violet eyes around, making sure that no one else can hear, before returning them to her. For some strange reason she nearly shrinks under the intensity of his gaze, and hates herself for it. Hell, she tries to reassure herself, no wonder he has so many fan-girls; he does have really nice…_

_Dammit, no, what am I saying?!_

_Falcon almost misses Copperhead's words in her furious, mental self-reproach, but she does catch it just as the anger at those thoughts begins to ebb. "In historical accounts of people with Keyblades, those Keyblades almost always came to their wielders right before calamity struck their world."_

_Falcon blinks. Huh. So he does occasionally listen in history class._

_Part of her just wants to dismiss his words as nonsense, that history doesn't always repeat itself and that there's nothing wrong. But at the same time, she acknowledges the truth behind his words: because why else would the Azure Ice have picked now to come to her?_

_"And also…" Copperhead does something strange then: he hesitates, actually averts his gaze nervously before returning it to her and running a hand through his unbound hair. "I wanted to know if you wanted to come hang out at my house this weekend."_

_Falcon stares at him, temporarily rendered speechless by his request. For a brief moment she considers saying no and walking off with a point against his pride, but his intentions don't seem too lecherous to her. _

_"Just for sparring and stuff, I mean," Copperhead quickly amends._

_Falcon's eyes widen a fraction. "I didn't know you knew the sword."_

_"I don't, actually," he admits, and her surprise turns to brief anger at the thought that he's lied to her: brief because of his next words. "I've kinda known how to use a scythe for a while now."_

_That little comment causes her to instinctively roll her eyes. Leave it to Copperhead to attempt to obtain the "grim reaper" image._

_"I guess it depends on what my parents say," she finally mutters, and immediately wants to snatch the words back again. Had she just agreed to spend part of her hard-earned weekend sparring with the boy who had personally made the past ten years of her life a living hell?!_

_Then again, she thinks dryly, desperate times call for desperate measures._

_Copperhead brightens – actually, "brightens" is an understatement; his entire face seems to light up at her decision. "Seriously? That's great! I live with my older brother, so that won't be a problem," he hastily explains at the look on Falcon's face. "All right! I'll see you at… noon-ish on Saturday, I guess?" Thank the gods, his excitement calms just a bit as he speaks the last sentence._

_"Guess so," she mumbles, secretly horrified._

_

* * *

_

_"You must be the Falcon I've heard so much about!"_

_Great. It's like the first day of first grade all over again. Falcon nods and confirms the chirped inquiry of Copperhead's older brother, wondering vaguely exactly how much that pervert has said about least it's clear where Copperhead gets his enthusiasm from – Falcon's never known his parents, but she's heard that they disappeared not long after he was born; either way, she doesn't know what kind of people his parents were. At the very least, however, being raised by his older brother has definitely left its mark on Copperhead's behavior. She's only just been welcomed into his house and she already knows the influence his older brother has had._

_"I'm Dyme," the young man introduces, brushing a strand of hair that's strayed from his dirty-blond mullet out of his eyes. He grins abruptly and sweeps out one arm. "Well, geez, don't just stand out there all day! Come on in!"_

_"Dyme, don't scare her anymore," sighs a voice from beyond Dyme's slender frame. And there he is: long-haired, violet-eyed, and looking just a bit put out by his brother's actions. Falcon can't hold back a small giggle; while Dyme and Copperhead aren't related by a father-son relationship, it can't be clearer that that's how it is._

_"Aww, is the knight in shining armor here to rescue his princess from his big bad evil brother?" Dyme teases, causing completely unjustified heat to rise to Falcon's cheeks and Copperhead to roll his eyes. Before she can formulate a response as to the contrary, the brunette nearly chokes at Copperhead's sardonic response._

_"That's exactly what I'm doing. Now can you be slain already so we can talk?"_

_He grabs her arm and drags her up the stairs, with her staring stupidly at the hand grasping her wrist."Sorry about my brother," Copperhead says, a smirk currently covering his countenance._

_"He's definitely a handful," Falcon laughs. "I got in here and he was practically all over me." She restrains the mighty urge to ask what exactly Copperhead has been telling Dyme about her._

_Copperhead chuckles, then as his laughter subsides, he sighs and looks away. "I remember he wasn't always like that," he murmurs. "After our parents left, he cheered up so much… At first I thought he was betraying our parents' memory, but now I know he's just trying to make up for their absence."_

_"Left?" Falcon tilts her head to the side. "I heard they just up and vanished."_

_She flinches at the brief anger that flares in Copperhead's eyes as he jerks his head up to stare at her. She considers taking the words back, knowing that some things are meant to be unsaid, but then he folds his arms and shakes his head. "Rumors," he mutters, only partly amused. "Don't believe a word you hear, Falcon."_

_Their eyes meet for a few moments, and that weird fluttering feeling returns to her stomach at the way those dark purple orbs are focused on hers. "W-wasn't today for sparring?" she asks quickly, trying to dispel the feeling._

_Copperhead's face lights up in realization. "Oh, yeah! Go ahead and summon your Keyblade; I have to go get my scythe. Aw, don't worry, I'm not gonna cut you open," he adds, grinning at the look of nervous anticipation on her face._

_Falcon narrows her eyes. "What's so funny?" she demands._

_But he just grins even more impossibly widely and disappears._

_

* * *

_

_Just before the sweet embrace of sleep takes Falcon – for the sparring had gone on all afternoon with the two of them only stopping for dinner, which Falcon had to cook due to Copperhead and Dyme's general ineptitude at the task – she sees Dyme approaching with a blanket in hand; feels the heat of Copperhead's lithe form and a lock of his dark blond hair tickling the side of her neck; and she has just an instant to wonder where the little brat who hated her so much disappeared to before she loses consciousness entirely._

_

* * *

_

"So, have any new worlds appeared on the map yet?" Char asked as she settled in the seat next to the pilot's chair.

The three of them had to blink at Char's question; Sora in particular felt surprised at her sudden enthusiasm. He wondered secretly what had happened to the young woman he'd met just a few weeks ago, the Char who had balked at the idea of fighting for Sora or his friends' sake and had stubbornly kept to herself.

"Is it that shocking that I'm showing some interest?" Char rolled her eyes. "I'm just curious. Your friends and the King could be in any of these worlds, after all."

Sora, Donald, and Goofy exchanged a glance, then Donald faced her, as if conceding the point, and answered her question, if not with a bemused look on his feathered face. "I thought I saw Halloween Town on the radar," he confessed, glancing to Sora and Goofy. He approached the control panel and typed a few things in; after a few moments, the map appeared. Sure enough, a globe resembling a jack-o'-lantern was visible, right next to the lamp-like world, which, Sora guessed, represented Agrabah. "Should we head there first?"

Goofy nodded once in consent, while Sora grinned. "Yeah; I love that place!"

"Why, because you got to walk around with a pumpkin mask on?" Char snorted.

"No!" Sora pouted, and Donald and Goofy snickered. Yet the Keybearer had spoken truthfully; Halloween Town had had a sort of charm about it the last time he had been there, even if every other specter that appeared had caused Sora to jump and cry out in surprise. He didn't care what Donald said; he hadn't sounded too feminine when he did that, although compared to what the past infuriatingly-blank year's puberty had done to his voice, Sora had to agree just a bit with Donald.

Then a frown creased his brows as he realized something. "Wait, Char, how did you know that my Halloween Town costume came with a pumpkin mask?"

"Hey, yeah! You weren't there!" Donald gave the redhead a suspicious glare.

A small shadow of fear flitted across her eyes, but it was gone so quickly that Sora couldn't be sure he had even seen it. "I guess you forgot that you told me about your time in that world, then," she said, shaking her head at Sora's forgetfulness.

Sora opened his mouth, fully ready to insist on his point, but then he caught the urgency in her eyes and decided to leave the matter alone. "Well, I don't remember, but I guess I must've brought it up at some point if you know," he said, unable to keep back a bit of dubiousness from his voice.

"Gee, d'you think our Halloween Town outfits are in the Gummi ship?" Goofy asked, tilting his head to the side.

"I guess if that dress and suit were here right when we needed them, then Yen Sid probably put our Halloween Town costumes in a drawer somewhere…" Even as he spoke, Sora was already casting his eyes about.

"Here!" Donald called from close by, standing on tiptoe with his arm fully extended, nearly causing him to hang off of the drawer he had just opened.

"Thanks, Donald," Sora said, smiling as he walked over to the mage. He managed to hold back a fit of laughter at the sight of the duck, though some of his amusement did escape in the form of a snicker. "You can let go of that now."

Donald promptly let go of the drawer handle, falling to the ground in a way that caused him to grunt out a quack of slight pain, as Sora dug around in the drawer for their respective costumes. His lips quirked upward in triumph when he found the magic-laden garments of Donald and Goofy – the outfit that caused the former to look mummified, and the costume that made the latter look almost zombie-like. The last time they had visited Halloween Town, Donald had created the clothing with a wave of his wand so that they would fit in more with the world's inhabitants; now, it seemed, Yen Sid had somehow created replicas of those outfits. It was fortunate, Sora thought, because they still weren't certain of the effect that Donald's new staff would have on casting other types of magic.

"Hey, Yen Sid even made an outfit for you, Char," Goofy commented to the redhead.

"Oh, great," Char sighed. "Some gothic Lolita getup, I'm sure."

"Uh… what?" The trio blinked.

"Never mind."

The four of them donned their respective costumes; Sora was just fitting the pumpkin mask over his right eye and getting used to the limited perspective that it offered when Char spoke, breaking the silence. "Do you guys know about the worlds within Halloween Town?"

"Of course," Donald said, belligerently glaring at her in a way that was somehow set off by his now-mummy-like appearance. "Valentine Town, Thanksgiving Town, St. Patrick's Town…"

"Wait, seriously?" Sora asked, surprised. "How is that possible?"

"Hell if I know." Char shrugged her now-bare shoulders. "No matter how many books I read, it never explained that little phenomenon. Damn these fishnets!" she suddenly snarled, pulling the offending clothing over her forearms and nearly entangling it in her fingers. "I don't see why we can't just go there in our regular clothes; it'd be a lot less of a pain if we did."

"Well, not fittin' in with a world would be…" Goofy raised one finger and stared at the ceiling as he tried to think of the right word.

Donald huffed out a sigh and barked, _"Meddling!"_ at the knight; they had gone over this so many times on their previous journey that it was really no wonder Donald was so irritated.

"Oh, right," Goofy mumbled, looking abashed.

Sora grinned to himself before turning to Donald. "Are you going to use your magic to transport us down there like you did last time?" he asked.

Donald shrugged one shoulder. "Probably not. Last time we had my old staff and I could trust it, but…" He drew the red-and-black staff that the fire Heartless in Agrabah had dropped and stared at it. "Yeah, this one worked in the last big battle we had, but I don't trust it just yet. So, I guess we're landing the Gummi ship in town."

"Oh, that won't be conspicuous at all," Char couldn't help commenting, folding her arms a little self-consciously. She instinctively glanced down at herself and winced inwardly at what she saw: a crimson-and-black corset that tapered out to the sides just after it hit her belly button; fishnets encasing her arms; long black boots that went up to her knees in the front and ended mid-calf at the back; an ebony skirt that, thank the gods, extended to just before her knees, with frayed, smoke-like ends; and her normal green fingerless gloves replaced by black ones. The magic that Yen Sid had apparently placed on the costume made her canines just a bit longer and sharper. "Just a massive colorful vessel out in the middle of Halloween Town. Yup, that's not considered 'meddling' by any standards."

"Well, would you rather end up with your organs on the outside?" Donald growled.

Char hesitated; unable to think of a comeback, she crossed her arms just a little more tightly and glared at a fixed point near Sora's shoes.

"It's probably safer to stand out than to have something bad happen to us because we don't know what this new staff can or can't do," Sora pointed out, trying very hard not to examine Char's outfit for too long: not if he wanted to keep all his limbs intact, anyway. He abruptly tore his eyes away when her pupils shifted to him and took a few steps toward the pilot's seat. "So, we're landing there?"

"Of course." Donald made himself comfortable in the seat next to the pilot's chair, where Char had previously been.

"Thanks for stealing my spot," Char grumbled, plopping down on Donald's other side.

"You're just mad because you didn't get to sit next to Sora," the duck retorted.

Sora cringed, but settled in the pilot's seat nonetheless, determinedly avoiding Char's gaze. He couldn't help but feel slightly unnerved when all Donald got in response was a somewhat-flustered scoff of "Whatever", and knew that she was thinking of last night.

Secretly, he felt a bit guilty at how he had enjoyed dancing with her. He couldn't bring himself to explain it, even to himself, because in his mind's eye he kept seeing Kairi's welcoming smile and his island behind her.

With some effort, he put that out of his mind and flicked a few switches to allow the Gummi ship to lift off from the palace courtyard. If Halloween Town was showing up on the map, then that undoubtedly meant that the Heartless – and maybe the Nobodies – were up to no good again.

* * *

"Well, that was…" Char panted, clinging to the armrest of her seat with both hands.

Donald and Goofy nodded and let out respective grunts of agreement, while Sora took a deep breath and ran his fingers briefly through his hair.

"Stupid Heartless," Donald muttered, looking just as shaken as the rest of them.

"They've never been that hard to get through before…" Sora murmured absently, steering the Gummi ship sharply downward. "They must be getting stronger."

_Or the Organization is getting more vigilant,_ Char silently corrected. Just because his Other, Xehanort, was the one to use DiZ's factory to churn out Heartless, that didn't necessarily mean that Xemnas never used the factory anymore. If anything, the fact that Xemnas clearly still maintained Xehanort's memories made him all the more dangerous.

Then she blinked. _That's the first time I've let myself acknowledge the fact that he and the others were using our home for that. Wow. I must be making progress._ About damn time, she should say.

She scanned the rapidly-growing scenery for a place to land and caught sight of a hill-like piece of land that seemed to coil inward at its very tip. "We could land behind that," she suggested, pointing it out with the hand that wasn't clutching the armrest.

Sora followed her gaze and nodded. "Yeah, that seems like a good idea," he acquiesced, quickly twisting the wheel in that direction in a way that made the entire vessel swoop awkwardly.

"A few weeks of driving this and you still haven't gotten the hang of it," Donald scolded Sora, who ducked his head sheepishly.

"Well, I can't drive it at all, so it could be worse," Char pointed out. The other three seemed to reminisce for a moment and then all shivered simultaneously, clearly remembering Char's disastrous near-crash in the Underworld. She frowned to herself at the distinctly mortified looks on the others' faces, but whatever snarky response that had been percolating at the tip of her tongue vanished when Sora brought the ship to a steady landing near the structure she had noticed. Now that she got a good look close up, she could see that the ground was covered with a haphazard mixture of tiny pumpkins and autumn-garbed leaves.

"Right," Sora said, pressing the button that made the hatch to the Gummi ship open. "Let's go!"

The four of them stepped outside, with Sora gathering all the supplies and distributing them equally among his companions. Char immediately noticed the difference in temperature from the inside of the Gummi ship and rubbed her practically-bare arms in a vain attempt to get warm. _I know it's supposed to be a Halloween-centered world, but does it have to be so damnably cold?_ Again, she lamented the fact that she was unable to wear her old jacket out here, but chose to keep her complaints to herself.

"Moonlight Hill," Sora said, sounding almost like a tour guide as he surveyed the area. "I like this place."

"Well, no Heartless have jumped out at us yet," Donald remarked warily.

"Yup, but we should still take a look around," Goofy decided.

They passed through the gate, being careful to avoid stepping on any pumpkins after Char made that mistake and caused the guts of the pumpkin to fly everywhere, much to Sora and Donald's amusement. As they turned the corner, Sora, who had already taken his place at the head of the group, halted in his tracks in front of a sign reading "Halloween Town", which was mounted on top of a scarecrow with a pumpkin head.

"Yeah, this is definitely the place," Sora mused, staring at the sign with his finger and thumb on his chin.

"I sure hope it is, otherwise we landed in the wrong – wha?" Donald had obviously been about to start on one of his infamous berates when something caught his eye. The others followed his gaze and spotted some orange fluorescent lights scattered along the perimeter of the path, much to the group's bemusement; the amount of these lights was such that they extended off into the distance.

"What's with the lights?" Char muttered to Sora.

He shrugged, just as lost as she was. "Dunno. There was nothing like this the last time we were here."

Suddenly Donald and Goofy let out cries of surprise and the two teens looked over just in time to see a tissue-like ghost with a tiny glowing pumpkin on the tip of its nose. It circled the four of them in a friendly manner, faltering just a bit when it approached Char.

"Hey, it's Zero!" Sora realized, remembering Jack Skellington's odd ghost "dog". He extended a hand in greeting as Zero continued to fly around them. "How've you been, boy?"

In response, the ghost flew away from them, heading toward the fluorescent pumpkin lights. He didn't stop or even look back, but somehow Sora knew they had to follow him.

"Come on," he called, and set off at a run.

They soon found themselves in the town square, and Sora came to a stumbling stop so that Goofy almost ran into his back. The brunette stared around, eyes wide, feeling more confused than ever as he took in the new decorations. "Okay, this definitely wasn't here before," he whispered.

The lights that had been lining the path had made another appearance in the town square, casting an almost sickly orange pallor about the area and causing the dull blade of the guillotine to reflect the color eerily. The lampposts encircling the town square served as a higher home for the pumpkin lights, and even the nearby house's roof had been adorned with the brightly glowing bulbs.

"What're these for, anyway?" he voiced his thoughts aloud.

"It's Jack!" Donald cried, pointing with one tape-covered finger. Sora realized he could hear bells jingling; Char's words about there being other worlds within this one rang in his head again as he followed the duck's gaze.

Sure enough, there was the black-clad skeleton, commandeering a sleigh led by skeletal deer.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but we did land in Halloween Town, right?" Char asked sardonically. "Because this looks suspiciously like a Christmas-y place to me."

"Because it is!" Jack's voice boomed. He brought the sleigh to a stop and stood up in the seat. "Sora, Donald, and Goofy! And 'Anonymous Redhead'! Welcome!" he cried, waving one hand. "And merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas?" Char queried, dubiously folding her arms and looking a bit put-out at being addressed as "anonymous redhead".

"Don't you mean 'happy Halloween'?" Sora asked, holding back his amusement at the way Jack had addressed Char.

The skeleton seemed to realize the truth of Sora's words and dramatically swept out one arm. "Of course. Halloween greetings from Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King!"

The four of them blinked owlishly at his obvious enthusiasm and Jack lowered his arm. "Forgive me. I'm in a Christmas mood. You see," he brought the arm up to the sky, "I'm running the show again this year – but I need Sandy Claws' blessing, so I'm off to Christmas Town!" He finished by bringing his arm over his chest in a flourishing gesture.

"'Again'?" Sora tilted his head to the side. "And who's Sandy Claws?"

"Gawrsh, Sora, I think he means 'Santa Claus'," Goofy said.

Char's eyes narrowed at the mention of Santa Claus, but before she could make a dry remark at that, they spotted Jack standing on the rim of the acid fountain.

"Aren't these decorations wonderful?" he gushed, gesturing to the lights along the town square and the skeletal reindeer. "This year, Halloween Town's going to handle Christmas, too!"

"Joy," Char grumbled.

"Oh, don't be such a sourpuss!" Jack chuckled. "Oh, but before we do that, we have to go visit Sally. She's working on something no self-respecting Sandy Claws can do without. Come along – I'll show you!" Without waiting for a response, he had started toward the house at the end of the town square.

"A Halloween Town Christmas…" Sora's curiosity was piqued. Donald, Goofy, and Char cast skeptical looks around the town square, allowing their gazes to rove over the guillotine and the skeletal reindeer, and Char thought that any Christmas here would be even worse than a normal Christmas.

_Of course, not that I've been allowed to celebrate that little holiday since I was eleven,_ she thought, _but whatever; to each their own._

"Wanna go check it out?" Sora asked, and Donald and Goofy let out twin sighs. "What?" Sora prompted, blinking.

"Nothing, Key-boy," Char sighed. "Let's follow him."

"C'mon, hurry!" Jack called.

"We're coming!" the redhead yelled back.

They entered the building just in time to see the diminutive Dr. Finkelstein, parked comfortably in front of a massive book. "Hello, Doctor!" Jack greeted. "Where's Sally?"

The doctor glowered at the skeleton in a way that made even Char shiver a bit. "Can't you see that I'm in the middle of an experiment?" Finkelstein barked. He turned his wheelchair around and moved toward the table in the middle of the room. "Lock, Shock, Barrel – bring that over!"

"We're coming, you pushy old geezer," a tiny voice grumbled, and the four of them glanced down and saw three disturbingly-familiar children moving a mechanical part over to the table. Char caught a flicker of movement behind them and spotted a seemingly-patchwork woman with dark hair and dark eyes. From what she had seen of Sora's memories, this must be Sally.

"What're they doing back here, after they helped work with Oogie?" Sora half-whispered, half-demanded to Jack.

The skeleton shrugged helplessly. "They came here and said that they were done being pranksters, and the doctor took them in."

"Smart move," Donald snorted sarcastically.

"Hey, this is way too heavy!" Lock growled, his red-garbed arms trembling with the effort.

"Then let's toss it," Shock suggested, nodding her hat-covered head in agreement with herself.

"You do and you'll be sorry," Finkelstein growled. "Now bring it over here!"

Seeming to ignore the doctor's orders, the three of them grunted "Heave-ho!" and tossed it onto the table. The doctor quaked and snarled angrily as sparks shot out from the mechanical device; it trembled for a few moments before dissipating in a conflagration of brief flame, startling Sora and Jack. Sally allowed a gloomy sigh to issue from her, while the three children cackled and took off their masks, as if immensely proud of themselves.

"'Done being pranksters'. Sure," Char scoffed.

"Imbeciles!" Finkelstein roared, pounding his fist on the table even as the trio was running at a breakneck speed toward the door. "Now my experiment is ruined!"

The three of them simply laughed all the louder, laughter that rang throughout the room even after the children were out of earshot. Char folded her arms across her chest. "Something about those three puts a bad taste in my mouth."

_Innocent children, huh?_ Sora thought, but didn't say it aloud.

Jack was already approaching Sally, and Sora had just enough time to wonder when she had arrived before the skeleton spoke, hope audible in his voice. "Sally, did you finish it? I want to show my good friends."

"I'm sorry, Jack," Sally murmured, staring at the ground. "I… I need a bit more time."

Jack leaned back and placed his fists on his hips in obvious disappointment. "Oh." There was a moment of silence before he put one hand on her shoulder and said cheerfully, "Well, it doesn't matter. Just as long as it's ready for Christmas!"

Without another word, he swept toward the door. "But… Jack…" Sally reached out a hand after him, but he seemed to not hear her.

"I'd best be off!" he chirped, turning to face the others. "I've got to go get Sandy Claws right away. It's been great seeing you again! Goodbye for now!"

He left the building, and as the metal door squeaked closed behind him, Char glanced at Sally. "You don't want him doing this, do you?"

The patchwork woman sighed. "No… I keep trying to get him to see, but nothing's working. He's got his heart set on having Christmas here."

"Go get Santa Claus?" Sora repeated, eyes widening gradually.

"Please, Sora," Sally quietly pleaded. "I'm afraid something terrible will happen if Jack goes through with this."

"You can say that again," Donald agreed.

"Sora?" Goofy ventured, for the brunette had gotten an anticipative grin on his face, staring almost giddily upward.

"Earth to Key-boy?" Char waved one hand in front of his face, but he didn't respond.

"Are those strange-looking fellows in the town square with you?" a voice suddenly came from the doorway. Sora snapped out of his stupor and saw Jack standing at the entrance with a thumb jerked over his shoulder.

"Huh? What 'fellows'?" Sora tilted his head to the side.

"You know – the ones that wanted to spoil Halloween and Christmas?" Jack prompted. He put one hand to his head in thought. "What're they called again – Heartless?"

"Well, they're definitely not with us," Char said.

"But Donald, Goofy, Char and I can get rid of them for you," Sora offered. The goofy grin took over his countenance again. "And then we can go see Santa!"

"You have got to be kidding," Char sighed, resisting the urge to flick Sora hard in the head. Donald put his fists on his hips and tapped one foot impatiently.

Seeing his friends' sentiments, Sora quickly amended, "But first, the Heartless."

"Somehow I don't think that's what you really want to do," Char said.

"Why are you such a Scrooge?" Sora inquired, just a little annoyed.

"Yeah, Christmas is a time for happiness and giving!" Jack added.

"I have my reasons. Now, weren't we going to take out those Heartless?" Char summoned her dual swords as she spoke.

"What? Oh, right!" Sora brought forth the Hero's Crest Keyblade, while Donald and Goofy drew their respective weapons of staff and shield and Jack flexed his claw-like fingers.

"Right, then, fellows – and lady fellow!" the skeleton added at Char's raised eyebrow. "Let's take out those Heartless!

"By the way – who _is_ this lady fellow?" Jack asked this question as he gazed curiously at her. His pure black eyes shifted to Sora in obvious inquiry.

The brunette had been eagerly contemplating what would happen when he saw Santa – take that, Riku! he thought triumphantly; he does exist! – but at his comrade's words he came abruptly out of his excitement. "Oh, this is Char," he introduced. "She just started traveling with us a while back."

"And would I be wrong in thinking you and this lady fellow have some kind of… history?" Jack prompted suggestively, causing both teens to start slightly and exchange a glance.

"Of course not!" Char bristled.

"Yeah, you're thinking of Kairi," Sora put in for good measure. He vaguely remembered asking the skeleton about his friends the last time he was there.

"By the way – have you seen her around here? Or Riku, for that matter?" Sora asked this mostly for the benefit of Char, who was looking more irritated than ever; though he couldn't fathom why his mention of Kairi should annoy the dual wielder so much.

The skeleton shook his head, and Sora murmured in disappointment. "Okay, then…"

"Don't we have some Heartless to take care of?" Donald asked impatiently.

"Whatever," Char muttered, at a loss for words again. She made a mental note to never again let the duck get under her skin twice in the same hour.

The five of them left the house and were greeted with the sight of a few skeleton-like Heartless, Heartless that oddly resembled Skellington himself, wandering about the town square in strange, limping gaits. The mayor of Halloween Town, with his frowning face displayed to the group, was shouting vainly into his megaphone. "Now see here, you, you, _things!"_ he blustered. "Leave Halloween Town now, or else!" When his orders failed to dissuade the Heartless, he shuddered visibly and lowered the megaphone. "Jack, where are you?" he yelped, casting his eyes frantically about. "I'm only an elected official – I can't handle this by myself!"

Then he spotted Jack standing among the others and cried, "Jack!" in a relieved voice.

"We're on it," Sora called, brandishing his Keyblade. The Heartless seemed to glance over and quiver just a bit at the sight of the weapon.

They took out the Heartless fairly quickly; Sora noted that Jack had learned some new black magic spells and that Donald was shooting the Halloween Town resident jealous glares. The Keybearer suppressed a giggle at that. He brought one of the smaller Shadows down with a swing of his Keyblade and looked around the town square, lowering the Hero's Crest in relief when no enemies greeted his searching eyes.

_No Nobodies, still,_ he thought, not knowing whether to be glad or suspicious. _And that girl still hasn't shown up, either…_

But that summoned the thought of Roxas, and how the girl always seemed to accompany the blond in Sora's occasional visions of him, and that thought induced frustration and hopelessness at not knowing what was going on. So, Sora banished the memory immediately and turned to Jack.

The skeleton had his back to the group as Char and the others approached. "How is Sandy Claws supposed to relax with all this going on?" Skellington moaned. Suddenly he straightened and turned toward them; Sora, Donald, and Goofy leaned back in bemusement at the determined look on Jack's face, and even Char looked a little perturbed.

"That's it, fellows!" he declared, and swept his gaze over the group. "Sandy Claws needs bodyguards. Are you up to the task?"

"Us?" Donald blinked.

"Yeah!" Sora immediately blurted. Char and Donald gave Sora a simultaneous glower.

"Just charge right into it without thinking, why don't you?" Char grumbled.

"W-well, we can't let anything bad happen to Santa, right?" Sora amended hastily. The mage and the redhead still didn't look convinced.

"Guess they can agree on somethin'…" Goofy sighed.

"All right, bodyguards!" Jack cried dramatically. "Christmas Town is this way!" He turned and pointed in the direction they had just come from. "The doorway is in the woods just past the graveyard!"

As he listened to Jack's words, Sora recalled what Char had said earlier, about other worlds residing within this one. _That's probably the way to get there,_ he mused.

He took his place at the front of the group and glanced back. "Right, then; let's go!"

* * *

Sora: SANTA :DDDD  
Everyone Else: -headdesk-

I hope the way I'm developing Falcon and Copperhead's relationship seems plausible. I mean, it is just through flashbacks, so it's gonna be a bit disjointed, but I want to make it make as much sense as I can. (In case you guys haven't figured it out yet, Copperhead never hated her; it just seems that way because he was such a prick to her when they were kids. And they are about fifteen and seventeen, respectively, in the flashback.)

As for the whole "Xemnas using the factory in Hollow Bastion" thing... I'm kinda just going off of what the KH2 Ansem Reports say -sweatdrop- Seriously, I spent about half an hour writing down the contents of those things so that part of Char's past would make sense.

Reviews plox?


	43. Chapter XLIII

Hi all! Sorry this update has taken so comparatively long, but what with school and stuff (Christmas is almost here! YAY! It's kind of funny that I'm writing this world at this time of year, but I digress), and writer's block... AND the mental urges to post another chappie of RftL before this one, but then deciding "screw it"... yeah, you get the point. XD

First, though, I have some things I want to say regarding this fic. First of all, some of you may have figured out that it is AU as of KH: 358/2 Days. Xion obviously does not exist in this fic, and she never will; Anxclof has taken that little spot. (I can't wait to play the game anyway, though. ROXAS FTW!) Second of all, I know the timeline's been a bit weird as to the relationship of when DiZ and Char had to flee HB/Anxclof was born/Org XIII took her in. So, here's the official timeline:

3 months before KH1: Org XIII is born; DiZ and Char flee HB  
As KH1 begins: Anxclof is born  
Sora goes to Castle Oblivion: Org XIII takes Anxclof in  
11 months after the events of CoM: Riku and Char take Roxas to virtual Twilight Town.

Third of all, I am going to be gone for the next few weeks or so. I'll be in Florida, soaking up the sun and riding the teacups at Disney World. XD; So, that probably will explain my lack of activity for a while. Don't worry; I'll still try and write on the trip.

Whew! With that being said, enjoy this slightly overdue chapter!

**_Disclaimer-_** I do not own Kingdom Hearts, and I never will.

* * *

Fields, fields, and more fields…

Anxclof narrowed her eyes and lifted her gaze to her ever-present, ever-consistent surroundings. Not for the first time, she allowed herself to utter a little snarl of frustration at her current predicament. She had thought that the over-excess of white in the interior of the Castle That Never Was – and, now that she thought about it, Castle Oblivion, from what she'd heard from Axel – would create a tolerance for lack of change, but obviously she was wrong. Seeing nothing but green and the dirt under her feet tended to get a little tiring after a while, and she'd been wandering around here for close to a day now.

She supposed that this was what she got for not giving the portal of darkness a specific destination – that she ended up in this little cranny of the universe, the field between worlds. Then again, she had been too preoccupied with just getting away from that damned beach as quickly as possible; what had started out as a journey of hope had transformed into yet another reminder of what she had lost, and what would never return. Vaguely, she wondered where Axel would have taken Kairi, wondered about the destination of the portal he had summoned on the sunset-bathed shore. Probably not the World That Never Was, at any rate. Anxclof snorted under her breath at the thought. She knew how _that_ little situation would end.

Her smirk at the mental image faded from her countenance. With the rational part of her mind she understood that the World That Never Was would never be her home again – that part of her life had died the moment she realized she had fallen for Roxas – but she also acknowledged the fact, albeit grudgingly, that in that place she had had friends and a home and a family. It had been a place where the sound of Vexen screeching in rage after Axel and Xigbar had played with the wrong pair of chemicals again; the sight of Zexion scribbling down a few notes about his next mission at the lunch table; and Marluxia offering yet another rose to Larxene and getting electrocuted as a result had become simple routine.

Besides, Anxclof couldn't bring herself to totally regret her action of joining the Organization. True, it was the source of her conflicting emotions right now, but it had been her safe haven, once.

_The only question now is what's next,_ she thought, and she found herself shivering at the weight of her mental comment. As much as she loathed to admit it, the proverbial path stretching out in front of her – and she growled again for reminding herself of her current surroundings – was shrouded with darkness on all sides. She hated not knowing what to do next, and this situation wasn't helping at all.

The answer to that little question – _what now? –_ should have been obvious: find Sora. For some reason, though, something held her back, and that confused her more than anything else.

The memory of the last time she had made contact with Sora, Char, and the King's friends, at Beast's Castle two weeks ago, ran back through Anxclof's mind with the vividness of the moment. She could still recall the way the coldness of the rain had run down her back and plastered her hair against her back, the way the lightning had illuminated the shock in the others' eyes when Anxclof's blade had erupted through Sora's chest, the breathless triumph that had heated her blood and set her adrenaline high. Char had accused her of not being able to feel, anger and tears setting her voice and eyes aflame, and Anxclof had told her what Xemnas had relayed to her on her first day of the Organization. _It is true that we Nobodies have no hearts,_ the Superior had told naïve Number XIV so long ago, _but we are different from Heartless and the Dusks that wander this castle in that the capacity to feel still resides within us._

Those words had never stopped resonating through Anxclof: not when she had reveled in the sensation of first summoning her Avengers; not when her demonstration of her powers in front of some of the higher-ups had sent Saïx and Zexion fleeing the high radiation-filled room; not when even Xaldin deigned to praise her on the outcome of her latest mission; not when she had found peace with Axel and Roxas. All throughout her experiences in the Organization, those words had echoed in her mind.

So it only made sense that she had felt obligated to correct Char, because the redhead was so off on her opinion. Even if Char's venom-laced words were only because of what had happened to Sora – "supposed to be his protector", Anxclof's ass; Char had cared for him even then and the Nobody knew it – Anxclof knew that Char wouldn't say such a thing unless she could back it with her own beliefs. And the Blade of Vengeance really wasn't sure whether she should admire or resent that.

A sudden burst of light illuminated the top of Anxclof's peripheral vision, and she looked up instinctively, only to grunt in surprise and shield her eyes at the brightness of it. She inwardly sighed in relief at some break from this place's eternal garb of green and brown, but another part of her wasn't sure what to think. Still with one hand over her eyes, she glanced around.

Nothing else to do, nowhere else to go.

With a deep breath, she stepped slowly and carefully into that light.

* * *

Char was starting to remember why she hated that idiotic holiday so much.

As the five of them trekked through Halloween Town, with Jack at the lead to direct Sora toward the woods due to Sora's little memory problem, she kept her eyes absently on the ground. The orange lights that Jack had strewn along the pathway flickered dimly in her peripheral vision, and her brow creased in a slit-eyed frown.

"I couldn't make the lights as bright as I wanted to," Jack was explaining to a rapt Sora, "because of, you know, the town's traditions and all, but aren't they just lovely?"

"They're awesome," Sora agreed enthusiastically.

Char couldn't help it; she rolled her eyes up to the night-clad sky.

Fortunately, none of them noticed; if they had, undoubtedly it would have raised even more questions. As it was, however, Sora was too busy listening to Jack's misadventures with Christmas; Donald looked disapproving as ever; and Goofy was staring around the town with a vaguely awed expression on his face.

Char didn't notice that they had entered the woods until she realized that the paved ground under her feet had transformed into twigs and dirt. She chanced a look up so she could properly survey her surroundings. For the most part, the woods fit the rest of the oh-so-lovely stereotype that Halloween Town had fashioned: thin trees that looked more like they fit in a winter setting than autumn; a somewhat icier breeze that made Char shiver and curse this world's weather patterns yet again. Near the center of the woods the ground took a subtle dip downhill; and at the apex of that dip there stood a tree decorated with a conspicuous emerald tree. It was no wonder that Jack had found the door to Christmas Town so quickly, as it resided in front of the doors that represented the other, less prominent holidays.

"Here it is," Jack announced extravagantly, coming to a halt in front of the Christmas tree-shaped door. "The door to Christmas Town!"

_Joy,_ Char thought dryly.

In contrast, Sora's eyes widened and he leaned in to get a closer look. Somehow, he still found it a little hard to believe that another world lay beyond this tree-encased door; maybe it was a result of traveling from world to world by Gummi ship. He reached out a hand and tapped the door, only to rear back and let out a little grunt of pleased surprise, for the sensation that had met his fingers was the prickliness of a live Christmas tree.

"The spooks of Halloween can get so tiresome year after year," Jack explained, beginning to pace around the tree in his typical melodramatic manner. "I wanted something new." He stopped in his tracks and gestured toward the door. "And I found this!"

Donald and Char rolled their eyes at the growing excitement visible in Sora, as a grin had grown on his countenance and his eyes had widened even more.

"Beyond this door is a world filled with wonders the likes of which you've never seen!" Jack went on. "At first I couldn't believe my eyes. Everything was so fresh and exciting!"

Sora's anticipation finally seemed to bubble over and get the best of him. "C'mon! Just open it!" he cried.

"For the love of…" Char sighed.

Jack gave an exaggerated bow of acquiescence before lifting one skeletal hand and delicately placing it around the doorknob. Shockingly, warmer air began to waft out of the doorway as it revealed itself to the group; Char supposed that maybe it was in keeping with the "warmth" of the Christmas holiday.

Without hesitation, Sora ran right into the dark doorway. "Sora!" Donald shouted, but all he got in response was a muffled cry.

"We'd better go too," Goofy said.

The two of them followed after their comrade, and Jack glanced at Char, looking a little hesitant. "You don't seem too happy about this," he observed. "Staying behind's not a bad idea, you know."

His words set gasoline on the already-sparking flame of her anger, and she narrowed her eyes. "Of course I'm coming!" she growled, and took a step toward the doorway. Placing one foot on the entranceway, she peered down into the depths tentatively. For some reason, she was having second thoughts about doing this.

Then she mentally chided herself. _How bad could it be?_

With that thought in mind, she placed the other foot on the doorway and leaped.

The unpleasant vertigo of falling a long distance and leaving her stomach behind took over Char in the next few uncomfortable moments, and the sound of her companions' cries echoing throughout the tree's "hollow" didn't help matters at all. Closing her eyes did nothing to alleviate the feeling – if anything, it made the nausea worse – so she reopened them just in time to catch sight of a bright white light approaching her from below. Golden sparks radiated from the light, along with the distinctive azure shape of snowflakes. She had a split second for relief before she found herself abruptly thrust forward, landing on top of a spread-eagled Sora.

"Damn it," she muttered, glancing back. The tree they had just exited from looked like a Christmas tree, speckled with snow and set off by the glittering stars above it; it caused a glare on the ground and she had to blink for a few moments to get used to the change in lighting. A glowing orange pumpkin with a grinning yellow maw decorated the tree. "What the hell was that?"

An instant later, however, she found herself pressed against Sora's back again as Donald, then Goofy landed on top of them. She snarled out a few words that she had learned from a book of foreign language and pushed the animals off of her. "Nice landing, you guys," she growled, hot with humiliation.

To their credit, they looked appropriately abashed at her unconcealed anger, though Donald seemed a bit smug, for some reason. She looked down and realized that she was still sitting on top of Sora; with a grunt of surprise she rolled off of him, landing in the oddly-comfortable snow. Char surveyed the area, with her curiosity growing every moment she looked. The only parallel she could draw from their visit to the village in the Land of Dragons was the snow: here, the area had a warm tinge to the air and snow that felt more like a plush seat than the icy substance she had read about.

Sora didn't seem to notice his previous awkward position with Char, as he was too busy staring in undisguised wonder out at the town. "Coooool!" he breathed.

Donald was rubbing his head and looking ready to lecture Sora about his obvious enthusiasm, but then the scenery caught the duck's eye and he copied the brunette's gesture of awe. Even Char had to admit that the town had a certain snowy beauty about it. Snow-capped hills surrounded them, and a path wound along below them, going downhill in the direction of the large, red-bricked building at the very bottom.

"That's Sandy's workshop," Jack's voice sounded from behind them, surprising them all. Somehow the skeleton had avoided landing on them entirely and was standing above them, looking amused.

"And Santa's there, right?" asked Donald.

Jack nodded, and took a few steps forward in the snow, leaving a few thin footprints in his wake, before turning to face them. "Shall we?"

"Yeah!" Sora leaped up, ignoring the motion sickness he got from moving too quickly, and bounded eagerly after Jack. Char and Goofy exchanged a glance when even Donald followed enthusiastically.

"Let's go," Char muttered, and the knight nodded, looking confused at the mage's sudden change of heart.

They descended the hill and eventually found themselves at the center of town. The five of them briefly took in the garish buildings surrounding Santa's workshop and the merry-go-round at the very center before several bursts of darkness rent the brightness of the town. "Here too?" Sora cried as several drill-like Heartless, along with two that vaguely resembled a jack-in-the-box, materialized in front of them.

They all withdrew their weapons, while Jack blustered, _"En garde,_ loyal bodyguards!" and took his place at the rear.

Sora easily took down the drills, but the box Heartless proved a little more difficult, especially when the toy soldiers inside chose to show themselves and fling a few snowflake-like blades in their direction. Thankfully, Donald found the perfect timing to incinerate the snowflakes just before they reached their intended target; with Jack helping the duck, the battle became much easier.

As Goofy sent the last jack-in-the-box to Kingdom Hearts with one final thrust of his shield, Donald came to stand next to Sora, Char, and Jack. "Christmas is in big trouble!" he announced.

"Gawrsh, we can't let anything bad happen to Christmas," Goofy fretted, trotting up beside them.

Sora nodded in fervent agreement, but Char snorted and folded her arms. "No real loss, if you ask me."

They all glanced at her, bemused at the obvious venom in her voice, and Sora raised his eyebrows. He opened his mouth to ask the question that had been nagging at him since Jack had told them about Christmas Town, but then the skeleton in question sauntered up. "That's where Sandy Claws lives," Jack said, pointing at the large red building that served as the workshop. Now that they were up closer, the group could see multiple windows on the outside and many lights glowing in the semi-darkness.

When Sora looked back at Char, she was glaring at the ground, and he figured that she wouldn't want him talking to her when she was like this. So, he just uttered a small sigh and led them through the brightly lit doors.

The first thing Sora saw was many different, conflicting shades of red. The walls were painted with it, the softly carpeted floor was colored with it, and the rotund man sitting in the center of the room wore it. He reached up one black-gloved hand to scratch his long beard as his slightly-squinted eyes scanned the long paper he held – presumably his "nice list". Sora's eyes became so wide that he thought they would actually release themselves from their sockets at the sight.

"Huh, what do you know," Char commented. "The old geezer really does exist."

Jack gave her a hard look. "Of course he exists! How do you think we get presents every year?"

Santa fortunately didn't seem to hear Char's condescending remark, but he did look up to see what was going on. A warm smile set off his friendly old face. "Well, hello everyone," he greeted. "Did you come to see if you're on my 'nice' list?"

Sora, Donald, and Goofy came forward, with the very former sure that he must seem like a total moron with the grin that was stretched across his countenance. "Your name?" Santa inquired, shaking the list once and not taking his eyes off of them.

"Uh, Sora, sir!" Sora blustered, pushing his way in front of Donald and Goofy; the duck looked disgruntled while the knight seemed bemused at the brunette's obvious eagerness.

_I certainly _hope_ he's on the "nice" list,_ Char thought, thinking back to how he had saved the worlds and rolling her eyes.

"Let's see… Sora…" Santa read down the list for a moment, then looked back up with somewhat of an amused expression. "Well, according to my list, Sora, seven years ago, you told everyone you did not believe in Santa Claus. Oh, that is unfortunate."

Sora's excitement dwindled considerably as Santa spoke, and by the time the old man had finished his verdict, the Keybearer had brought both fists to his hair and cried out in obvious despair.

"How about Donald and Goofy?" Donald asked after a smug face at Sora's expense.

Santa looked down again, then met their eyes and gave a single, cheerful nod.

"Oh boy!" the duck squawked in glee, and Goofy grinned himself.

Then Donald cast Char a disapproving glance. "You don't even have to ask if _she's_ on the list, though," he announced disparagingly.

Char snorted and folded her arms. "Of course not. I've done my share of 'naughty' things."

_Like kidnapping an innocent teenager and putting him in a virtual replica of Twilight Town – I'd say that's pretty bad._

"Am I on your list too, by any chance?" Jack queried timidly from behind them. "It's me – Jack!"

Up until now, Santa had been relatively amiable with them, but at the sound of the skeleton's name a visible change went over Father Christmas. He seemed to jolt in his chair with his shock. "Jack Skellington?!" he asked incredulously.

He opened his mouth, his cheerfulness already having turned into annoyed dread, only to close it and look around when the sound of breaking glass broke into the silence. He got up off of his chair and began to move toward the candy-cane-lined door, looking angrily back at Jack. "What sort of trouble did you bring this time?"

"'This time'?" Sora raised an eyebrow at Jack.

The skeleton waved his hands in an attempt to redeem himself. "It's a long story!" he replied hastily.

Santa didn't seem to hear them; he just opened the door and entered the room that had opened up. Sora just made to follow him.

They found themselves in the very core of Santa's workshop, with the sounds of gears turning and conveyor belts whirring roaring around them. Char winced to herself; this was a vivid reminder of why she had hated the Heartless factory so much.

Santa was standing in front of them, his head moving on his shoulders as he looked around. However, nothing revealed itself from the bright lights of the room.

Abruptly, however, Santa looked up, to a platform that was elevated to far above them. Now that the group listened more closely, they could make out words coming from that area.

"Why do we have to hide?" one disturbingly familiar, childish voice complained.

"Silence!" another voice ordered, a voice that sent Char, Sora, and Goofy's hair standing on end; even Donald felt his feathers shudder a bit at the syrupy malice of that voice.

"Maleficent?" Char hissed, eyes wide. "I thought she'd abandoned us entirely!" The last time they'd seen her face to face was when Disney Castle had been invaded by Heartless, what felt like so long ago.

"No," Sora sighed. "She's tenacious, I'll give her that much… I just hope she doesn't fight us head on."

"Oh, come on!" Donald growled, and the force of his fake bravado almost convinced even Char. "We took her down once, and we could do it again!"

"Who's there?" Santa shouted.

"Busted!" triple voices cried from above.

"And just what we need – the Prankster Trio." Char shook her head and ran her fingers through her bangs, which promptly fell back into her eyes again. "Geez, it's not bad enough that Maleficent's trying to steep the worlds in darkness again; now she has to go around corrupting innocent little kids, too?"

"You forgot; they're not so innocent," Jack corrected.

The sound of flames whooshing and a flash of emerald green from above announced that Maleficent had vanished, while the sound of glass breaking signified that the trio had just made a break for it through the window.

"That's Lock, Shock, and Barrel," Jack explained to Santa, cringing a bit at the way his introduction of the three children sounded.

"Not those three…" Santa groaned.

"I assure you, they're not with us," the skeleton tried to assure.

"Well, whatever the case," Santa said haughtily, turning to the group, "they've been quite naughty." He put his fists on his wide hips. "Catch them and bring them back here." He began to make his way toward the door. "They're going to get a lecture."

"Because I'm sure they're very terrified at that thought," Char couldn't help remarking.

"Uh, Mr. Claws?" Jack asked tentatively, taking a small step after Santa. "I wanted to ask you about Christmas first –"

"It'll have to wait!" Santa interrupted, seeming genuinely livid about the appearance of the three pranksters. "I need to see how things are progressing in my workshop."

Jack stared despondently after Santa as he left, and he was roused only by Sora calling, "C'mon, Jack – let's catch those little pranksters!"

"Well, I suppose…" Jack murmured, but Sora had already disappeared into the main part of the building.

They got outside and saw Donald and Goofy staring very closely at a set of footprints, leading in the direction of the doorway back to Halloween Town. Char and Sora exchanged a glance.

"Those three?" Char asked, more to fill the silence than to actually ask the obvious.

"Definitely," Sora confirmed.

"Then let's go after them," Donald insisted, pounding one mummified fist into the other hand.

Sora and Goofy blinked at the duck's new determination, and the brunette wondered what had happened to the mage's previous annoyance at this little venture.

_Whatever; all that matters is that we stop those three – and Maleficent – from destroying Christmas!_

* * *

"There they are!" Sora cried as they skidded to a stop at the gate to Moonlight Hill. The three children whirled around and looked nervously at each other as the group approached, only to suddenly jump up into the air. Char followed the trio's gesture and gasped when she saw the cage-bodied, clawed Heartless grinning at them with empty eyes.

"Crap, this is bad," she muttered, and her dual swords appeared in her hands in twin flashes of light.

"Get 'em!" the three of them shouted at once, and the Heartless surged mechanically forward.

Sora braced himself to block the Heartless' claws with the Hero's Crest, but he hadn't even raised the Keyblade up to guard when the creature abruptly lifted the cage high into the air and Lock fell into its open maw in a flash of red.

"The heck?" Donald growled, brandishing his own staff.

"Any ideas?" Jack asked nervously, looking from Sora to Donald to Goofy and then to Char.

"No clue," Char answered, her heartbeat spiking when the Heartless lifted its claws high in the air and a fireball began sparking at the tips of its claws. "I haven't read anything about something like this…"

"Maleficent," Donald seethed, and Goofy nodded in agreement.

But then a burst of iridescent light rent the dark sky and Sora barely dodged the fireball that had nearly incinerated him on the spot. Despite the lingering heat of the blast, he couldn't help but shiver; ever since their last encounter with Hades in the Underworld, he always felt a bit uneasy around enemies like this. "Watch out; it has fire magic!" he shouted.

"And I can't even jump high enough to get at the stupid thing!" Char snarled in frustration. She glanced around quickly, narrowly avoiding another fireball that got close enough to hitting her that her old fear nearly flared up again. _Focus,_ she told herself firmly.

Getting a grip on herself again, she realized that she had almost had a head-on collision with the base of the hill in the process of rolling away from that attack. _That could've been painful… well, less so than getting burned alive, but still…_

And, looking at the hill, suddenly an idea hit her.

She got to her feet and, ignoring the way her head spun at such a sudden movement, she charged up the hill and leaped up, aiming a series of rapid blows at the Heartless' head. To her extreme relief and triumph, her blades connected and knocked it backward and downwards.

"Now's our chance!" Goofy called, already spinning his shield around in preparation to throw it.

Seeing Char's strategy, Sora followed her up the steep hill that had given the area its name and together they laid a steady onslaught onto the Heartless. Char noticed that Sora was carefully avoiding the cage part of the enemy's body and couldn't hold back a tiny smirk. "Trying to avoid hitting the little pranksters?"

"Well, they're still kids, after all," Sora panted.

Char rolled her eyes. "Bratty, annoying, rude little kids, but hey…"

A shout from above announced that the Heartless had abruptly spat out Lock and had chosen to swallow Barrel, the green-clad child, instead. "Just when we get used to the fireballs!" Donald roared, shaking his free fist angrily.

"Calm down, fellows!" Jack shouted, tossing a Potion to the duck, who caught it with a grudging mutter of thanks. "We just have to stop this Heartless so we can save Christmas!"

"Because that's totally why I'm still fighting here," Char muttered, just audible enough for Sora to hear. He frowned, wondering exactly what Char's motives were, but then something ripped into his side and tossed him onto the ground with a jarring burst of pain.

"Damn it," Char growled, staring at Sora's prone body. She knew that without the Keybearer helping, they were, for lack of a better word, screwed. She glared back at the Heartless, with irrational anger pulsing through her at the mental image of Sora bleeding on the ground lingering in her head. "You little brats are dead, you hear me? You will be so dead that your grandkids will feel it!"

Without waiting for a comeback from the three of them, she jumped up and slashed mercilessly at the hard metal shell of the Heartless' head. It cringed back in pain, but somehow managed to release Barrel and replace him with Shock in its mouth in the same movement.

"Ow…" Sora's strained murmur came from below.

"Sora, can you move?" Donald demanded, already lifting his staff to cast Cura.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," he answered, his voice becoming steadier as his wound closed up. He readied his Keyblade and charged back into the fray.

Char was just hastily blocking another fireball when a flash of black rushed past her. The next thing she knew, the Heartless was being driven back by a steady assault of attacks from the Hero's Crest. Strangely, warmth began to flow through her at the sight of Sora easily keeping pace with the Heartless' attacks, but she shook it off before it could distract her.

"You feeling all right, Key-boy?" she shouted in an attempt to alleviate the strange feeling.

He chanced a look back. "Yup," he called back, grinning.

She couldn't help but shake her head reprovingly. "You're gonna kill yourself one day, you know that, right?"

"I'll try not to," Sora laughed, then refocused on the Heartless and, jumping up, brought his Keyblade down in a final, decisive blow. At the same time, a solid snowflake came flying from Jack's direction, and they both sliced through the Heartless' head in different directions.

The Heartless seized its head and convulsed a few times before finally falling limp and vanishing; a single large, pink heart began to float toward the sky. The three kids fell to the ground as their prison disappeared, but strangely, they were all laughing.

"That was fun!" Lock chirped.

"Let's go see if Mr. Oogie's ready!" Shock said, and they all bolted for the gate before anyone could say anything.

"Oogie?" Jack cried in disbelief.

"That bag of bugs is back?" Donald grumbled.

"Isn't he the one that tried to take over Halloween Town before?" Char asked.

"Yeah," Sora answered.

"Fellows, I hope you're ready for trouble…" Jack sighed.

"Don't we have enough trouble already?" Goofy pointed out.

"Touché," Jack conceded after a moment, and the others nodded.

"But where is Oogie?" Char wondered aloud, folding her arms.

"We won't know until we look around town and ask," Sora murmured.

The five of them left Moonlight Hill – with the group feeling relieved that the Gummi ship had suffered no damage after the intense battle with that Heartless – and found Sally standing anxiously in front of the large tombstones. She seemed out of breath, causing Jack to look worriedly at her. "What's wrong, Sally?"

"Oogie's captured Santa Claus!" Sally cried, and at that, everyone except Char gave a start of shock and dread.

"And he's headed for Christmas Town," the patchwork woman added.

"C'mon, Jack, let's hurry," Sora implored.

The skeleton gave a single nod of determination. "He's gone too far with this," he muttered, obviously referring to Oogie. It was as close to anger as Char – or Sora – had ever heard from the Halloween Town resident, and it startled the brunette. _He must really care about keeping Christmas safe, even though it's not his holiday to worry about,_ Sora reflected.

And it was oddly refreshing to see such commitment in the skeleton.

* * *

Done! I know Jack seems a bit OOC at the end, but think about it: He seemed to really be dedicated to the whole Christmas thing in the game and the movie, so why shouldn't he feel just a bit pissed that Oogie's putting it in jeopardy?

And I also flexed my action-writing muscle with that boss scene. (I know - Saf, willingly writing a boss fight? THIS IS MADNESS!) So, all in all, I liked this chap.

Besides, we all know the REAL reason why Char was so mad at that Heartless for goring Sora in the chest... -wink wink-

Also also: I GOT MY XBOX TODAY!!!! So expect Vesperia ficcies in the future.

Okay. I'm done now. I mean it.


	44. Chapter XLIV

-sheepish laugh- Uhhh... wow. Erm... I have no excuses, really. World history has eaten my life; that's all I have to say. That and Persona 3/4. -shot to death-

But, uh, yeah. Finally we finish up Halloween Town in this chapter, with a mixture of SoraChar and RoxasAnxclof flashbax on the side. (I really need to throw in all the FalconCopperhead flashbacks I've been planning, buuut I figured three chapters containing flashbacks in a row would kind of annoy my readers - not as much as my lack of updating for the past few months, but still annoyed.)

So here ya go - take this 16-page chapter as my sincere apology for being so late. I'll try not to sit around for so long next time.

**_Disclaimer-_** If I owned Kingdom Hearts, don't you think my OCs in here would all be canon characters? And you could unlock a version where you play as Char, not unlike Riku's in Re:CoM's Reverse/Rebirth. (I need to play more of that, but I keep running out of attack cards and have to stop and run off to the side to refill the gauge...)

* * *

They raced to the woods and had to re-experience the fall from Halloween to Christmas Town; thankfully, this time Char didn't fall on top of Sora, but it was still an ordeal she preferred not to go through, embarrassment or not. The vertigo caused Char to stand a little shakily, dusting the snow off of her frayed skirt, and she shook her head to clear it with a small growl under her breath, hating the dizziness that was whirling over her mind. Her head was just starting to clear when a stark flare of black against the navy nighttime sky caught her eye. Her gaze narrowed. _Smoke… and it's close._

Jack looked after her and gasped. "It's coming from Sandy's workshop!" he cried, pointing with one bone of a finger. His free fist clenched.

"Come on!" Sora called after them, already dashing down the slope and stumbling just a bit on the snow.

"Slow down, guys!" Char yelled, hastily following. "Shouldn't we stop and regroup first?"

"There's no time for that; Christmas is in danger," Donald shouted from close at Sora's heels.

Goofy hesitated without breaking his stride, looking as though he wanted to take Char's side. "She has a point, guys," he finally said.

No words were spoken in response, but Char barely caught the Hi-Potion that was thrown her way. She rolled her eyes, panting slightly as the journey downhill ended and they were greeted by the sight of the Christmas Town buildings and snow-capped merry-go-round. "Just one? How generous."

Sora had kept silent until now, but when the sarcastic comment escaped Char's mouth he turned his head to give her an impatient look. "Look, just because you hate Christmas doesn't mean that _we_ can just let Maleficent and the Heartless do whatever they want! What happened to 'follow us wherever we go', huh?"

Char halted abruptly, staring at him with shock. She knew that Sora's determination amplified tenfold about what he believed in, but he had never actually snapped at her over the course of this journey. For some reason, she felt hurt at the thought.

Seeming to realize what he'd said, Sora immediately tore his eyes away, just in time to stop in front of the door to the workshop and avoid crashing headlong into the pillars surrounding it. He noted faintly that there were no Heartless around, but that failed to alleviate the anxiety – and now guilt – accumulating inside him.

Without turning back, he knew that Char had followed them inside; he could tell by the flash of crimson red that her hair had patented. Even through the pinks and reds of the interior of Santa's house, that much was clear. He recognized that she could have left, could have gone back to the Gummi ship and waited for them, could have taken offense at his remark and left them to fend for themselves; but another small part of him also knew that she'd chosen this path herself, despite her obvious anger toward everything Christmas represented.

Why did he feel like that dedication was more than he deserved?

That thought remained in his mind as he threw the door to the workshop open and charged inside, Hero's Crest at the ready. He swept the interior of the factory with his eyes, but no flash of emerald green or ebony black or even white-and-red signified that anything was wrong.

An instant later, though, cackling sounded from above their heads, and they all craned their necks to see what looked like a bag on legs, with beady black eyes. It was still eerie to see Oogie Boogie's maw open, Sora thought, with the villain being filled with insects and the like; he still almost expected them to emerge from Oogie's mouth in dark swarms, a thought that made the brunette shudder with the icy feeling along his spine.

Oogie straightened and made a clumsy leap down from the platform where the three children had shown up to the floor below. Sora followed Oogie's movements with a bemused eye at first, wondering why the villain would willingly relinquish his higher position from the others; then that bemusement turned to fear and surprise when Oogie dragged out a struggling Sally from the room's entrance. _I didn't even realize she followed us!_ Sora felt a surge of vague guilt at not having realized it before.

"Sally!" Jack cried, and directed his narrowed dark glare at Oogie.

The villain whirled around with his oversized arms on where his hips should have been. "Jack Skellington," he greeted, not taking the smirk off his face. "You and I have a score to settle. Same goes for your little sidekicks!" His gaze swept over the group, widening when it caught sight of Char. "Now was there any need to draw the pretty lady into this?" he purred.

Char fought back a shudder and wondered what the hell was with these people and lecherousness. _Maybe it's another Halloween thing,_ she decided as an excuse. "Suck it up, bug boy," she answered fairly calmly, considering that her temper was bubbling just beneath the surface. "I'm staying over here."

"What are you planning to do with Sandy Claws?" Jack demanded.

Oogie blinked his black eyes and scratched his head. "Who? Sandy Claws?" he queried. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

With that, he promptly contradicted his own words and jumped off of the platform that led to the factory's entrance. A flash of dark red caught Sora's eye and he saw that none other than Father Christmas himself lay bound on one of the unmoving conveyer belts, struggling furiously to no avail. The brunette felt his senses go on high alert and nudged Jack, nodding to Santa when he'd gotten the skeleton's attention.

"And _why_ is this roly-poly red guy here?" Oogie bellowed, startling Donald and Goofy. "Time to go, grandpa!" He forced Santa up to a standing position and made as if to push him into the dark hole that the conveyer belts led into. Char's eyes widened a bit as the reason why Santa was trying to escape the conveyer belts' exit hit her. If that was where the toys were manufactured…

"Stop!" Jack yelled, his skeletal fingers already splayed in preparation to aim a fireball in Oogie's direction.

"_You _stop, you idiot!" Char hissed, seizing one of Jack's arms in an iron grip. "Do you want to hit the fat man, too?"

Jack's fierce glower turned to Char, a glower that was smoldering with anger; but Char met his glare evenly and he lowered his hands after a few moments.

Oogie, however, had become distracted with something delicious he had found below: a seemingly-disembodied leg, just sitting between him and the dark exit. He picked it up, casting Santa aside as he did so. The villain chanced a look toward where he had thrown the old man – and stopped abruptly, dropping the patchwork leg like a hot poker as everything came together in his bug-comprised mind, as he watched Santa waddle over to a one-legged Sally, who had somehow escaped Oogie's notice. One fist clenched, and a snarl oozed its way out of him; immediately he charged toward the two as quickly as he could, but was stopped in his tracks by Sora, Jack, and the others.

"I don't think so," Sora challenged, shifting the Hero's Crest in his hands.

"Why, you…" Oogie growled. He cast his eyes about for a suitable escape, then suddenly whipped around and headed for the darkness of the end of one of the conveyer belts.

"What does he think he's doing?" Char muttered under her breath.

It was too late for one of the group to stop him, however, as the villain had vanished into the dark hole.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" Goofy gulped.

The five of them leaped onto the conveyer belt, only to suddenly see a glass-encased scaffold lower itself from the ceiling, with Oogie inside.

"Of course!" Jack suddenly gasped, causing the others to glance a little nervously in his direction. "He's going to manipulate Sandy's equipment!"

As if to confirm Jack's hypothesis, a low chuckle came from above, and a contrastingly high-pitched beep was the group's only warning before the conveyer belt abruptly began to shift backward.

"What the –" Char stumbled, barely managing to stay on her feet. "What the hell is this?" she snarled.

"Stop!" Donald roared, and charged into the dark end of the conveyer belt. There were a few seconds before he emerged on one of the other conveyer belts, which was moving in the same direction as the one the others were on. The duck uttered a cry of shock and ran back to where he'd come from, and he reappeared on the original conveyer belt. "Not again?!"

Sora readied his Keyblade, his heart pounding in his chest as he realized that he had no clue how to handle this. Normally he would just attack the Heartless or the villain until either the pink heart floated up to Kingdom Hearts or he or she surrendered…

Now, though, it seemed like that wouldn't be the case.

"Nice view from up here," Oogie taunted, and hit another button that sounded with another sharp beep.

"How do we get him down?" Goofy asked, casting a look behind them and wincing. Char and Sora followed the dog's gaze and both teens felt a surge of dread at the sight of the spikes protruding from the wall of the conveyer belt. _If we get hit with one of those, we're screwed,_ Char thought.

"Jack!" a voice screamed from just beyond the conveyer belt. The skeleton risked craning his neck to find the source of the voice and spotted Santa and Sally, looking on with obvious horror. The sight of the two of them watching seemed to strengthen Jack's resolve, and he turned back to the task at hand, only to almost stumble and fall over…

…a _wrapped box?_

"Presents?" Char murmured as more emerged from the tunnel ahead. Her eyes narrowed. "So not only is Oogie trying to take out this dumbass holiday, he wants to have Santa's position of _handing out the presents?"_

An instant later, she realized her back was about six inches away from being impaled by the spikes, a moment before Sora's cry of "Look out!" told her what was going on. Instinctively she charged forward, but was stopped short by the deluge of gifts now littering the conveyer belt.

"Damn it all," she grunted, arching her back to avoid being gored there. "Never thought this stupid holiday would ever try to _kill_ me." She directed her glower at the box directly in front of her. "Out of my way!" she spat, and lashed out with both swords at once, slamming them down into the present. The impact sent it flying into the air, where it crashed into the scaffolding where Oogie was standing. The villain let out a cry of surprise as the scaffolding swayed, threatening to throw him over the edge.

Goofy, whose attention had been caught by the scaffold's movement, stared for a few seconds; then his eyes lit up, as though an idea had hit him. "Everybody hit the presents!" he called back.

Jack couldn't help but frown. "But Sandy's worked so hard on them and…"

"Do you really think this is the time to be worrying about that?" Donald screamed.

Char had also noticed how the present had nearly knocked Oogie out of the control platform, and she immediately began slashing furiously at the nearest present. Sora quickly followed suit, throwing his Keyblade back and then forward again in a strange imitation of a golf player's swing.

"Try to do that, will you?" Oogie bellowed, and slammed his "palm" down on a switch, even as the scaffolding was trembling precariously under the onslaught of the presents. "I'll squash you flat!"

In response to his words, a gloved fist came smashing into the conveyer belt, startling Goofy backwards into Donald, who nearly fell over backwards, an action which would certainly spell death by spikes due to the difficulty of getting back up on this moving conveyer belt. "Watch it!" he grunted, barely dodging the fist as it crashed down again, this time just grazing Jack's body.

Another beep announced the arrival of a strange, bag-like gift. Sora blinked, wondering why Oogie would resort to tossing gift bags down at them; then a cry of surprised pain pulled itself from the brunette as the gift bag promptly exploded on contact with his arm.

"You okay, Sora?" Char called over to him, even as one of the skeleton Heartless sprang forth from one of the box presents.

Sora called back a shaken "yeah" as he examined his arm, which was currently dripping blood onto the conveyer belt. _First the side wound, and now this…_

His thoughts trailed off when a flash of pale brown caught his eye, a flash that was followed up by a drawn-out cry as Oogie tumbled onto the conveyer belt.

"There you are, you bastard!" Char snarled, and laid into him with both swords at once, while Donald and Jack stayed back and cast high-power spells. Sora and Goofy joined Char in the front line, slashing into Oogie in a way that caused tiny worms and beetles to fly in all directions. The duck let out a growl of disgust as insects sprayed into his face, wiping them furiously away with his free hand.

"Yeah, this is gross," Sora agreed. His own revulsion abruptly gave way to dread when Oogie leaped up and charged back into the conveyer belt's exit, vanishing into the darkness. An instant later, the villain reappeared on the scaffolding, which was now hovering above the left conveyer belt.

"Wha –" Donald squawked.

"That's not fair!" Sora protested. "How are we supposed to get over there?"

His only response was a cackle from Oogie.

"It's what you party crashers deserve!" the villain laughed, and a series of beeping noises were heard.

"I don't like the sound of that…" Char murmured.

Abruptly, the five of them were thrown forward as the conveyer belt surged violently in the direction of the spikes. Thankfully, the ends of the spikes glanced off of Jack, only managing to tear his clothes; but the others got the full brunt of the blow. Agony exploded in Sora's back, along with something distinctly liquid, as he got to his feet with some difficulty. "You guys okay?" he asked, his voice little more than a rattle of pain, as the wind had also been knocked out of him.

"I can… still… fight," Char rasped, leaning on one of her swords as she raised herself to a half-standing position. Her words belied the pain lancing through her body, and the feeling of something warm oozing down her spine told her that everything was most certainly _not_ all right. However, if Sora was so determined to take Oogie down and save Christmas, then damn it, she was going to help the Keybearer even in her condition.

"I'm sorry," Jack immediately said, casting an ice spell to send one of the box presents sky-high. "I don't have any healing items with me…"

"Don't be," Goofy grunted, hefting his shield up. "Sora, do you have any healing items with ya?"

Sora shifted through his pockets, panic growing when he came up with nothing. "No," he answered nervously. "I think I gave Char the last Hi-Potion…"

"'M on it," Char hissed out the words, clearly still in agony, as she slapped the vial into his hand.

"Are you sure?" the brunette asked, running forward so as to avoid the spikes slicing into his open wounds. "I mean, you need it more than I do…"

"Just shut up and drink it," Char growled, shakily getting to a full standing position. "Didn't I tell you before? If you get knocked out, we're all screwed."

"Yeah, but…" Suddenly realizing it was pointless to argue, Sora unscrewed the vial and gulped down the panacea; it soothed the pain in his back just enough for it to be easily ignored. "Thanks," he called, and raced forward to help his other allies. Knowing she should follow, Char followed at a steady limp, biting the inside of her cheek hard to distract herself from her back. _Stupid leg wound's acting up, too,_ she thought as her lower calf flared in pain.

"See if you can dodge this!" Oogie roared from above. A laser-like device lowered itself from the ceiling and began firing a thin bolt of lightning into the conveyer belt, moving in a zigzagging pattern.

"And we still can't figure out how to get over there…" Sora glared at the dark hole ahead of them, a dark hole that was ringed by a colorful blue. His gaze shifted from this conveyer belt to the left one, which Oogie's scaffold was still hovering above. The exit to the left one was also ringed in blue, while the right one was in pink. An instant later, however, the left and right had switched colors.

_Weird… wait a sec._ An idea suddenly struck Sora as to how to get to Oogie.

"Watch the colors around the holes!" the brunette shouted to the others, dodging around the laser's steady attack. "I think it's color-coded!"

"So one blue exit leads to another blue exit…" Jack let his voice trail off as Sora's plan hit him, and the skeleton made his way toward the exit to this conveyer belt, knocking aside presents and Heartless as he went.

Donald had been cutting into one of the Heartless with a thunder spell of his own, but, seeing the skeleton moving toward the exit, began to squawk indignantly. "Hey! Where do you think you're going? Wait up!" he yelled, chasing after Jack.

"Follow Jack while the exit's blue!" Sora called to Char and Goofy, already racing after the two mages.

The five of them charged through, made a hasty turn left while nearly crashing into each other in the darkness – Char snarled in obvious pain when Goofy's shield smashed into her side, to a hasty apology from the knight, but otherwise no other damage was caused – and emerged, to Sora's intense relief, on the left side of the conveyer belt that they had previously been on. Oogie had obviously not counted on this, for the villain uttered a scream of shock, followed by a frenzied series of beeps. Multiple presents, bag and box alike, crashed into the conveyer belt, presents that were narrowly avoided by the group. A few more slashes into the boxed presents sent Oogie tumbling back down again.

"For Christmas!" Jack roared, brandishing his claws and slicing in one direction.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy let out cries of agreement; the Keybearer slashed in another direction, a snowflake from the mage cut through Oogie from another, and the knight's shield whipped through the villain in a circle. Char let out a sigh, but a weary grin was on her face as she completed the five-way assault.

There was a pause; then a seam ripped open in five parts of Oogie's body, causing a confetti-like substance to pour out along with the insects comprising his interior. He cried out and tried in vain to close up the leaks with his hands, but the damage was already done. The group looked on in vague disgust as the terror of Halloween Town was reduced to a paper sack and insects scuttled away in all directions. Jack's foot crashed down on a beetle that was trying to make its escape.

All at once, the five of them uttered a simultaneous sigh of exhaustion and relief. "I never want to go through anything like that again," Sora murmured. The pain in his back returned, and when he moved his shoulders he could feel the multiple dried scabs shifting, a feeling that made him shudder.

A flicker of downward movement caught his eye, and he spotted the remnants of Char's near-collapse, stopped because she had fallen on her knees. Immediately he raised a green-glowing hand and cast Cura before she could protest. The green glow appeared briefly behind Char before she slumped down with a sigh of relief. "That's better," she murmured, and lifted her eyes to meet his. "Thanks."

The strange warmth returned to him at that simple thank-you, however grudging it had sounded. He abruptly realized that the others were still watching, as were Sally and Santa, who were approaching from behind the conveyer belts, and the brunette put his arms behind his head in a show of nonchalance. "Uh, you're welcome," he said hastily, grinning despite himself.

Behind him, he heard Donald and Goofy snickering under their breaths, causing Sora to lower his arms and frown slightly. "He likes her, you know," Donald whispered loudly to Jack.

"I do not!" Sora protested, whirling around to glare at them. His two long-time comrades simply chuckled, causing the Keybearer to pout.

"You're blushing, Sora," Sally pointed out calmly.

Sora gave a start and began rubbing his face furiously, as though that could get rid of it. He dared not turn around to see Char's reaction, though he did hear something that sounded like a mildly annoyed scoff coming from her direction.

"W-well, at any rate, Christmas is safe again," he tried to change the subject.

"Yup!" Jack chirped, stepping forward. "I'd better get down to business!"

Donald uttered a cry of shock, while Char sighed and brought a palm to her forehead as she got to her feet. "Leave that to Santa!" the duck said.

"Yeah, you oughta stick to Halloween and spooky stuff," Goofy added.

"Jack?" Sally called softly, and the skeleton turned around. The patchwork woman had a resigned air about her as she produced some folded red garments from her pockets. "It's done," she sighed.

"Wonderful!" Jack cried, gently taking it from her.

"Are you sure it's okay for you to do this, Jack?" Sally tried, watching the skeleton slip the garb on over his normal black outfit. Char had to admit that Sally's sewing skills were wondrous; while the amount of girth on Santa was gapingly absent from Jack, other than that, the skeleton resembled Father Christmas in an uncanny way.

"But I make a splendid Sandy Claws," Jack protested.

"Now listen here, Jack Skellington," Santa said firmly. "You saved me, and Christmas as well. And for that, I'm very grateful." He put his fists on his hips. "But please promise me you won't cause any more trouble!" He hesitated. "And about that suit…"

Jack had been spinning around to dramatically flourish his new outfit, but now he stopped, eyes almost comically wide and the attached beard on his chin swinging.

"Don't even think about taking over for me again!" Santa finished.

"I just thought you could use a little help this year, Mr. Claws," Jack said. "You must be exhausted with all the preparations. And I wouldn't mind a second chance to get this Christmas thing right."

Santa sighed. "Yes, being Santa Claus can be tiring. But let me tell you something, Jack." The skeleton straightened in attention. "Seeing the happy faces of little children when they discover the presents I've brought them makes it all worthwhile, year after year after year. And you, Jack – you love to make them gasp and see them shiver with fright. What if someone tried to take all that away from you?"

Jack lowered his head and scratched the place where his cheek would be, a frown appearing on his face as he began to see Santa's point.

"We both have very important jobs to do, Jack. Mine is to take care of Christmas, and yours is to take care of Halloween," Santa explained. Char couldn't help but admire Father Christmas' tact in telling Jack to stick to his own holiday and knew that _she_ would have just told the skeleton to get the hell out and stay out.

"So we both have to do the very best we can. After all, you are the face of Halloween – Mr. Jack Skellington! The Pumpkin King; the Knight of Nightmares!" Santa winked at Jack, whose eyes widened.

"And even though you're fascinated with Christmas, Jack… Halloween is your true specialty. Don't you see? Children rely on both of us to do our jobs. Halloween needs your attention, and I know Christmas needs mine – urgently." With that, Santa turned and headed over to the conveyer belts.

"You're right," Jack murmured, voice growing steadier as his conviction became stronger. "I _am_ the master of terror!" He dramatically swept out one hand. "And if Halloween has become too routine, all I have to do is think of something new that'll really make them scream!"

"And knowing that the mayor can't do anything without your approval…" Sally gently urged.

Jack straightened. "So true." He made his way to the exit of the factory.

"Good luck, Jack Skellington," Santa called.

"Well," Sora said, putting his arms behind his head again, "there he goes."

"Yes," Santa said, "and I've got lots of names to check and preparations to finish!"

Jack had been moving steadily toward the factory's exit, but now he stopped, raising his hands and staring down at his pink-glowing Santa garb in wonder. "What's this?" he asked. "Perhaps a bit too festive for our Halloween needs…"

Donald, Goofy, and Char all looked to Sora at once, who was already raising the Hero's Crest to open the way to more worlds. The infamous flash of light faded and Sora lowered his Keyblade. He turned to Santa and Sally. "We better get going."

"Before you do, Sora…" Santa's words caught Sora's attention. "I believe there's a friend of yours, who – if I recall correctly – was the one who told you there was no such thing as Santa Claus."

Sora blinked. "Oh yeah… He _did_ say that."

"Be sure to give him my very best wishes," Santa requested.

"I will." Suddenly recalling his original task, Sora asked quickly, "But do you have any idea where I might _find_ Riku?"

_Riku._ The sound of the silver-haired boy's name sent that same feeling of nostalgia and strange loneliness aching dully in Char's chest. She vaguely recalled her and Riku laughing at the prospect of a man in red flying over the world bringing presents to all the worlds in one night, and that feeling grew stronger, squeezed her heart just a little bit tighter.

Santa must have shaken his head, because Sora let out a sigh.

"But don't give up!" Father Christmas added. "Remember, if you believe in Riku, you will find him." His beady gaze shifted to Char at his last words, though he was still speaking to Sora. "Just as you found me."

Sensing the veiled meaning behind Santa's words, Char inclined her head very slightly. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get her point across.

The four of them left Santa's house. Char turned briefly to fully take in the factory that just a few hours ago she had thought didn't exist. _Things change,_ she reflected.

"No luck here, either," Sora sighed.

"And I don't think the King's around here." Goofy's shoulders dropped visibly in a long sigh of his own. Surprisingly, Donald didn't voice a complaint, just cast his eyes toward the nighttime sky and uttered a little murmur of disappointment.

Char could understand how the trio felt; even though her feelings of weariness toward this journey and everything it entailed had been diminished slightly since she had joined Sora, those feelings were still there, faint, but there, lurking at the edges of her consciousness. Still, though, she couldn't help but shrug. "It's not like you guys to get so down about this," she remarked, causing Sora to stop in his tracks in a way that made an abrupt, albeit muffled sloshing noise caused by the snow. Donald grunted in annoyance as he nearly crashed into the brunette's back, but the duck's irritation went ignored by Sora, who had turned to look at Char over his shoulder.

Trying to ignore the intensity of Sora's eyes on her, Char continued, fighting the urge to glare defensively at him in her reflex at being the center of attention. "I mean, I can understand how you guys feel, but remember what Father Christmas said?" She noted Donald and Goofy's obvious surprise at her mildly respectful allusion to Santa, and she narrowed her eyes in response to that surprise. Otherwise, though, she ignored the residents of Disney Castle and kept talking.

"'If you believe in your allies, you'll find them'… or some sentimental crap like that," she added, striding on ahead.

Sora continued to stare at her, head tilted a ways to the side, the pumpkin mask adorning one side of his face somehow setting off the luster of his visible eye. "Char…"

Suddenly at a loss for words, not quite knowing what else to say, Char stopped in her tracks and whirled around, causing the frayed tails on her skirt to sway in the resulting wind. "So let's go," she finished rather lamely.

Goofy gave a single nod of agreement, looking abashed at his previous undisguised discouragement. Donald's eyes simply widened, as though he couldn't believe that Char had actually made somewhat of a good point. Sora said nothing, just took his place back at the front of the group.

"So…" The Keybearer trailed off, an embarrassed smile covering his features as he rubbed the back of his neck. Char gave a half-smile; now _that_ was the Sora she knew and…

And she was _not_ going to go anywhere else with that thought.

That self-reproach disappeared briefly with the distraction of Sora's following comment. "Where did we park the Gummi ship again?"

"And the Keyblade master's notorious short-term memory loss strikes again…" the redhead said wryly, folding her arms. She noted dimly the way the fishnets tightened about her arms and reflected again how glad she would be to get out of this stupid outfit and back into her nice warm jacket. Meddling, her ass; Yen Sid was going to get a piece of her mind the next time she saw him.

Sora couldn't help but grin a bit himself at Char's typical dry sarcasm. Then the insult in her words hit him and the smile on his face morphed instantly into a pout. "Hey, I've been trying!" he protested.

Only now did he notice that they all stood directly in front of the Christmas tree that led back to Halloween Town. The memories of only a few hours ago came rushing back: of frantically piloting through the attacking Heartless and Nobody ships in the realm between worlds; of memories of Moonlight Hill coming back as he prepared to land the Gummi ship.

"We don't want the Gummi ship sittin' out there forever, a-hyuck," Goofy pointed out.

Donald nodded and gave a grunt of agreement.

"Okay, okay, guys," Sora laughed, putting a hand on the doorknob and twisting it accordingly. The door swung open and a dim orange light radiated from within; the brunette could feel the icy, stagnant air floating up from where he stood above the doorway. He shivered very slightly and looked back. "Well… who wants to go first?"

That caused the other three to give a start of surprise and exchange nervous glances. Immediately, Char said, "Nose goes!" and promptly put one finger on her nose. Goofy quickly followed suit, leaving only Donald unprepared, his hand already directed toward his own feathered face.

"Aww, phooey!" the duck grumbled, stepping forward. He made a gesture to roll up imaginary sleeves, cast one last nervous glance within, then, as if feeling the others' gazes on him, leaped. A squawk that eventually petered off announced his departure.

"Sora?" Char raised one eyebrow. "You didn't put your finger on your nose either…"

"Oh yeah…" Sora laughed sheepishly. Hastily, before he could stop himself, he made the jump, curling his body up into the fetal position as he did so; the sound of "Cannonball!" could be heard before it faded out.

Char rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Leave it to Key-boy."

Goofy tilted his own head to the side. "Y'know, you ain't called him that in a little while."

Char blinked, her back heating when she realized that the knight spoke the truth. "Yeah, I know; I figured I was long overdue to," she grunted to try and conserve her composure. "Now get in there."

Goofy gulped audibly before obeying her command, a high-pitched scream resounding throughout the tree's hollow trunk as a result. Char's eyes slipped closed and she allowed herself one last deep breath of Christmas Town's stupidly warm air, her hand slipping to her forehead to run through her bangs as she allowed herself this brief moment of repose.

Then she opened her eyes, steeled herself, and followed the others through the doorway.

* * *

Of course, the first thing the group did almost as soon as the hatch of the Gummi ship closed was make a beeline for the pantry. Despite the vertigo created by the fall back to Halloween Town, their hunger returned even more powerful than before as soon as the nausea had worn off and they'd entered the Gummi ship. Sora, Donald, and Goofy searched with a sense of frantic anxiety, while Char followed a little more sedately. The memory of the thought she'd almost completed – the thought that sent a flame of shameful heat blossoming over her back even now – was lingering in her mind and accelerating her heartbeat, for whatever nonsensical reason.

_The Sora she knew and… dammit._ She still couldn't bring herself to finish that mental statement for fear of the connotations it carried. And that frustrated her even more, because she shouldn't feel afraid of the mere attachments of a _thought,_ of all things.

"Char?" The redhead snapped out of her reverie when she heard Goofy's voice. The dog was glancing back at her over his shoulder while his comrades still rummaged through the cupboard, trying to find a semi-decent meal. "You can go change if y'want," Goofy continued, somewhat hesitantly. Char guessed that her impatience toward herself must have carried over to her expression.

"Y-yeah, think I will. The sooner I get out of this freaking corset, the better," she added for good measure as she headed over to the ship drawers where they had stored their original clothes. She gave Sora and Donald a sidelong glance, but they had temporarily disregarded their own ridiculous garb in order to more properly search for food; the redhead nearly rolled her eyes at that.

She slid the drawer open, scanned it briefly, spotted her brown jacket, and withdrew the contents that belonged to her before closing the drawer again. She could feel Goofy's eyes on her back as she gathered up her clothing in her arms and headed off to her designated sleeping quarters – oddly, she couldn't bring herself to call it her "room" just yet.

The knight tore his eyes away when the sound of a door slamming shut greeted him from her direction, fighting the urge to sigh. _She's still hidin' something,_ he thought.

"Hey Goofy, we found some ramen noodles!" Sora chirped, waving the box of pasta in the air.

"Careful, you're gonna spill them!" Donald reprimanded instantly, standing on tiptoe in an attempt to reach the noodles.

"I'm not gonna spill 'em," Sora retorted, but a grin was on his face.

There was a moment of silence before Donald seemed to notice the lack of a sardonic female response and the duck narrowed one eye in the illusion of raising an eyebrow. "Where'd _she_ go?"

Sora's broad smile gradually faded when he realized the truth of Donald's question. "Did you see where Char went, Goofy?" the brunette asked.

"She went t'go change," Goofy explained.

"Oh." Sora felt a strange surge of disappointment and knew that he still needed to apologize to her for snapping at her earlier. Brown spikes swayed as he lowered his head in a barely audible sigh.

"Aww, he misses her," Donald teased, causing Sora to straighten abruptly and direct a surprised glance at the duck.

"I do not!" the Keybearer protested, but the presence of heat on his face told him he knew he was lying. "A-anyway, shouldn't we heat these?" he hastily queried, lifting the box of ramen noodles.

His two present comrades nodded enthusiastically; Goofy made his way over to the table, seemingly having forgotten Sora's embarrassment, but Donald smirked as he sauntered by.

The mixture of mild annoyance and hunger roiling through Sora was tempered slightly by a sudden sense of exhaustion. The brunette's jaws stretched wide in a yawn as he covered his mouth with one hand and stretched the other arm high into the air. "Hey, you guys can go ahead and eat without me," he murmured, and the two of them glanced over, clearly alarmed by Sora's change of mood. "Don't worry, 'm just tired," Sora continued, his voice half muffled by a yawn.

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and made his way toward his room at a steady plod. As he passed by Char's room, he listened for sounds coming from beyond the door, but only the sounds of clothing rustling and a single irritated growl greeted his ears – probably she was still trying to get off the corset. A sleepy smile crossed Sora's face at the memory of how much her Halloween Town outfit had annoyed Char.

But he didn't have much time to dwell on that, because the next thing he knew the door to his own room was swinging open and he was collapsing onto the bed, the pumpkin-shaped mask digging almost intangibly into the side of his face as his eyes closed.

* * *

"_Do you remember your true name?" a figure clad in the black hooded coat of Organization XIII asks the identically-garbed, albeit smaller, figure._

_The younger hesitates. "My true name… is… Sora."_

* * *

_A collection of silvery letters whirls about in front of the blond boy and eventually comes to a stop, with the letter X flashing in the middle of the collection of four letters. With all these combined, the word created reads "ROXAS" in blocky letters._

* * *

"_Hey look, fresh meat," Roxas hears the other Organization members jeer. The blond simply narrows his eyes and, having the perfect vantage point from the lowest throne of them all, watches the Superior cross into the spacious room. A figure with long, dark brown hair trails uncertainly after Xemnas, green eyes darting about nervously, and as she steps into the line of sight of the present Organization members, a low murmur begins to ripple among them._

_"Cripes, it's a chick!" Xigbar whispers rather loudly, a lecherous grin crossing his face. Xaldin rolls his eyes in response before refocusing his gaze on the newcomer._

_But the girl has caught Xigbar's comment and is directing her glower at Number II, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly over a now-darkened green eye. A smile twitches across Roxas' countenance despite himself; he can already tell that he's going to get along with this girl much better than he and Larxene ever did._

_If, of course, the newcomer survives the tests._

* * *

_The return of Axel is made obvious by the flames soaring high into the storm-gray sky, and as Xemnas strides away to greet the Flurry of Dancing Flames, Roxas turns to the brunette girl standing near him. "You're gonna love Axel, Anxclof," Number XIII says quietly. "He's been at Castle Oblivion for the past few months or so, but now he's coming back."_

_Anxclof sighs and rolls her eyes. "Well, obviously," she mutters. "I didn't see him the day I came here, did I?"_

_Roxas smiles and shrugs. "Just thought I'd tell you."_

_"Rox!" a thunderous cry sounds, and then the next thing Roxas knows he's being tackled by a blur of red and black. "Dammit, I missed ya," Axel laughs, squeezing his best friend even tighter. "You had no idea how bad it was having your Other beating us up the whole time. Not to mention, even Zex, Lex, and Vex got killed by his little silver-haired pal…"_

_The redhead's voice trails off when he sees Anxclof standing slightly behind Roxas, awkwardly tapping one foot and clearly feeling like the third wheel here; at the same time, Roxas is struggling valiantly and choking out something about needing air. "So _this_ is Number XIV," Axel says. Seemingly just noticing his friend's need to breathe, the redhead languidly releases Roxas, and as the blond sinks to the ground gasping for air, Axel approaches Anxclof, who now has the air of a cautious wild animal._

_"The Superior told me about you when he let me in," Axel explained at the look of surprise on Anxclof's features, surprise that is accompanied by amusement at the obvious friendship between Axel and Roxas. Number VIII rolls his eyes and ruffles his already-spiky hair with one hand. "Not even a 'hello, Axel, how's your lack of life?' Or maybe an 'I'm glad you made it out of Castle Oblivion alive with the Keybearer running around killing all of my allies.' No, just…" Axel deepened his voice in an imitation of Xemnas. "'We have received a new member who you will see on your way in along with Number XIII.' Yeesh!"_

_"And Roxas here has told me _all_ about you," Anxclof answers loftily. At this, Roxas, who is still kneeling on the ground, jerks his head up in a swaying of honey-colored spikes and shakes his head frantically, drawing one finger across his throat repeatedly. Anxclof ignores him and pushes on. "How you like to burn things up and send your lesser Nobodies to go play pranks on people…"_

_"Wha – why'd you tell her about that?" Axel barked, eyes wide in obvious anger as he glares at Roxas; but the blond is already making his escape into the castle accompanied by the sound of Anxclof's raucous laughter._

* * *

"_I've already summoned my own lesser Nobodies," Roxas explains, and true to his word, one of his Samurais stands beside him, its blades twitching every so often as it shifts its hands about. "And Xemnas told me you could. So…"_

_"And you want your Samurai and my Avenger to fight it out." Anxclof closes her eyes and utters an annoyed sigh before opening them again and staring critically at Roxas. "You can't be serious."_

_"Hey, I do this with Axel's Assassins all the time. It's kinda funny to watch, actually." Roxas grins. "Unless you really _can't_ do it."_

_It's an obvious challenge, and Anxclof is never one to back down from a challenge. She growls and narrows her eyes. "Of course I can do it!"_

_And without waiting for him to answer, she concentrates, eyes becoming little more than emerald green slits and her jaw clenching visibly. In a few moments, a flash of gold announces the arrival of an Avenger Nobody, wielding its single blade in a way that reminds Roxas distantly of a fencer's stance. He puts a hand to his head for an instant to stifle the sudden pang that strikes it at that thought, but it's gone as soon as it starts, so he can't be sure._

_"Well?" Anxclof urges. _

_Roxas suddenly realizes she wants him to go through with it; the competitive sparkle in her eyes and glowing on her face tells him that much. He smiles and flicks his hand; in an instant, the Samurai charges. Anxclof hastily copies Roxas' gesture, and the Avenger brandishes its sword and meets the Samurai in the middle._

_Roxas risks a glance at Anxclof and sees the grin on her features; feels a weird warmth spreading through him at the thought that she's actually enjoying this; and knows he has to thank Axel later._

_That, and pay him a hundred munny for winning the bet._

* * *

"Sora? Sora!"

The brunette jerked upward in bed with a cry, nearly banging his head against the wall behind his pillow in the process. He raised one hand to run through his hair in thought as the memory of the dreams flowed back into his mind. _More dreams with Roxas and those two… _Yet Sora's frustration ebbed slightly now that he had a name for Roxas' friends: Axel and Anxclof. The warmth that Sora's body had sustained even in the dream told him that Roxas had almost certainly cared deeply for Anxclof, much in the way that Sora did for Kairi.

Still, Sora wasn't so sure about the latter anymore. The presence of a dual-wielding redhead with blue eyes and a vicious temper had changed that. He groaned and allowed his head to fall back against the sheets, which were currently tangled around his body, feeling the weight of the pumpkin-shaped mask against his face as he did so.

"Are you still asleep in there?"

And speak of the devil. Sora shot up in a start of surprise as the voice of the very person he'd just been thinking about sounded through the door. "Uh, n-no," he called back.

"Then can I come in?" Sora noticed she hadn't voiced her request in a command. Moreover, a hint of… _hesitation_ was audible in her words. _Wonder what's wrong,_ he thought.

Realizing that she was still waiting for an answer, Sora delivered a hasty answer of approval even as he was disentangling himself from the sheets and making his way over to the door, unconsciously raking his fingers through his hair. Which was even weirder, because why should he care what Char thought of his appearance?

He knew why; he just didn't want to acknowledge it yet.

He opened the door and Char promptly let herself in, sweeping past him into the room. The sense of foreboding within him faltered; her behavior toward him still hadn't changed very much.

"So what's going on?" Sora queried.

Char winced visibly without turning around, as though hating that he had gotten right to the point.

"I-I mean, you don't have to tell me now if you don't want to," Sora quickly amended, putting his hands up in front of him even though he knew she couldn't see them. "I was just curious."

"Don't apologize," Char murmured, one hand lifting up to push her bangs out of her eyes. She hesitated. "About earlier, before we fought Oogie…"

Sora blinked, then the memory of his own guilt toward himself for shouting at her returned with the force of a flood. The self-reproach resurfaced with a vengeance and he immediately averted his eyes. "Oh… right."

There was an awkward silence between the two teens; then Char spoke, and the lack of confidence in her voice made his eyes widen. "Look, I'm the one who should be sorry," she muttered, still not looking at him. "All I did throughout that whole trip was act like a brat and bitch about how much I hate Christmas."

It hit Sora that she had used the present tense about her feelings toward the holiday and the brunette sighed. Even after saving Christmas from certain destruction, it seemed she still had negative emotions about it.

Then something dawned on him.

"Why _do_ you hate Christmas so much?" he inquired, his voice soft.

This time, Char turned around fully, a look of mild shock on her features. Clearly, that was not the response she had expected: a shift of blame to himself, maybe, but certainly not the question she dreaded answering.

She took a deep breath – her chest actually moved up and down with the force of it – closed her eyes for a moment, then began to speak. "My master was relatively lenient toward the seven of us as far as gifts went at first. For the first five years I was there, we always celebrated Christmas together… almost kinda like a family." A weak little smile of reminiscence flickered across her face. "Even though we almost always got the same kind of present every year, it was still a welcome diversion from the constant work we did around Hollow Bastion. And we all enjoyed searching out presents for each other.

"But the year I turned eleven, something changed." A sigh pushed itself out of her and her breathing grew just a bit shakier. "My master called all of us to him a few days before Christmas, right when we were about to leave to go Christmas shopping. He said… he said that most of us were already well into our teens, too old to celebrate the holiday as it was. He turned a sympathetic eye to the two youngest – me and my friend Ienzo – and said that it was time to put Christmas aside and focus on our studies, if only for a year or so.

"Naturally, we all looked forward to the year that Christmas would return to us. But it never happened. Year after year, I watched people sing carols, or go shopping for gifts for their loved ones, or hang mistletoe around town… I hated it."

Sora's eyes widened gradually, and by the time Char finished her speech his eyebrows were arching into his bangs with the shock in his gaze. He barely even registered that Char had actually mentioned one of her fellow apprentices by name – Ienzo – in his own growing sympathy for her. The brunette himself couldn't imagine a lack of Christmas every year, as he and his mother had always celebrated it together even when his father was away for work. To have such a holiday snatched away indefinitely… Sora found an irrational anger toward Char's master for such treatment rising within, but the Keybearer mentally pushed it aside before it could rouse his temper. At last Sora spoke. "I-I'm sorry… I… I didn't know."

"Well you didn't bother asking, did you?" Char retorted, staring at the ground. Only now did Sora see that up until now, throughout her entire explanation, her eyes had remained closed.

Her words conjured up the recollection of himself snapping at her, doubting her promise to follow him and his allies wherever they went, and his stomach twisted in guilt. "Sorry," he muttered pathetically. "I shouldn't have yelled at you."

Char raised and lowered one shoulder. "Part of that was my fault too, y'know. I was a whiny brat the whole time we were saving Christmas Town," she reminded him, her voice almost inaudible.

_But I was the one who kept pushing you even when you didn't want to be pushed._ Sora left those words unspoken, but they hung in the air like a poisonous fog between the two of them.

Almost against his will, he found his eyes drawn to one of Char's hands, a hand that was lying motionless at her side and periodically twitching to tap a few fingers against her thigh in a nervous gesture. The thought crossed his mind that he should probably abandon that train of thought before it led to his losing an arm, but now the strangest urge to grab that hand was shifting restlessly within him. _Just reach out and grab it,_ the impulse urged. _It's not that hard…_

But he was saved from the decision of acting upon that impulse when Char lifted the hand he had just been staring unashamedly at and ran the fingers of that hand through her hair, seemingly having not noticed Sora's gaze. "Well… just thought I'd clear the air there," she murmured, and made her way toward the door. The brunette looked after her; only when the door swung shut behind her did he realize that his heart had been pounding the whole time.

He groaned as he flopped back down on the bed, reaching up and ripping the pumpkin mask off of his face. The rush of sudden cold air to the area around the previously-covered eye went all but unnoticed in Sora's self-reproach.

_Kairi,_ he reminded himself, picturing the dark reddish-haired girl in his mind: her laughter, her violet eyes, the way her whole face brightened when she smiled.

Yet that didn't stir the emotions about her that it used to; in fact, those confusing emotions only rose up again when the maroon hair was replaced by a bloodier shade of red, when the violet eyes were replaced by ice-blue.

…maybe it was time for Sora to take another nap.

* * *

And so Sora acknowledges that Char has replaced Kairi in his heart... The plot thickens...

Ah, Oogie. The most annoying boss fight EVER. I had to do it by myself on my playthrough of KH2 in Proud Mode because stupid Donald and Jack kept dying. I enjoyed writing about Char and Sora beating the crap out of him.

Also, in case some of you have noticed (it's not very likely, but I'll say it anyway), the whole Axel/Anxclof/Roxas meeting has been changed up; the one in this chapter is the "official" one. The first edition is from when I was ignorant of the actual KH timeline, and also because of the TSA timeline changes by me, the previous one just didn't work.

Next chapter should kickstart the Pride Lands, with a little twist...


	45. Chapter XLV

Holy crap! What's this? SAF IS ALIVE?! THIS IS BLASPHEMY. THIS IS MADNESS!

Yeah, sorry about not updating for, what, almost four months? x.x School and swimming got really hectic. I know that sounds like a pathetic excuse, but when you're frantically studying for an AP test in one class and trying to please your stupid teacher in another (English; but she hated everybody's writing so I didn't feel so alone), it's a little hard to get any creative writing in edgewise. Unless, of course, you're writing a stupidly long oneshot about your new OTP by the name of _Paper Walls, _but - but - SHUT UP! D:

Plus I got writer's block for this, which didn't help at all, let me tell you. But fortunately, I got back into the groove just long enough yesterday to write what is probably one of my shorter chapters. It's just a filler for all of you to nibble on until I can get my bearings on this fic back (I shouldn't have stopped writing it for so long, it was harder to get back into the mood for it).

So, enjoy, I guess.

**_Disclaimer-_** I didn't own Sora, Riku, Roxas, or KH before; what makes you think I do now?

* * *

Char eased the door shut behind her, turning so she could lean back against it as she did so. She pushed her bangs back out of her eyes and allowed a sigh to escape her even as her hair fell back into place; the sound of her voice echoed conspicuously throughout the empty hallway and she winced despite herself.

For some odd reason, baring such a large part of herself and the way she thought actually bore some kind of physical exhaustion on Char. She wanted to kick herself for it, because, as an annoying part of her mind kept telling her, she had to keep _some_ things secret from him. As long as possible, at least.

She couldn't help but think back to when this journey had first begun, when she wanted to reveal absolutely nothing toward Sora and his allies. Just get revenge on the Organization, maybe kill some Heartless in the process… but not this. She hadn't bargained for nearly forgetting about Riku, or becoming friends with the others, or even experiencing these odd feelings for anyone other than Ienzo or Riku. The fact that she was actually letting herself acknowledge the latter only gave more proof of how much she was changing under Sora's influence.

Another sigh tore itself out of her throat. She could only hope that Xemnas showed up soon.

* * *

_Conscience comes to Falcon in a haze. The first thing she knows is that she's warm, absurdly warm, and that something disturbingly soft is brushing against the slope of her shoulder. Green eyes open fully, albeit groggily, and she turns her head sleepily to find the source of these feelings. The sight that greets her induces panic, then annoyance, mostly toward herself. _

_Because she's promised herself that she'll never, ever, _ever_ wake up next to Copperhead Sandgale of her own will._

_At least they've both still got clothes on._

_When she remembers the memory of yesterday afternoon, however, a sleepy smile of understanding appears on her face. Her eyes slip closed again and she presses back up against Copperhead's side, inhaling the faint scent of the cologne he was wearing yesterday and coffee._

_Maybe this alliance – yes, that is what it is; an alliance, not… not… that f-word – won't destroy her dignity after all._

* * *

_Falcon is walking home from school one day when the first Heartless appears. Fortunately, her reflexes are just quick enough that she can summon her Keyblade and slice into the small shadow the instant before its claws can tear into her stomach. _

_As she watches the wisps of black that are all that remains of the Heartless' body fade out into the early evening air, a sinking feeling begins to permeate in Falcon's stomach._

_Because she knows this is just the beginning._

* * *

"_Hold still, I can't put this on your wound if you're squirming."_

_"It hurts," Falcon pouts, but complies, shifting to get comfortable at her position on his bedroom floor._

_Copperhead rolls his eyes, but a smile is on his countenance as he shakes his head and begins to squeeze some sanitizing lotion onto the gash along the inside of her arm. He murmurs a quick apology when Falcon lets out a low, sharp hiss of pain and twists the cap back onto the container. "Was the Heartless very big?" he asks, becoming serious._

_Falcon sighs, flinching when she feels the gauze rubbing against her wound. "No, but it was – don't tighten that so much," she cuts herself off suddenly, glowering at Copperhead and clenching her teeth to try and combat the pain. He merely puts his free hand up in apology and resumes wrapping the bandaging around her wrist._

_"It was really strong," she continues. Another sigh issues out into the air, and she lowers her head so that her hair is obscuring the side of her face. "I don't think I'll be able to handle them by myself much longer. It's like… it's almost like they're evolving."_

_Copperhead has remained silent up till this point, merely concentrating on dressing her wound, but when she utters the remark only meant for herself to hear, he stops abruptly. "You're not alone," he states bluntly._

_Falcon blinks, raising her head to stare at him. "Huh?" she asks intelligently._

_"I said you don't have to handle this alone," Copperhead repeats, violet eyes locked intensely, infuriatingly, on hers. "I'll help whenever I can."_

_Falcon blinks again, lowering her gaze in thought. She seems conflicted for a few moments, but reasoning wins over pride, and she meets his eyes again. "Okay."_

_"I said I'm helping and that's – what?" Copperhead grins. "All right! The Heartless brigade, Falcon and Copperhead – it kinda has a nice ring to it."_

_"I'm gonna go nuts," Falcon grumbles under her breath. _(1)

_Only now does she notice that his fingers have lingered much longer than necessary on the inside of her wrist. But strangely, watching him react so happily to her acceptance, she doesn't mind the contact at all._

* * *

"_You should join the fencing club."_

_Falcon turns to face him; the abrupt remark has taken her aback. "Huh?" she queries intelligently._

_Copperhead sighs and runs his fingers through the ends of his ponytail-bound hair. "I said, you should join the fencing club. I've seen you out there against those Heartless, and, well how do I put this?" He puts one finger to his chin for a few moments in mock thought, then raises that finger in realization. "Your footwork is sloppy, your attacks are haphazard at best, and last time you almost took my eye out."_

_"Oh, once and you're marked for life," Falcon grumbles._

_She looks up at the sound of his chuckle and feels an odd tingling warmth along her spine at the warm smile on his features; thankfully, the feeling disappears when she mentally orders it to. "Look, the weekly sparring _is_ helping," he tries to amend. "I just think you need some more practice."_

_Falcon stares at him; then a grin spreads across her own face. "Yeah," she says. "That's actually not a bad idea."_

* * *

"_5:15 p.m._

_Today Copperhead and I went to a more secluded part of the Shadowed Desert. Admittedly it was kind of scary, because I've never been to that part of town before and all these thugs were staring at me like, I don't know, they wanted to rape me or something. But at least Copperhead was with me, so they kept their hands to themselves. Guess they thought he was my boyfriend (oh ye gods no) or bodyguard (yeah, I can work with that) or something. _

_Either way, we ended up in the forest leading to the abandoned citadel. It's really a pretty cool place, except that the Heartless have taken up residence there lately so now the place pretty much resembles a ghost town. Needless to say, it was the perfect place to train._

_So we got our weapons out – just in time, it turns out. These medium-sized Heartless came out of the bushes and jumped right at us! They weren't as strong as any of the huge ones I've had to fight, but there were just so _many_ of them. Thankfully I got away with a few minor injuries, but Copperhead, stupid arrogant bastard that he is, barely got a scratch at all. Lucky jerk. He didn't even brag about it on the way back home (once the Heartless had drawn back a little and we'd deemed it okay to leave), just had the nerve to constantly ask if I was okay. Hmph, what an asshole. He should know better than to ask me. Of course I'm all right, I'm a Keybearer, for the gods' sake!_

_Of course, I voiced this to him, and he got kind of a weird look on his face like he was trying not to laugh or something. I don't even know what he's thinking half the time anyway. Why would I want to? It's not like…_

_Let me rephrase that. I don't care what he's thinking because he's not even my friend at this point. At least, I…"_

_(The last part of this is not even legible, due to constant scribbling out.)_

"_I'm tired of messing with this. I'm going to bed. And I will _not_ think about Copperhead anymore. I'm ashamed I've even let him into my thoughts for this long." _(2)

_

* * *

_

"Hmm…"

The sound of squawk-like murmurs of contemplation filled the interior of the Gummi ship's main room as Donald paced throughout the room, new staff in hand and his eyes fixed on that staff. The other three members of the group sat in their respective chairs, following the duck's movements with their eyes – all except for Sora, whose gaze was currently fixed on the green mist ahead of them while he drove. Finally, Char spoke, a sigh audible in her voice as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Look, duck-boy, you're going to wear a hole through the floor if you don't stop."

"I know!" the mage shot back instantly, whipping his head to glare at her. Char rolled her eyes and raised both palms in mock surrender. "It just helps me think, is all!"

"Well, you're going to have to make a decision soon," Sora pointed out without turning around to face his comrades. "Because there are a ton of Heartless ships coming up."

"You seem calm about this," Char pointed out, eyeing Sora with one eyebrow raised.

Sora raised and lowered one shoulder casually, but from where she sat, Char could see his muscles tense in preparation for the Gummi ship's clash with the Heartless. "Yen Sid said that there would be obstacles blocking the way to other worlds, right? Or something like that," he added, a little sheepishly.

"Donald, are ya sure your staff can even put us in danger at all?" Goofy queried.

"Of course!" Donald stopped in his tracks and fixed his glower on the knight. "My last staff got a special charm from His Majesty himself to allow magic that would prevent meddling in other worlds. This one doesn't have that."

"So basically, all we know for now is that this thing can kick ass, but at the same time it can also put us in danger if we try to use it for more complicated things?" Char tilted her head to the side as she began to understand.

"In a nutshell, yes," the duck muttered.

"Hold on!" Sora suddenly yelped, and without much more of a warning brought the ship into a sharp nosedive. Donald squawked and grabbed one of the chairs for support.

"Don't _do_ that!" he spluttered, glaring daggers at the Keybearer the moment he had righted himself.

"Sorry!" Sora hastily apologized, still not looking at the others. "They've never come this strong before; what am I supposed to do?"

"So, Sora's crappy driving aside," Char said a little shakily, keeping a death grip on the board where the controls were – her remark inducing an indignant "Look who's talking!" from Sora – "we still have to make a decision about what we're supposed to do about landing in this next world."

"Right," Goofy nodded. "Didn'tcha say all the beings in this world are animals, Char?"

"Yeah," Char gave a single nod of affirmation. "We had to do a massive project on the Pride Lands at one point back home." She didn't notice the way Sora's gaze flickered toward her at the mention of her researcher days, and she missed the shadow that darted over his face. Even though it was the day after their experience in Christmas Town, he still felt a sort of irrational fury toward Char's master for everything he had done to her.

Then he brought his gaze back to the Heartless ships, and for the briefest of moments, his fingers froze on the controls.

"Key-boy?" Char called, practically shouting over the turbulence of the Heartless bombarding them. She shoved her way to the chair that was next to his to get a better look, and as she followed his gaze, she couldn't help but copy his reaction. "Holy crap…" she breathed.

"You're being ambushed!" Chip and Dale wailed helplessly.

"Oh, _really,_ Captains Obvious and Obviouser?" Char hissed between clenched teeth, the grip on the arms of her chair turning white-knuckled as the Heartless' assault became more and more vicious. And the leader of it all, a six-legged Heartless ship, rotated in front of them, silhouetted against the sunlight reflecting off of the Pride Lands behind it. (3)

"C'mon, Sora!" Goofy screamed, and just like that, the brunette was knocked back to reality. He tossed back a hasty "Right!" and began frantically flipping switches and pushing buttons on the arsenal section of the controls.

"Move over!" Without waiting for a response, Char started copying Sora's movements, ice-blue eyes moving back and forth from the controls to the Heartless and back again. Firelight lit up the sky and pierced the green mist ahead of them as various missiles shot out of the Gummi ship and fireworks exploded all around the Heartless, briefly blinding it.

"What are you idiots waiting for?" Donald squawked at the top of his lungs, pushing Char aside and pressing a button on the edge of the control panel. Sora and Char couldn't see what that had triggered, but a flicker of movement outside drew their gazes just in time to see multiple missiles shoot out from the sides of the Gummi ship and embed themselves into the Heartless' remaining legs.

For a moment, there was silence. Then in a near-blinding explosion of light and colors, the Heartless was no more.

"Great job, guys!" Chip and Dale cheered, jumping up and down. Goofy's shoulders slumped and he collapsed to the floor in an exaggerated sigh of relief. Donald hovered over the control panel, chest heaving visibly, before falling over against the chair with an audible murmur. Char and Sora merely stared at each other, breathing hard despite the lack of physical exertion, idiotic grins weaving their way across both crimson and cinnamon-framed faces. Ice blue met sapphire for an exhilarating moment, and in the duration of that moment, an odd emotion went through Char, making its way throughout her body with warm fingers. She wasn't sure of its name – relief? pride in Sora? – but she did know one thing.

She wanted to kiss him.

_Wait, what?!_ The redhead shook these blasphemous thoughts away just as Sora turned away, effectively breaking the eye contact. She lowered her head slightly, frowning to herself as she thought.

"Whew!" the brunette exhaled, grinning at Donald and Goofy. "Glad that's over."

"Can I come back out now, a-hyuck?" Goofy gulped.

Donald had just righted himself on top of the chair he had been leaning against and was now grumbling to himself. "Well, I can't really _not_ try to use this thing after we went through that," he grunted, shaking the staff in his hand.

"Oh?" Sora perked up. "So we _can_ go into this new world! Right?"

"I didn't say that!" Donald rebuffed instantly. "I was just considering the possibility."

"Well, we gotta use that fancy wand if we're goin' to this world," Goofy pointed out, having uncurled from his previous protective position. "'Cause just goin' like we are would be mu… mu…"

Donald gave a huffy sigh of impatience. "For the last time, it's _meddling!"_ he barked.

Sora couldn't hold back his amusement at the sight of his two longtime allies arguing like always. "Okay, okay," he laughed. "We're going to have to take the risk."

Donald had been glowering at the dog, but at Sora's words the mage's head whipped toward the Keybearer in disbelief. "You can't possibly be serious!" he growled. "Didn't you just hear me? It could be risky for all of us!"

"We won't know until we try!" Sora argued. "Besides, Riku and King Mickey could be in this world! We shouldn't just leave that possibility alone."

Donald opened his mouth in preparation to snap back, only to close it as Sora's words sank in. "Hmph, you're probably right," he muttered, folding his arms. "All right. But!" he immediately squawked, raising one feathered finger. "If there's _any_ sign that something's going wrong, we go right back to the Gummi ship! Got it?"

"Yep," Sora agreed, rather absently; he felt too much excitement bubbling within him at the possibility of finally tracking down Riku. "So we just need to get all the supplies, and then – Char?" The brunette cut himself off and tilted his head to get a closer look at the redhead, who seemed deep in thought about something. "Are you okay?"

"Hm?" She blinked and stared at him for a few moments before answering. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking."

"Oh. Well…" Sora hesitated, suddenly feeling a little apprehensive. "We were just saying how we're going to go down to the new world as soon as we've got everything together."

"I heard that part," she answered dryly. "I'm ready whenever you are."

"Okay…" The Keybearer couldn't help but wonder what had come over her, but he brushed the thought away for now. At the moment, exploring the Pride Lands was all that really mattered.

* * *

"Four, you say?" the ragged-looking old lion mused, narrowing his eyes in a way that made the pink scar stretching over one eye shift on his face.

"Yes." The adolescent female lion gave a single nod. She spoke rather tentatively, putting her answers together as though she were used to using human terms. "There'll be a young… male, wielding a key, and two other males, along with a female with two swords. They'll probably want to stop you any way they can."

"I see." The older lion inclined his head very slightly in what was probably a gesture of respect. "Not since Simba have I had such competition for power."

"Oh, trust me, they probably won't want your throne," the young female snorted, rolling her emerald eyes. "No, this is just an annoying little thing they do, sweeping through place after place. Ridding it of 'evil' or something like that." Her eyes narrowed at the thought.

_And when you and your merry band of idiots show up here, Char… I'm going to make you regret having ever joined them in the first place._

"Anyway," she continued, "you can probably just send some hyenas or Heartless after them. It might not destroy them completely, but it'll at least weaken them considerably." The last part was added mostly for the older male's benefit, because anger had begun to glimmer in his eyes at her previous statement.

Maybe that freak Pete showing up wouldn't be detrimental to her plans, after all. After all, he _had_ equipped the new king of the Pride Lands with powerful Heartless to use at his disposal.

Anxclof lifted her gaze to the cloudy skies, inhaling and exhaling the heavy air deeply. She had a feeling that a storm was going to come sooner or later.

_Roxas. I'm coming. _(4)

_

* * *

_

"Okay, so is everybody ready?" Donald asked.

They were all standing near the entrance to the Gummi ship; Sora, Char, and Goofy were standing in a line in front of Donald, who wielded his staff.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Char muttered, just softly enough for Sora, who was standing next to her, to hear. The corners of his mouth twitched in an impulse to smile; it seemed like she was back to normal from whatever had plagued her thoughts earlier.

Donald simply frowned, and when the other three nodded in consensus, he raised his wand. "Okay then, here goes anything," he murmured, voice trembling ever so slightly, which caused Sora to blink in surprise. Donald never got nervous about _anything. _Clearly, this whole situation was making the mage uncomfortable.

The brunette had just enough time to feel the slightest pang of doubt about this, and he had just opened his mouth to voice that doubt when light descended upon him and his comrades, and he got the unpleasant feeling that he was free-falling off of a forty-foot cliff.

In the back of his mind he understood that something was going wrong, something was going horribly wrong, because he should not be feeling this sharp ache in the back of his skull, almost like something was squirming within him, begging to be set free; and he had the strange feeling like something inside him was splitting off from himself in a strange caricature of cell mitosis, and he wondered if anything like this was happening to the others; he hoped not, because through the white-hot pain in his head that was so sharp he couldn't even scream against it he knew he wouldn't wish this on anyone else.

But then the next thing he knew the light was clearing, and he was waking up feeling considerably smaller than before, and instinctively he knew that Donald had changed him into a more suitable form for this world. The Keybearer wondered vaguely what kind of animal he had become; a quick rudimentary scan over himself – a flicking tail, a budding mane that spiked up at the top in an imitation of his human hairstyle, and a coat of chocolate fur with a creamy underbelly – confirmed that he had been transformed into a lion. He felt a surge of pride in himself; lions had always been one of his favorite animals.

A cry of surprise from nearby brought Sora to rather clumsily turn his head in that direction. _This form's gonna take some getting used to,_ he thought.

His eyes focused in on the one who had produced that gasp. He recognized the feline creature as Char at once; the dark red color of her fur, stark against the dark stripes that mottled her pelt, kind of gave that away. He figured that Donald had probably decided to make Char a tiger to make her seem more natural-looking; a random dark red lion would probably have been incredibly conspicuous.

But all these thoughts flew right out of Sora's head when Char uttered a name, still in that breathless tone of shock and – what was that, _anger?_ – as she stared at the butterscotch-colored lion lying prone on the ground.

_"Roxas?"_

_

* * *

_Told you there was gonna be a twist in this chapter ;)

(1) Anyone who knows where I got this line from gets a virtual cookie. Yes, a virtual one.

(2) This is an entry from Falcon's diary, in case you don't know. I was going to make that clearer, but I didn't really have a chance to do that very smoothly. And that part in the parentheses (sp?) is like Anxclof is viewing it from her mind's eye.

(3) Remember that stupidly strong Heartless you have to fight in the little Gummi ship path before the Pride Lands? Yeah...

(4) Back in chapter 43, Anxclof vanished into this random portal of light that was in the little field between worlds. This is where she ended up.

I'm looking so forward to writing the rest of this world... X3


	46. Chapter XLVI

Alright, chapter 46! And it's out relatively quickly in comparison with the last chapter. Heh, let's just say it's my way of apologizing for keeping you waiting on 45.

I forgot how awkward it is to write characters that aren't human. Thankfully I have some practice with that little art (I used to write for the Warriors fandom, back in the good ol' days when it wasn't filled with moronic preteen trash), but unfortunately that's what writing this world is - an art. Writing cats is hard - just trust me on that.

So you know how I said I was going to enjoy writing this world? This is part of the reason why. The other part is... well, you'll see ;)

**_Disclaimer-_** After almost two years of working on this fic, I still don't own. Pretty sad, huh?

* * *

Char really didn't want to have to deal with this.

Today was turning out to be one of the worst she could remember, and she had experienced plenty of those in the past few weeks; the scar on her leg and the healing wounds that Oogie's spikes had left on her back could testify to that. Yet she had never had the absolute joy of having the urge to lock lips with the Keybearer and also being confronted with the memory of her past sins in the same _hour,_ let alone the same day.

She was snapped out of her own annoyance when a groan sounded from close by, and she watched, eyes wide, as the golden lion got to his paws, stumbling slightly at the difference that four legs brought to his sense of balance. A soft murmur of shock drew Char's gaze to the dark brown lion cub that, she assumed, Sora had transformed into. The Keybearer's now-feline face was contorted with a strange mixture of confusion and anxiety all at once; she could understand that it was mildly disarming to have the one who had continuously haunted one's dreams to show up in one's life for the first time.

"What…?" Sora whispered.

This was not good. This was not good at all. Char quickly cast her eyes about for Donald so she could give him a piece of her mind. Whether the duck had intended to split Sora's Nobody from the brunette himself or not, Char now understood all too well what Donald had meant by "what could happen" as the result of using that Heartless' staff to enter new worlds. She spotted a white, seagull-like bird with Donald's blue hat upon its head flapping its wings to stay in midair, staring at the three felines with an expression akin to Sora's own; the dog-eared turtle standing in a rather clumsy manner next to Donald just looked bemused at the new arrival. Char opened her mouth to speak and tried to take a threatening step toward the transformed mage, but her lack of adaptation to this new form caused her to stumble and nearly fall; her humiliation at her now-baby-like tread was stifled instantly by renewed dread when she heard a gasp, and she looked up to see what had just happened.

Roxas had managed to get his bearings, if only because he was leaning heavily against a rock across from the other four animals. Char made herself stand again as quickly as possible just as the Nobody snarled, "You!" and the Oathkeeper and Oblivion appeared in dual flashes of snowy white and dark black. Roxas stared down at the Keyblades on the ground – being that he had no thumbs in this form, he couldn't exactly summon them directly into his hands like he was used to doing – and muttered, "What's going on here?" with a trace of that anger toward Char in his voice.

"I could ask the same thing!" the redhead-turned-tiger growled, narrowing her eyes to icy slits at Donald. The mage merely turned his head away and grumbled something about having warned them something might happen.

Her frustration amplifying at Donald's lack of real response, Char whipped her head back toward Roxas and drew in breath to try to speak again, but Roxas beat her to it. "I want to know what's going on here. Now!" he hissed, his tail lashing. "One minute I was floating in nothingness, and the next I'm here! Did something happen to split me from –"

Char quickly cut him off; even though she had the sinking feeling that Sora was starting to figure out the reason why he was having so many dreams about Roxas, she couldn't have the brunette that she had been keeping so many secrets from knowing Roxas' true identity so soon. "Something must have happened when Donald tried to get us down here," she told Sora, and directed her glower once again at the aforementioned duck. "We got a little extra baggage."

"Oh, like this was _my_ fault!" Donald squawked indignantly, flapping his wings rapidly. "I did what I usually do when I teleported us to other worlds." He directed those words at Sora and Goofy. "Something just went wrong, is all."

"Obviously," Roxas muttered, not taking his wary dark blue gaze off of Char even as he made his Keyblades vanish. She met his glare – which put the statement "if looks could kill" to shame – with a fiery one of her own, and soon he backed down, if a little reluctantly.

Sora had remained silent until now, a gesture that was strange for him; under any other circumstances he would be commenting on this new world and their new forms with wide, sparkling blue eyes. So naturally, it startled the others badly when they heard his voice, quiet and mildly nervous. "Is it just me, or is this place really creepy?" he murmured, trying to distract himself from the headache he was getting. It wasn't enough that Roxas had starred in so many of his sleeping moments lately; now the blond had to show up in the waking world as well. Today just kept getting stranger and stranger…

Looking around, Char and Roxas had to agree; the steam rising from the acid pits surrounding them, as well as the odd rock formations dotting and shaping the walls that rose up around them, was enough to make even the cynical Char shiver just a bit. "It's not just you," Roxas murmured.

Goofy suddenly let out a questioning sound, causing the other four to glance toward the sound of the dog-turned-turtle's voice. The sight that greeted them was a hyena, prowling forward with a strange look on its face. A flicker of movement caused Sora to swing his head toward it in a way that made the chain on his crown necklace jingle; he spotted two more hyenas moving in with the same expression on their canine features. The gray hyena suddenly threw back its head and its body shook with a series of cackles that echoed almost frighteningly inside the ravine. Instinctively, the five of them moved so that they were all standing back to back in a way that made each of them seem like points on a star.

"Heartless?" Sora asked, narrowing his eyes as more hyenas appeared on the wall ledges, as if summoned by their comrade's laughter.

"I don't think so," Char muttered, turning her head to fully take in the situation. From the looks of things, if this came to a battle… She mentally cut herself off, not wanting to think about how that would end.

"Yeah, Sora – I get the feeling they might live here," Goofy added nervously.

"Don't mind us. We're just passing through; we won't be any trouble," Donald called.

"Yeah," Roxas quickly cut in.

"Don't be silly," one of the original hyenas purred, revealing herself to be female in her voice as she circled them. She came to a stop in front of Roxas and drew her lips back in a grin, causing the honey-pelted lion to lean back slightly with a look of disgust. "We'd _love_ for you all to stick around for lunch."

"Um… we didn't bring anything to eat," Sora answered, backing up a ways. He felt a bristle of fur against his back, caught a flash of dark red, and knew that he was unintentionally brushing against Char, a realization that was reinforced when the muscles of the back against his own stiffened. He could understand why – she had made it perfectly clear that excessive touching wasn't exactly her favorite thing – but why did the action of those muscles tensing feel more like a shiver to him?

The remaining hyena sniggered. "That's not going to be a problem," he giggled as he continued to circle them along with his two fellow hyenas.

"Try to use a little common sense," Roxas said, following the three hyenas with slitted blue eyes, as though in preparation to strike out at the next opportunity he got.

Goofy gulped audibly in sudden realization. "Gawrsh, Sora – I think _we're_ the lunch!"

"Brilliant deduction, turtle-boy," the last male hyena grinned, licking his lips. As though to punctuate his comrade's words, the very first hyena cackled again.

Donald screamed, "No!" and took off; as if that were some kind of cue, the other four dispersed in opposite directions. Roxas immediately lunged at the female hyena, who was closest to him, but Char caught him with a swat to his back, since she couldn't exactly grab his wrist. "Don't be stupid," she snarled, even as he turned his glare on her. "You're not going to win this fight."

"I could if I could summon my Keyblades to the right place," he retorted almost instantly, clearly remembering his failed attempt to attack her.

"Well, put one in your mouth and hold the other with your tail or something!" Char hissed, her frustration growing ever further as she spotted huge jaws opening out of the corner of her eye. "Look – don't worry about it; we have to go!"

"Aw, don't leave," the male hyena shouted from behind them. "We were just about to have the main course!"

He reared back and opened his jaws to descend down upon them, and Char tensed, fully ready to defend Roxas if need be; as much as she disliked the Nobody, he was still the other half of Sora's heart, and if Roxas were destroyed, Sora probably couldn't fulfill his role in Char's vengeance on Organization XIII.

Then a roar reverberated through the air, sounding as if it came from close by. The hyena closed his maw and growled in disappointment. "Man, that Scar's got the worst timing," he grumbled.

"Just let him roar," the female protested silkily from where she had pinned down Sora.

"Nah, we'd better go see what he wants," the other growled, turning away. "Sounds like he's grumpy enough already."

At the female's huffed sigh of "Fine," all the hyenas waiting above leaped down from their positions and followed the three leaders out of the ravine, casting hungry stares toward the others as they went.

Sora rose to his paws and faced his allies with a look of relief on his face. "That was too close," he sighed.

Donald and Goofy let out sounds of agreement. Char and Roxas moved to stand on either side of the two of them, and Sora couldn't help but watch the way the two of them came up together. Even though they clearly despised one another, an unnamable feeling surged in Sora's chest nonetheless. He tried to search out the name for it, but then he saw Char stumbling slightly as she approached; he moved instinctively to steady her, only to stop as Roxas instantly lent her his shoulder, a grudging look in those dark blue eyes as he did so. That odd emotion grew slightly in Sora's heart again.

"Everything's harder on four legs," Char remarked, jerking her shoulder away from Roxas' touch and giving him a sound glare. Roxas simply scoffed and turned his head away, and Sora blinked. _Why aren't those two getting along?_

"Better start practicing," Donald teased.

Char rolled her eyes. "Easy for _you_ to say. You're just flapping your wings. Like that's so hard."

"Guys…" Sora uttered a tiny sigh. Roxas glanced toward him with a sympathetic look of silent agreement.

"It's not so hard," Goofy tried to amend. The others turned toward him as he continued. "I found a trick to it while we were runnin' from them animals earlier. Here – let me show ya."

* * *

Anxclof had memorized how many steps she could take from one end of the pride leader's cavern to the other before having to turn back and retrace her steps. She watched her paws move as she paced; although she could boast about having visited so many worlds during her time as the Organization's Number XIV, she had never spent any time in this world – the Pride Lands, as Scar and his hyena cronies had called it. Needless to say, the female Nobody was still in slight shock and wonder at how much effort it had taken to get used to this new form – wandering around this world for what felt like years had been the only way she could think of that worked.

She found herself wondering whether or not Char and Sora had arrived here yet, and quickly shook the thought off, as the mere mention of the redhead was enough to send Anxclof into a fury of anger these days. The dark brown lioness inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to purge that anger from her and calm herself down; she only succeeded in making her temper ebb just a little.

It hit her rather abruptly then, that she hadn't once thought of Roxas in her entire time here. Guilt washed over her immediately, infuriatingly; for what was her purpose if it was forgotten? _I had to negotiate with Scar,_ she mentally argued with herself; _it wouldn't exactly have done any good to start sobbing in the middle of a conversation with the one who now has all the Heartless in this world._

It was too late, though. Now that she had let Roxas back into her thoughts again, it was all too easy for the tears to start building back up behind her eyes again. She told herself to stop being so pathetic; if everything went well, then she would have him with her again soon enough.

Yet that didn't stop the sense of sorrow and dread – both of which set a lump building in her throat – at daring to anticipate what would happen if things didn't go as planned. And the feeling of a dam ready to burst became tangible in her eyes again.

"Stupid," she muttered under her breath, "animals aren't supposed to have tear ducts anyway."

* * *

This was going to be more difficult than Sora thought.

Goofy's suggestion had been to spin around in circles to move in the desired direction, but, as Char dryly pointed out, everyone knew that that little trick would only work for the knight due to his turtle form. So the three felines spent the better part of an hour trying to get the hang of moving about on four legs while Donald and Goofy took a lookout position – the dog-turtle on the ground, and the duck higher up – to watch and see if those hyenas decided to come back. More than once, Sora found himself nearly crashing into Char or Roxas – he even collided headlong with the latter a few times, which was a rather painful experience – much to their chagrin. And more than once, Sora found himself apologizing hastily and continuing his routine with his facial fur heated from embarrassment. Even this he did a little absently, for his mind was still on the way he had seen Roxas and Char interact earlier.

The brunette immediately told himself to stop thinking that way. Char, as she had amply proven over this journey, didn't usually get along with someone she had just met right off the bat; if anything, she was more apt to insult them, a lesson Sora had learned all too well in the first few days he had known her. From the way Roxas acted in Sora's dreams, the blond also seemed to be the same way – his friendships with Axel and Anxclof had been built up over a period of time, and even then, sometimes Roxas didn't tell his two best friends everything.

But the thought of those dreams – and the boy that Sora had never even met before suddenly appearing in his life _right after_ Donald's staff had created that splitting feeling in the brunette's skull – brought another headache to Sora, so he tried not to think of those dreams and focus on the task at hand. Riku. Was Riku really here or not? The chocolate-furred lion couldn't hold back a small giggle at the mental image of Riku, somewhere in the Pride Lands, practicing moving around the way Sora himself was doing now, in a way much akin to a child learning to walk. The amusement faded a little when Sora figured that Riku probably would have mastered it already. That thought spurred Sora to crouch down before leaping up to dash across the clearing; as he skidded to a stop, he concentrated, and the Hero's Crest appeared in his jaws, much to his pleasure.

"Show-off," he heard Char mutter from nearby, and unconsciously, his grin grew.

"Do you think we could get going, Sora?" Roxas asked, coming up to stand beside his Other. The golden lion blinked a little at the enthusiasm clear in Sora's breathless expression, when it was turned toward him.

"Yeah, I think so," Sora answered loftily, his voice only a little muffled around the Keyblade clenched in his teeth.

Char turned her glower to Roxas. "Told you it could be done," she growled. When the two males simply tilted their heads in confusion – Sora's expression one of almost adorable bemusement, while Roxas' was a cool, questioning one – she sighed irritably and explained, "Summoning your Keyblades in this form."

Roxas simply snorted. "Whatever," he grunted, and in dual flashes of light, the Oathkeeper and Oblivion appeared, the white hilt in his jaws and the black hilt all but covered by his tail curling over it to hold it. He narrowed his eyes when Char summoned her swords in the same manner.

She noticed his now-cold demeanor and rolled her eyes. "Sorry to copy you," she said in a sarcastic tone that suggested she wasn't sorry at all. "But I can't think of another way to do this."

In response, the Nobody turned away, clearly not wanting to deal with this right now. Char looked briefly surprised, as if she had expected a sharp retort as to her own creativity; then she sniffed and turned up her nose at him.

On the sidelines, Sora groaned under his breath. Trying to get two people he knew so well to get along was going to be harder than he'd thought. And this was coming from the Keyblade master who had faced countless Heartless and enemies throughout both his journeys.

"Alright then, let's go!" Donald said when the three felines approached him. Goofy looked a little uncomfortable as his gaze shifted from one wildcat to the other; he had obviously heard the conversation and sensed the tension thick between Char and Roxas, but thankfully, the dog-turtle had decided to say nothing about it.

The five of them made their way out of the nearest exit from the ravine and acid pits, which gradually thinned out to reveal a still-desolate, but less ominous landscape. Sora shuddered slightly when he caught sight of what was unmistakably half of a still-intact ribcage on the ground, and he made an effort not to show his own fear to his friends, merely stepping around the bones. More bones littered the ledges that rose up around them, ledges that were, thankfully, not as high up as the ones that lined the walls of the ravine.

A flicker of movement caught the group's eye, and as one they turned their heads just in time to see a creamy-colored lioness charge past them, followed by two large Heartless, whose faces were masked by hollow skulls. She whirled around as she stopped and snarled threateningly at the dinosaur-like creatures, who merely reared back in response. Her eyes flicked to the left, toward the five animals that were watching the scene with widening eyes; then she rapidly whipped to the right and raced off, while the Heartless followed after her.

Sora followed them with his gaze before turning back to the others. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked, rather tensely.

"That we're ready if you are?" Char narrowed one eye in the illusion of raising one eyebrow.

"Let's go," was all Roxas said.

Sora gave a single, determined nod before chasing after the lioness and leaping in front of her just as she turned around. He heard her murmur of slight surprise and knew it must be strange to have to be defended by an adolescent cub, but he spoke boldly enough. "Stay back; we've got this," he called back, flashing her a grin over his shoulder.

Char and Roxas were already laying fiercely into one of the Heartless, which stomped about the path in an attempt to get away; but two sets of dual swords wielded in such skilled– tails? Jaws? Sora didn't really know – were proving to be too much for it. Sora tried not to think about that weird feeling that had taken up residence in his chest yet again at the sight of the two of them working so well together; he just leaped at the other Heartless, which Donald and Goofy were having difficulty taking down.

At the same moment that Sora charged, the Heartless abruptly seemed to notice he was there. It whipped its ball-and-chain-like tail toward him, the spiked end of which crashed right into him in a blur of bluish-white fire. The blow startled Sora badly and knocked him backward, but he didn't notice anything more severe than a few shallow cuts along his side as he jumped back into the fray with a series of blows to the Heartless' head. He frantically dodged around the other dinosaur's tail even as he leaped on the Heartless back and, twirling his Keyblade in a flourishing gesture in his jaws, brought it down, hard, upon the one part of the back of its neck that wasn't covered in bone masking. The Heartless roared in pain and bucked in an attempt to shake Sora off, which proved to be in vain as the Keybearer finished it with one last blow to the head.

He jumped down and spotted that Char and Roxas were standing nearby, having already finished off the Heartless they had been fighting. Donald raised his staff to heal the various wounds along Roxas' body, to which the honey-furred lion only gave a nod of thanks. Once again, Sora was struck by the strangeness of having someone he had only met in his dreams appear in the real world, even more so now that he _knew_ it was true.

No one but a Keyblade wielder could have taken out the Heartless as quickly as Roxas had.

"You alright, Roxas?" Sora asked, approaching his comrades with a concerned look at the aforementioned lion.

"Yeah," Roxas nodded.

"Thank you all. You really saved me." They all turned to see the lioness gazing at them gratefully.

"We're just glad you're okay," Goofy said.

"Did you see any other Heartless around here?" Char queried, brisk as always.

"Heartless… is that what they're called?" The older female tilted her head briefly to the side, then shook her head. "I don't know if there are any others…" Seeing the confused looks on their faces, she continued, "I don't usually hunt outside the Pride Lands."

"Pride Lands?" Char mused, her eyes flicking toward Sora. He could almost see the gears turning in her brain, thinking that perhaps "Pride Lands" was just the generic term for this world and not how the natives saw it.

"Hey, um…" The Keybearer took a few cautious steps toward the cream-furred lioness, whose eyes lit up in curiosity. "Do you know if a guy named Riku is here? Or maybe some bad guys in black?"

"Or this big moron named Pete?" Char added.

The lioness looked bemused for a moment at the barrage of questions, but she merely shook her head in response. Sora sighed. "Okay…" He was beginning to grow tired of this constant search; the sense of homesickness that had begun within him at the start of his journeys was so overpowering now that it nearly brought tears to his eyes, impossible as crying may have been. _Riku, where are you?_

"We might as well go take a look anyway," Sora called back, disappointment audible in his voice. Char exchanged a glance with Donald and Goofy and opened her mouth as if to speak, only to close it and look down at the ground. Roxas simply gave Sora a look of sympathy, almost as though he understood all too well what his Other was currently going through.

"Wait – the Pride Lands are dangerous." Sora blinked at the sudden urgent tone of the older lioness' voice, his own disappointment newly eclipsed by confusion. "Scar and the hyenas have made things unbearable for everyone. There's no food left. They've driven off the prey. We're about to starve!"

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold up," Char interrupted, holding up a paw for silence. "Why can't you just drive this Scar guy off and be done with it?"

"It's not that simple," the lioness said, sighing and closing her eyes. "Our old king, Mufasa, would have never allowed this, but when he died, Scar took over." A small shadow seemed to pass over her eyes, so quickly that Char couldn't be too sure. "He's the worst…" Seemingly unable to find words, the lioness merely shook her head again. "He's a tyrant," she murmured.

"We can handle a little danger," Sora said, flicking his tail. "You just saw us pound those Heartless, right?"

"I guess you're right…" There was still some doubt in her voice, but when she lifted her head, a spark of hope flickered in her eyes. "You could be just what the kingdom needs," she mused. "Maybe you could help us."

"You mean take out this Scar and all those hyenas?" Roxas gave a skeptical look.

"So if this Scar is your king…" Char muttered, her eyes widening as she put all the pieces together. She jerked her head up and stared at the older lioness. "Wait, let me see if I have this right. You want _us_ to take down your king?"

The lioness gave a single nod of confirmation.

"Wait just a minute," Sora said, and ran back to his waiting comrades.

"This is insane," Char said immediately.

"Char!" Donald yelped, casting a look toward the waiting Pride Land native nearby.

"Well, you're thinking it too! Right?" Char's gaze swept over the group. "You saw all those hyenas earlier. Remember that it was _Scar_ who called them back? To prevent them from making us their next meal?"

"As if we could forget," Roxas snorted, earning himself a renewed glower from Char.

"As I was _saying,"_ the tiger growled, turning back to Sora, "those hyenas are obviously his elite guard. And you saw how many there were. What if we couldn't get past that guard? Then it'd all be over. Poof. No Destiny Islands, no Riku, no Kairi, no King Mickey – just the inside of some dog's stomach to look forward to for the rest of your lives! Maybe even some stomach acids if you're lucky!" Char pounded one crimson paw on the ground. "You're just going to have to tell her to find some other hero."

"But if they had one of those, don't ya think they woulda found him already?" Goofy pointed out.

"Yeah! If this Scar's the bad guy, we obviously need to take him out!" Donald added fiercely.

Roxas said nothing; he only narrowed his eyes at Char. "You know what I think?" he asked suddenly.

"Not that I care, but what the hell, you might say something valuable," Char answered, giving a catlike smirk when Roxas hissed something vulgar under his breath.

_"I_ think you could care less about what happened to this world. Why would it matter to you anyway?" the golden lion continued silkily as Char tried and failed to mask her surprise. "It's just more research fodder for you, isn't it? The fall of this world to Scar will probably make for some drama anyway. 'And so the Pride Lands were taken over by the tyrant Scar'…" Roxas shook his head, his lips curling back in a snarl. "It's pathetic."

"Roxas!" Sora gasped, unaware that his own face was beginning to contort in anger.

"Guys, calm down," Goofy whispered frantically, looking from one lion to the other and then back to the waiting lioness. To the two Disney residents' alarm, Roxas and Sora looked ready to pounce at each other at any minute.

"If I didn't care what happened, I wouldn't even be here in the first place!" Char hissed, causing both males to turn and look at her: Roxas with unmistakable hatred, and Sora with waning fury. "I'd be waiting back on the Gummi ship like a good little damsel. Now shut the hell up and let's figure out what we're going to do about this!" She couldn't hide the way her voice was starting to tremble; the way the situation had almost gone out of control was still making her heart pound tangibly against her chest.

Sora stared at her, his chest heaving with the remains of his anger toward Roxas, then the chocolate-pelted lion took a deep breath to calm himself. "You're right. She's still waiting for us to decide what to do about this."

"At any rate, we can't just go around knocking kings off their thrones," Roxas said, still looking quite irritated, but not seeming ready to leap at Char like before. "No matter how evil they might be."

"Yeah, 'cause that would be meddling," Donald said with a nod.

"Then again…" Sora thought aloud, sapphire eyes beginning to glow with some new realization. He looked from one ally to another, his gaze resting at last on Char, for some reason. "If they see that I'm stronger than their king, maybe they'll make _me_ their next king!"

"Keep dreaming, Key-boy," the tiger sighed.

Sora laughed and lifted his head in a mock-royal manner. "I'd have to refuse, of course."

"Right…" Donald muttered.

"Still," Sora said, deliberately making his voice louder so that the lioness could hear, "I'd like to see the Pride Lands, so…" He took his eyes off of Char, much to her relief, to sweep over his group again. "You guys don't mind lending them a paw, do you?"

"I've already made _my_ decision," Roxas muttered, fixing his glare on Char, which she returned in kind. Sora fought back another sigh and the urge to give in to his growing frustration toward them; he just grinned and nodded before turning and trotting back to the lioness.

"There he goes again." Char rolled her eyes.

They watched the conversation between Sora and the lioness; Char couldn't help but cast a wary glance toward Roxas, only half-listening to what Sora himself was telling the Pride Land native. The tiger was sure that had Sora not intervened, Roxas would have attacked her – killed her, if given the chance. It was a new feeling for her, traveling with someone who harbored so much hatred for her that he would try to disguise his anathema toward her – rather poorly, if his behavior so far was any indication – every time he so much as looked at her. Char couldn't really blame him, though: if she herself had been kidnapped and thrown into a virtual world, then left in blissful ignorance until her memories of her friends and love returned, she would feel the exact same way when confronted with the one who had caused it all. She didn't bother denying the fact that she had assisted in Roxas' capture; she, after all, had had as active a part in it as Riku had. And she knew full well that at this point she was as much DiZ's accomplice as Riku was.

A sigh wove itself out of her in a way that made her chest move with its heaviness. She missed the mildly uncomplicated days that she had spent with Riku in Twilight Town so much it hurt sometimes: the days when the worst burden she had was the memory of watching the only friends she had in this world becoming Nobodies, or trying to keep her heartbeat to a minimum when Riku was around her. Now, she realized, she was, in essence, sharing Sora's burden of saving the worlds and finding his friends, whether she liked it or not. As much as she wanted to see Riku again, the feeling of that task weighing down upon her shoulders was an unwelcome one.

Besides… She fought back another sigh.

She hadn't thought of Riku in that way since Port Royal, when she had dreamed of him. It was an inexplicable feeling, one that she didn't want to think about, since when she dared to consider it, the image of a certain spiky-haired, Keyblade-wielding brunette replaced the silver-haired emissary of darkness.

Char surfaced from her reverie just in time to see the lioness give a single nod and bound off in the opposite direction. Sora headed back to the group. "Nala's going to go on ahead and tell the other lionesses," he explained, revealing the lioness' name. "We're supposed to meet her up at a place called Pride Rock."

"Gotcha," Roxas said. Char cast a sharp look in his direction, but he was looking at Sora, dark blue eyes narrowed in determination. She supposed that he figured he may as well work with his Other for the time he had to be here.

"So… did she say where this Pride Rock was?" asked Donald.

Sora hesitated before shaking his head. "Uh… no. But I think if we keep going, we can find it," he added hastily at the skeptical looks on Char and Roxas' faces. No matter how much they hated each other, the Keybearer thought dryly, at least they thought alike. "She said to just look out for the thorn-like rock sticking up into the sky."

"That should be easy to find," Goofy said hopefully.

"Let's just hope we don't get killed by Heartless along the way," Char muttered.

Roxas stared at her. "You're not looking forward to this, are you?"

"Not at all."

* * *

The scene on top of Pride Rock was one that was greeted with bemusement and awe by the hyenas and lionesses watching, albeit with some wary anger on the latter's part. The Avenger Nobodies clashed blades and danced about the surface of the rock, to the wonder of the simple-minded hyenas; the occasional howl of laughter was heard when one Avenger was nearly knocked down by the other, but soon both lesser Nobodies were back in the fray in dual blurs of silver.

Anxclof, who had summoned her Nobodies to keep the hyenas amused, watched from nearby, where she was curled up into a comfortable position on the grass bordering the rocky hill that led up to Pride Rock's surface. As thin as the grass was, it offered some comfort compared to lying on the stone floor. She would have gone to the king's den, but Scar was currently talking with Pete there, and she didn't want to confront a lecher and an idiot all at once; just one of those kinds of people annoyed her enough. Scar was a cunning and powerful leader, she couldn't deny that, but at the same time, the way he watched her made her shudder a bit, especially since her current form was that of an adolescent lioness. Anxclof knew that in the wild, anything was acceptable as far as mating went, but she would rather not be the victim of pedophilia, even more so since she was already in love with someone else.

Unbidden, the words that Char had spoken at Beast's Castle, what felt like so long ago, came back to Anxclof's mind. _Neither you nor Roxas can feel anything, because _you don't have hearts!

_Could someone with no heart love someone as much as I love Roxas, Char? Even you, the one who allegedly can feel more than I can, have trouble admitting what you feel for Sora. Who's the one with the lack of feelings here, anyway?_

A flicker of movement caught her eye and she turned her head just in time to see Scar emerge from his den in a languid movement of his body, followed by… she didn't even know how to describe the form Pete was currently in. He looked like a cross between a lion and an ape, for some reason; was Maleficent trying to make fun of him with the way she had disguised him? Anxclof couldn't hold back a small giggle at the thought.

"Hey, Scar! Check this out!" one of the hyenas barked, pointing with one paw at the Avengers. Anxclof, mildly curious, looked back to see how her Nobodies were faring, just in time to see one pin the other to the ground with its deadly blade to the other's throat. The tables had turned, she noted, seeing that the Avenger who had won was the one that had been knocked down earlier.

Scar simply narrowed one eye and looked at Anxclof in a silent request for an explanation. "They're scouts of mine," she said, getting to her paws. "I summoned them to keep your little lackeys amused."

"Hey!" the hyenas yowled as one, but Scar actually smirked at Anxclof's insult. Pete was staring at the Nobodies with a look of shock on his gaping face.

They didn't notice the creamy-colored lioness slip around the other side of Pride Rock, behind the pointed structure.

Deciding she had had enough, Anxclof flicked her tail, and at once the Avengers stopped fighting and headed over to her, with the aura of soldiers waiting for orders from their general. The brown lioness opened her mouth to speak, but a voice cut her off. She saw the owner of the voice – a hyena that Scar had sent to scout – just before the dog spoke.

"There are a couple of lions traveling in the plains, with a tiger, a duck, and this weird-lookin' turtle. Both lions have keys."

"Right on time," Anxclof muttered. At the same time, though, she couldn't help but wonder about what the hyenas had said. _Two Keyblade wielders?_

A spark of hope ignited within her, but she shook it off. _It can't be._

She turned to her Avengers, already mentally rearranging her original orders. "Go out to the plains and keep Sora busy," she commanded. Darkly, she growled, "Do what you want to the others, but make sure he and Char make it out alive. They both belong to me."

The Avengers nodded and leaped gracefully off of the edge of Pride Rock, landed gracefully on their feet despite how high up it was, and made their way out to the plains. Anxclof watched the two silvery blurs weaving their way across the grassy ground below and turned to Pete. "You've already got Heartless out there, right?"

"Uh, of course, madam," Pete stuttered.

Anxclof rolled her eyes. "Don't call me that."

"Yes, sorry, madam – er, I mean –!"

"Never mind," the lioness sighed.

* * *

As the five of them trekked through the bone-littered stone valley, Sora discovered, much to his immense relief, that taking out Heartless was much easier with two Keybearers laying into the enemies at once. He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or more confused at that: pleased that the Heartless were being taken out so easily, or confused that there was even more confirmation of the dreams being real, as Roxas had wielded the same two Keyblades in Sora's dreams. Sora was still trying to figure out his connection to Roxas, which was more than a little difficult, considering the Heartless that attacked them at every turn. The brunette guessed that since there were two Keyblade wielders here, the Heartless were even more eager to obtain those Keybearers' hearts. Oddly enough, though, the Heartless always shied away from Roxas after attacking him for a little bit and threw themselves at Sora instead.

Eventually, the eerie bone-covered ground of the ravine cleared out to thick grass that prickled the felines' paw pads and made them sigh in relief. "At least the ground's soft now," Char muttered. Her icy eyes surveyed the plain in front of them before catching on a rocky structure sticking up from the grassy landscape. "That must be it," she called back to the others, jerking her head toward the rock.

Sora followed her gaze and his eyes lit up. "Hey, yeah! That makes sense. Good eye," he told Char, who gave a nod of thanks to his compliment. Roxas' eyes flicked over to them, but he said nothing.

The five of them made their way across the savannah, defeating Heartless along the way. Thankfully, no more of those dinosaur-like Heartless showed up; Roxas, however, felt more than a little suspicious of the lack of difficult enemies. Maybe he was just a little on edge – being ripped from his Other's mind and finding himself in a lion's body, traveling with the young woman who had kidnapped him tended to do that.

He shifted the Oblivion in his tail's grip, trying to get back to the task at hand – paw, whatever. He figured as long as he was here, he may as well help Sora as best he could.

Maybe Anxclof would show up again in the process.

Roxas was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard the duck let out a squawk of surprise, and the blond jumped back just before Donald's tail feather landed in his face. "What's going on?" Roxas growled.

Sora simply pointed with his tail, and Roxas followed his Other's gaze.

At once the Nobody gasped in shock, rearing back and nearly dropping the Oathkeeper. His eyes were wide as he stared at the creatures that he had often trained with back in the Organization.

_Then this means…_

The Avengers seemed to balk only a little at the sight of their mistress' love interest; it was obvious that they recognized him despite his feline form, because otherwise, they would not have hesitated at all. It was only a split second of second thoughts on their part, though – in the next few moments their blades were whipping through the air as they danced toward and around their opponents.

"Not these again," Sora panted, barely dodging one of those deadly swords and getting nicked by the tip in the process.

"We'll just keep pounding 'em till they get the hint!" Donald roared as he cast a fire spell on the Nobodies. They leaped back, seemingly startled, only to recover quickly and rush back toward them.

"They're much stronger than they were last time we fought them," Char muttered, already fighting panic at the sight of Anxclof's Nobodies. If the Avengers were here, then Anxclof was in this world as well. And more than anything, Char did not want a repeat of Beast's Castle and the race against time that had followed. Her icy eyes narrowed. _I'm not letting that happen to Sora again._

She noticed Roxas standing off to the side, unarmed, with his own dark blue eyes wide. "A little help would be nice!" she shouted back at him, ducking around one Avenger's sword.

She didn't dare turn back for fear that she'd get sliced open when she wasn't paying attention, but she got no response from him. _Oh, _you're_ helpful. I thought you were going to help Sora._

An instant later, however, a flash of black and white caught her eye and she watched as Oblivion's shaft ripped into the Avenger's skull and the Nobody vanished entirely. Char landed on her paws and glowered ferociously at Roxas as he landed beside her after completing his airborne assault. "I would have appreciated that earlier, when I was fighting for my life," she growled.

Roxas narrowed his eyes, his claws unsheathing. "You know perfectly well why I didn't want to fight back."

"I know, but even you realize that you have to help us for as long as you're here," Char hissed.

"I don't _have_ to do anything," Roxas shot back. "For example, I didn't _have_ to complete Sora. He could still be floating in that containment pod in Twilight Town right now and I could care less."

"Well, you'd be the only one!"

"At least I was happy in Twilight Town. Ignorance is bliss, right?"

"Then Riku kidnapping you was actually a _good_ thing? That's what I'm getting out of what you're saying."

"It was the exact opposite! There's another thing – I didn't _have_ to go with you to Twilight Town, did I?"

"Did you have a choice?"

"Roxas! Char! Make yourselves useful over here!" Donald screamed, effectively ending their conversation. They tore their eyes away from each other and glared at the duck, who was swooping around the remaining Avenger and leaving a swathe of damaging magic in his wake, before charging toward the Nobody and attacking it fiercely with their respective weapons of swords and Keyblades. Char caught Sora's eye, for he was slashing at the lesser Nobody from the other side, and he grinned briefly at her before redirecting his determination at taking out his opponent. She didn't know why, but a shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature went up her spine.

With the five's combined efforts, the second went down much more easily than its ally. Goofy sighed in relief as his shield reappeared at its standard position on top of his shell, and Donald nodded in enthusiastic agreement. "I thought we were done with those Nobodies," he grumbled.

"We're not." Sora, Donald, and Goofy turned to look at Char when she spoke. "A set of those lesser Nobodies – besides the Dusks – usually means that their master is close by."

"So… you think a member of the Organization is here?" Sora's eyes got huge.

"Most likely." Char gave a single, dark nod. "We should be ready for battle as soon as we get to Pride Rock."

"And how do _you_ know?" Donald challenged.

Char let out an exhalation of annoyance and rolled her eyes. "How do I know everything else that I've told you on this journey? I read it in a book. Now are we going to sit around here and debate on this all day, or are we meeting Nala at Pride Rock?"

Sora almost smiled. Now that was the Char he knew and…

And…

Somehow he didn't feel comfortable with even _thinking_ the last word of that little aphorism.

"Sora?" The sound of Goofy's voice jerked Sora rather abruptly out of his thoughts, and he nodded. "Yeah, we're going to Pride Rock. Let's go."

* * *

Contrary to Char's words of warning, no Nobodies appeared when the five animals made their way up to the ledge that the rock structure itself shadowed. There were no hyenas in the area, although Sora swore he heard a few cackles carried on the wind and shuddered unconsciously every time. A group of lionesses were sleeping on the stone ground, and not even Roxas could hold back a murmur of sympathy at seeing how emaciated they were. _Nala was right; Scar really is starving them,_ the golden lion thought.

A shift of movement just ahead of them made the group avert their eyes from the lionesses. They saw Nala coming toward them with an odd-looking gray ape, who was using a gnarled stick with what looked like orange fruit attached to its top, to walk properly, by her side.

"What's with the monkey?" Char hissed at Sora, who just shrugged.

The two came to a stop, and Nala leaned over to her companion to murmur, "That's him." Sora couldn't help but feel a little nervous at the attention he was getting, even more so when the baboon abruptly came forward with a surprisingly smooth gait and leaned forward to get a better look at him. "Uh… what?" Sora asked awkwardly, trying not to lean back even as the baboon was putting a hand to his chin in thought.

Finally he moved off, using his stick for balance, and swept his gaze over the rest of the group; Char's eyes widened slightly at the way those old orbs lingered on her, but otherwise, his scrutiny of the others was relatively equivalent to Sora's.

Nearby, the lionesses were awakening; they raised their heads and glanced around to see what was going on. Everyone watched with bated breath as the old ape went back over to Nala and whispered something into her ear. The cream-colored lioness listened for a moment before her eyes widened and she reared back; Sora watched with a feeling of growing disappointment as the baboon shook his head and Nala sighed, hanging her own head. The group of lionesses echoed that disappointment and settled back into their previous sleeping positions. Without looking back, the ape turned and started back to the other side of Pride Rock.

"What is it?" Sora asked, even though he had a feeling he already knew.

"I told Rafiki you might be able to help us force Scar and the hyenas out of the Pride Lands," Nala explained, raising her head so she could talk to them properly. "But he says it won't work." She hesitated, speaking slowly, as if putting her words together as she said them. "You see, whoever saves the Pride Lands will be our next king, and… well… he has to have the right qualities."

"Meaning…?" Sora's shoulders slumped.

"In a nutshell, she basically just told you you're not kingly material," Char cut in roughly. Inwardly, she was wondering why this Rafiki monkey had to be so damn picky. Sora had saved more worlds than this one; why _shouldn't_ he be "qualified"?

Then again, she probably wouldn't want a dork for her leader either.

"I'm sorry you came all this way." Nala seemed genuinely apologetic.

"It's cool." Char flicked her tail. "We've been running around far longer than this anyway."

"Yeah, it's okay," Sora added, giving a half-hearted smile.

Nala's eyes shifted about before she crouched low and leaned in toward them almost conspiratorially. "You'd better leave before Scar finds out you're here."

"I guess." The Keybearer sighed.

"Before _who_ finds out you're here?" A loud, disturbingly familiar voice startled them all, especially Roxas and Char, who knew that voice all too well: the former recognized it with a gasp and a sense of growing joy, while the latter recognized it with a gasp and a sense of growing dread. And in the next few seconds, the owner of that voice appeared around the pointed, thorn-shaped rock, dark brown fur bristling, jaws opened in a snarl, and emerald eyes narrowed in a glower.

_Anxclof._

"Well, isn't this a pretty little reunion," the female Nobody laughed, raising a paw. As she did so, a group of Avengers appeared at her flanks in flashes of silvery-white; they fell into their battle stances the instant they materialized. "Long time no see, Char."

And then her eyes fell on Roxas.

Any kind of insult or angry remark that had been percolating in Anxclof's mind flew right out of her head when those dark blue eyes met hers. "Roxas," she whispered.

In the same moment, he gasped, "Anxclof?" and Sora took a step back, staggered even more at seeing the same girl who had tried to kill him in the past – had succeeded at one point, even – standing in animal form in front of him. This, combined with Roxas' appearance, was almost too much to bear.

It seemed to Char that the two Nobodies seemed ready to run toward each other in a strange reenactment of a cheesy reunion scene from a novel – indeed, Anxclof was already beginning to move toward them – but a low hiss from behind the group froze them all in their tracks.

"Hey, look – a _snack."_

Immediately, Char whirled around and summoned her swords to her maw and tail, clenching her jaws to hold one and curling her tail around the other. Her eyes darted from one hyena to the other, widening as she realized that these were the same three from the incident in the ravine.

"A snack?" the female laughed. "Nah, we got us a five-course meal here!"

_"Stop!"_ Anxclof snarled, and her own Keyblade appeared in her jaws. "If you harm Roxas at all –"

The unmistakable sound of a lion's roar sounded from disturbingly close by, effectively cutting her off. The hyenas all craned their necks to see their master standing on the stone ledge. "It's Scar – the king," the main male hyena said, while his companion cackled beside them.

"And Pete!" Donald gasped. True enough – even in the grotesque caricature of a lion that was Pete's disguise: that was him, all right.

The lean, orange-furred lion standing beside Pete descended from the ledge on Pride Rock to the ground, using the rocks that offset the hill to add a dramatic flourish. Char felt a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips when Pete tried – and failed – to do the same thing. "My back…" the huge lion groaned as he got to his paws, while Sora sighed and waved a paw, as if to say _some things never change._

"Roxas!" Anxclof suddenly cried, and Sora turned just in time to see his four companions surrounded by hyenas; his previous amusement was instantly replaced by panic at the sight.

"Sora!" Donald squawked.

"Help!" Goofy cried.

The orange lion seemed unperturbed by the scene in front of him; he just turned his head to the now-standing lionesses. "Go on, ladies – you've got some hunting to do," he purred.

"The herds have moved on, Scar. We can't hunt in a land with no prey," Nala protested.

"No prey?" Scar chuckled and gestured to Sora and his comrades with a disdainful paw. "Then what do you call this?"

"Scar, you bastard!" Anxclof snarled, and immediately charged toward the circle of hyenas with her Keyblade ready.

Scar merely stepped in front of her, halting Anxclof in her tracks. "Did you forget the terms of our agreement, Anxclof?" he queried, nonchalantly bringing his tail to brush her flank; she immediately flinched away, her glare not wavering in the slightest. "You obey me. I hold all the cards in this game."

"Anxclof!" Roxas shouted back, trying to get through the hyenas and failing, much to his frustration. Finally that frustration grew to its peak; he snarled, "Get out of my way!" and his Keyblades appeared. But Pete merely flicked his tail, and a group of the dinosaur Heartless surrounded the hyenas, reinforcing the circle.

"They're all yours, Scar," Pete smirked, casting Anxclof a smug glance as he turned and ran off in the opposite direction.

Scar licked his lips as he crouched down in preparation to pounce on Sora, who alone stood outside of the circle. Those glowing green eyes flicked with amusement to the circle of hyenas and Heartless alike, where the sight of Roxas frantically slashing at the Heartless to get through them was still visible.

Then Scar's gaze landed back on Sora, and he wiggled his rump to pounce…

…only to be thrown to the side as, to the Keybearer's complete and utter shock, Scar had just been intercepted by a now-Keyblade-free lioness.

"Get out of here!" Anxclof screamed over her shoulder, frantically dodging the blows that Scar was throwing toward her.

_Well, you don't need to tell me twice!_ Ignoring his confusion as to why Anxclof was willingly protecting him – Roxas, more like – Sora whirled around and, nearly tripping in his desire to get away, dashed off in the opposite direction. The Heartless made as if to follow, but Anxclof gasped, "Make sure they get away!" In an instant, the Avengers she had summoned earlier were slashing and ripping at the Heartless' vulnerable areas, keeping them back as long as possible.

With the Heartless gone, Donald, Goofy, Char, and Roxas easily got past the blundering hyenas. The duck and the dog-turtle escaped hastily enough, but the two felines stopped in their tracks. Anxclof was still wrestling with Scar, clearly on the defensive from the rapid attacks he was trying to rain down on her, unable to concentrate long enough to summon her Keyblade and finish it. The lionesses looked on from nearby, shocked at Anxclof's betrayal of their so-called king.

"What the hell are you doing?" Anxclof roared. "I told you to get out of here!"

"I'm not leaving you!" Roxas yelled back, his Keyblades still in his grip.

"If you don't get out right now, those Heartless will tear your shell apart! And then they'll go after you." Anxclof didn't look toward them, but Char knew that the female Nobody was speaking to her. "And we can't have that, now can we? Now take a little instruction and go!"

"But –" Char couldn't explain it; something was holding her back from just letting Anxclof take her punishment. As much as Anxclof loathed Char herself for what she had done to Roxas, Char didn't feel the same degree of hatred toward Anxclof, even after all she had done to Sora.

"You too!" Anxclof barked. "Don't get me wrong – I want to be the one to strike you down."

Char narrowed her eyes and resisted the mighty urge to roll them. _How nice._Yet even she understood the seriousness behind Anxclof's words; she wouldn't be putting her life on the line if she had no ulterior motive. It was just the way Number XIV worked.

So the tiger turned and ran after the blur of chocolate brown that she knew was Sora.

From the hesitant-sounding footfalls behind her, she guessed that Roxas was doing the same.

* * *

Ugh, for some reason, I feel like I made Roxas severely OOC... I haven't written him in so long, though. I guess that's to be expected.

Review?


	47. Chapter XLVII

OH GAWD. -collapses- OH MAI GAWD. I JUST TYPED ABOUT TEN PAGES OF THIS _TODAY_.

Gratuitous abuse of caps lock aside, I felt this chapter deserved a special mention: **_CHAR TELLS ALL._ **Have fun reading. ;3

**_Disclaimer-_** If I owned Kingdom Hearts, the game would be exactly like this, and I wouldn't need to write this fanfic.

**

* * *

**Almost the instant the two of them were well away from the situation at Pride Rock, Roxas spun around to face Char, his countenance twisted in anger. "Why did she have to do that?" he murmured, shaking his head. Despite her hostile feelings toward Roxas for being the reason why Anxclof even followed them in the first place, Char couldn't help but eye Roxas with more than a hint of sympathy. It had to be hard, she thought, watching the one he loved put her life on the line for him and not be able to do anything.

But that sense of sympathy vanished instantly when Roxas jerked his head up to glare at Char. "I know you hate her for what she did to Sora," the Nobody hissed, his claws unsheathing. "But if we'd stayed behind…"

"Then we'd be two dead humans-turned-cats, and the remaining half of Sora's heart would be crushed," Char interrupted, trying to keep her composure and to keep Roxas' temper back at the same time. It was hard to do both without losing her own temper, though. "Now don't we need to catch up to them?"

Roxas stared at her, his chest heaving in ire. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath, muttered, "Fine," and strode on ahead of her. Char's eyes widened slightly as it hit her that she had actually seen _tears_ glittering in and brightening his sapphire eyes.

She shook the thought off. _It's ridiculous. He's a Nobody. He has no heart. Ergo, he can't feel the love for Anxclof that the two of them have been advertising. It's that simple._

Or… was it?

Char was brought abruptly out of her thoughts when she heard a call of, "Come on, Char!" from up ahead. She recognized Sora's voice just as she spotted the dark brown pelt that showed conspicuously against the green foliage. To Char's surprise, the lioness Nala stood at the Keybearer's side, almond-shaped eyes flicking nervously from side to side, as though she expected hyenas to attack them at any minute.

"I'm sorry I got all of you into this," she said, hanging her head.

"It's no big deal," Sora tried to amend, even though the situation itself contradicted his words. They'd almost been eaten alive, after all.

"Yeah, Sora would make a pretty crappy king anyway," Char added, coming up to stand next to the aforementioned lion.

"Hey!" Sora protested, and Char fought back a grin. As much as she hated admitting it, his characteristic pout – the normal reaction to a sardonic insult directed toward him – was strangely… rather _cute_ when converted to feline form.

Then she mentally smacked herself. _The hell? First you want to kiss him, and now you're calling him cute? What's happening to me?_

"So you _did_ want to be king!" Goofy was saying, and Char told herself to stop getting distracted during all of these conversations, whether they were important or not.

Sora shrugged in a show of casualness. "Well, you know…" He looked to Nala, whose shoulders were straightening in the aftermath of a sigh – probably realizing that Rafiki's prediction of Sora not having "kingly" qualities was true. "Um, isn't there anyone else who could be king?"

His words seemed to have a strong effect on Nala. The lioness had previously kept her head high and her shoulders back in a show of strength despite her dire situation, but at Sora's innocent question, Nala's gaze darted to the ground and her head lowered visibly. It almost looked like she was steeling herself to try and answer the question. At last, after several moments of silence, Nala spoke, her previous tone now replaced by one of uncertainty and heaviness. "There was, but… he died… when he was just a cub," she mumbled, without lifting her head. "He was Mufasa's son." More quietly, she sighed. "If only Simba were here…"

Sora's eyes brightened at the mention of Simba's name. "Simba?" he repeated incredulously, and Nala lifted her head, a tiny spark of hope becoming clear in her gaze. "But Simba's just fine! We were just traveling with him not too long ago."

Nala gasped. "You mean Simba's still alive? But where is he?" she asked desperately. Char felt a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth; it was obvious that Nala cared more for this Simba than she was letting on. The tiger knew about the heir to the Pride Lands' throne due to the stories Sora had told her of the summons he had had on his previous journey, so thankfully, she didn't feel too confused. The only question was, _had_ Simba returned home after being forcefully released from Sora at the End of the World's destruction?

"That's the only problem," Sora said, rather hesitantly. He hated buoying people's hopes up only to let them down, and he winced as Nala's growing happiness faded immediately and she sighed. "We don't know exactly where he is."

"Oh," Nala murmured, then her lips quirked back in a smile of relief. "But still – Simba's alive! I can't believe it." She trained her gaze on Sora, who nearly flinched back at the fervent hopefulness on her face. "Please – tell me more about him."

"Of course," Sora inclined his head respectfully.

Nala nodded, breathlessly happy. "First, though, we need to get away from Scar and the hyenas." Her eyes lit up. "We should go through the Wildebeest Valley – he won't follow us there."

"I'm not so sure about those Heartless, though," Roxas pointed out. "I mean, since Pete was there and everything…"

_And Anxclof, too._ He shivered at the thought of what Scar might do to her now that she had betrayed the usurper. Though he highly doubted that Scar and Pete could gain control of the Avengers, there were enough of those Heartless that they could probably surround the lesser Nobodies and force them to do Scar's bidding – in other words, force the Avengers to go after Sora and the group.

"Ah, we can handle a few Heartless, right?" Sora threw this remark in mostly for Nala's benefit – she had hesitated at the mention of the Heartless.

"Yeah!" Donald nodded vigorously.

"I guess so," Char mused. Sora cast a sharp glance in her direction and opened his mouth to speak, but Roxas beat him to it.

"Shouldn't we get going, then?" the golden lion queried. "Hopefully _before_ Scar decides to send some more Heartless after us?"

"Obviously," Char scoffed, and trotted on ahead. Sora had a brief, nearly-overwhelming flashback of the redhead standing outside Beast's Castle, striding on ahead with the same sense of purpose she had now, and the sense of déjà vu increased when she turned slightly and gave them the same impatient look that her face had held back then, albeit deadened a bit by her feline countenance now. "You going to follow me or what?"

"Duh," Donald growled, and flew on ahead. Sora chanced a look in Nala's direction and only had to catch sight of the skeptical expression on the lioness' features to know that she was wishing more than ever for Simba's presence. The Keybearer held back a tiny sigh as he realized that he shared her sentiment. The way things were progressing now, with so much tension between Roxas and Char – tension that, it seemed, balanced only on the tip of a knife – the sense of danger overpowered Sora's normal sense of bravado and set his senses on high alert. He didn't know much about how or why Roxas was _here,_ of all places, but he did have enough common sense to notice that Roxas had only appeared when they had gone to this world. Whether the Pride Lands itself was causing it, Sora didn't know, but the knowledge that when he left this world, Roxas would probably recede back into the shadows that he had arrived from was still there.

And while Sora had no clue why Roxas and Char felt such a strong anger toward one another, he did know that he never wanted Char to be in so much obvious pain ever again.

* * *

Stupid Roxas.

Anxclof had never so much as entertained the idea that she would ever find herself thinking that about Roxas – plenty of other negative things, because despite her love for him even she could find his flaws easily: his stubbornness and tendency to think too deeply about things. But desperate times tended to bring out the strangest things in people.

So now she found herself thinking, _stupid Roxas._

Because if he hadn't been there, traveling with Sora and Char for whatever stupid reason, Anxclof wouldn't have risked her plans to save whatever life he had left. Because if Roxas hadn't been there, she would have just let Scar and the hyenas tear the rest of them apart and be done with it.

Now her plans were in jeopardy, all because some god high above had decided to answer her most whimsical inner wishes and bring back Roxas without her control.

The whole situation was so ironic she could have screamed.

But as it was, even if she screamed now, only the hyenas who were guarding the hollow's entrance would hear her, and the sound of their laughter would only make her frustration at her predicament worse.

Scar had let her live after the treason she had committed toward him. That in itself should have made her happy, after she had offered her help toward him and then promptly turned around and betrayed him. But the alternative that Scar had chosen for her – imprison her in the stone hollow that was next to the "king's" den – until he decided what he wanted to do with her – somehow felt much worse, especially since as of now, Anxclof had no idea of "what he wanted to do with her" would entail. The Nobody found herself shuddering at the very thought.

She told herself to calm down and stop panicking; at this point, she was sure that if she had a heart, it would be pounding a mold against the inside of her ribs. All she had to do was get past those stupid hyenas that Scar had stationed in front of her temporary prison.

Which, of course, was easier said than done with those stupid dinosaur Heartless that Pete had decided to enhance the guard with.

Anxclof heaved out a sigh and sat back on her haunches, vengeful fantasies about mangy orange-and-black lions getting impaled by her Avengers' blades running through her mind. As of now, it seemed like all she could do was sit and wait until something caused the situation to turn in her favor.

The very thought pulled her lips back in a snarl and she would have punched the wall if she were human. "Stupid Roxas," she muttered, lashing her tail angrily.

She shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it and cast a rudimentary glance around. The walls looked mostly bare, which was to be expected, since this was a part of Pride Rock that Scar never even touched – he'd probably been more occupied with refurnishing the usurped former king's sleeping quarters to his tastes. The thought brought a scornful glower to Anxclof's countenance.

However, one difference in her drab surroundings caught her eye. She leaned closer, squinting and tilting her head to the side to get a better look at the picture that had been painted on the rock wall. It looked like a rendition of a lion cub. "The heck?" she murmured.

She made as if to turn away from the painting… only to stumble back to avoid getting either run over by a baboon in a huge hurry.

The ape seemed to ignore Anxclof's indignant, yet startled grunt and narrowed his eyes at the picture on the wall that, the Nobody realized, he must have created himself. He glanced down at the flower petals that he was holding in his hands, then emptied his fists to scatter said petals into the turtle shell on the rock before him.

Anxclof furrowed her brow in confusion. "Uh, don't apologize for nearly throwing me into the wall or anything…"

Her irritation only intensified when he continued to act as if she wasn't there. Her jaw clenched in annoyance, which hurt a bit more than it sounded, considering this form's longer teeth. "I said –" She broke off abruptly when a single naked finger was raised in front of her face in a silent, yet forceful request for silence. For some weird reason, that chiding gesture made her lower her head and flatten her ears, abashed. "Well _sorry,"_ she grumbled.

The baboon returned his attentions to the turtle shell bowl; he shook up the contents of the shell for a few moments before peering into it. Anxclof craned her neck to see over his shoulder, her curiosity piqued; but to her bemusement, it only looked like the petals had assimilated within the shell. For the ape, though, his old eyes saw images flashing together in the paths that the petals, which had ridden the wind from some not-so-faraway place to him, had taken; images that eventually blended to read out a message.

Anxclof reared back, startled, when the baboon suddenly let out a shriek of triumph and bounded up to the lion painting, using the cane stick he carried for balance. He reached down into what looked like a halved melon, which contained some kind of thick, red dye, and began to add something to the drawing, something she couldn't see due to his working fingers obscuring it. When he removed his fingers, her eyes widened as they took in the mane that he had added to the cub, signifying the representation's growth into an adult.

Without preamble, the baboon spun around and made his way surprisingly quickly to the hollow's exit. As the butt of his cane hit the ground where the den exited out to Pride Rock, Anxclof suddenly realized that this could be her chance.

"Wait!" she blurted.

The ape stopped, but did not turn around.

Anxclof hesitated, suddenly not knowing what to say and not liking the feeling at all. "Um, I… was wondering what exactly that was," she said pathetically.

"The king has returned," was the cryptic reply.

"Okay…?" Anxclof lowered her head and narrowed one eye in the illusion of raising one eyebrow. "Scar said the original heir was killed a while back."

"Bah!" The baboon waved his free hand in dismissal. "And you believe every bit of garbage that mangy fool spouts from his treacherous mouth?"

"W-well, no, but…" Anxclof was taken aback.

His next words caused that feeling to intensify.

"You love the golden-furred one, do you not?"

She didn't mean to, but a gasp escaped her. "How do you –"

"If you truly care for him as you say you do, then you will find him. Correct?" The ape turned his head halfway toward her.

It was ridiculous – how could this freak know she cared for Roxas? – but Anxclof swore she felt a shiver go up her spine.

Realizing immediately where she was and what she had to do, she gave a single nod of determination and, flicking her tail to summon her Avengers, charged out of the hollow.

Rafiki chuckled as he watched the hyenas explode into an uproar, waking the lionesses; the Avengers immediately set upon the waiting Heartless while their mistress made her escape.

_Simba is alive._

* * *

Char could smell the impending rain in the air.

It was weird, she reflected as she trotted absently along at Sora's side with her blades at the ready just in case; having such a sharp sense of smell that even the slightest trace of a change in her surroundings sent her internal barometer into a frenzy. It was even weirder that she was traveling in a world that she had only read extensively about. Then again, this journey was giving her all sorts of new experiences – seeing the treasure in the Cave of Wonders, nearly getting killed by Christmas presents, becoming an animal to traverse a world without standing out…

_And would growing a major crush on a dork count as one of those experiences?_ Char threw off the traitorous thought the instant it popped into her mind, her eyes narrowing in a mildly annoyed frown; and had she been human at that moment, she would have fisted a hand in her bangs in an attempt to help her think. As it was, however, all she could do was flex her claws against the dirt in a lingering urge to release her frustrations.

She tried to calm herself down by running her gaze back over her surroundings. The odd rock formations of the stone valley were erratically scattered around the small group, while sheer cliffs rose up on either side of the path that they were currently trekking over. Every once in a while, they would spot a skinny, bare tree, the only sign of life in these barren parts. Nala had sadly explained that since Scar had taken over, no rain had fallen in this part of the Pride Lands. But that was about the only explanation that the creamy lioness had given Sora and the others since they had ventured this far away from Pride Rock. Nala had gone almost eerily silent, with even the slightest traces of amusement from watching the group try to leap across a gorge that she had scaled easily gone, upon entering Wildebeest Valley; she still led them ahead, but with a melancholy, bitterly nostalgic air about her. Char was reminded painfully of herself when she was remembering the incident that had started all of this.

The tiger risked a glance across from her, at Roxas. For the most part, he, too, was forging ahead, with a new determination to his stride since they had left Anxclof with Scar. Char guessed that Roxas was thinking of what he would do to Scar when the group confronted him again, which wasn't too far off the mark.

The smirk that had begun to grow on Char's countenance at the thought of taking Scar down faltered a little as the memory of the way Roxas had shouted at her earlier returned to her mind. Char told herself that Roxas was and always would be a Nobody: destined to return to darkness in the end, to become the other half of Sora's heart at the end of all this. Yet… something in the back of her mind was nagging at her. Something that Anxclof had told her, what felt like so long ago – and the vivid quality of that day, the panic and sorrow and self-hatred that Char had felt, the horror in Donald and Goofy's eyes, the specific glow that Sora's heart had made as it had floated up to Kingdom Hearts, the way Sora's blood had dripped off of Anxclof's Keyblade, still made Char cringe a bit. The words Anxclof had said echoed through Char's mind.

_Nobodies may have no hearts, but we remember what it's like._

_Stupid,_ Char told herself immediately, trying to rationalize the situation. _They're faking emotions, trying to get to you before they tear you apart. Plain and simple._

But… if that were the case, wouldn't Roxas have destroyed them the instant he had awakened, confused and angry, to find one of his kidnappers staring horrified at him with feline blue eyes?

_He needs Sora to exist, that's why. _And that should have been the end of that. Char's frown deepened when something inside her protested against that little assumption.

Sora had loved – Char flinched for reasons she didn't want to admit at the word; _cared deeply for_, then – he had cared deeply for Kairi. Char didn't know anything about Anxclof's Other, but the tiger felt fairly certain that the girl had probably been in love at the time that Anxclof had been "born," in a manner of speaking. So wasn't it plausible that, when she factored Anxclof's assertion into the situation, maybe… just maybe, Roxas and Anxclof's emotions were not feigned after all?

Char groaned softly and shook her head again. This was turning all of her research on its head, and she hated it.

"Hey," a voice startled her out of her thoughts. She whipped toward the owner of the voice, already bracing her claws and swords and drawing her lips back to deliver a biting retort, only to relax her hackles when she was met only with the curious sapphire gaze that she had come to know over the past few weeks. Char risked a rudimentary glance at her other side and bit back a sigh of relief; Roxas hadn't noticed her staring unashamedly at him while she had been thinking.

"Are you okay?" Sora queried, bringing Char's attention back to him. The Keybearer's voice was slightly muffled by the Keyblade in his jaws, but he still managed to get his concern across. "You've been really quiet the whole way here." _Aside from battle grunts and stuff,_ he added mentally.

Char blinked and tried not to think about the way his eyes softened when set upon her, or the genuine worry in his voice. _He's doing this for Kairi and Riku, not you,_ she scolded mentally. "I'm fine," she grunted in response, shrugging one shoulder. "Just thinking, that's all."

"Oh." Sora seemed a little taken aback at her lack of a sardonic reply. "Okay. I was just wondering, because you make a lot of weird faces when you concentrate," he added teasingly.

His remark had the desired effect; Char rolled her eyes and lightly nudged his shoulder with hers, her mouth beginning to quirk in the beginnings of a smile. Sora had to fight back surprise at that: the appearance of a _smile_ on Char Nightblaze's face, feline or not, was wonderfully rare. Sarcastic smirk, yes. Angry grimace, yes. A pure, genuine _smile, _no.

He decided that he kind of liked it when she smiled like that.

"Heartless incoming!" Goofy suddenly yelped. Sora and Char tore their gazes away from one another and brought their weapons to the ready. A small group of Heartless that were almost bird-like, but for their black, yellow-eyed heads and bright red fist-like talons, hovered in front of them, along with some shadow Heartless.

Roxas had been watching the exchange between Sora and Char with some amusement and, he had to admit, wistfulness – he and Anxclof hadn't had much time to talk playfully with one another like that – but at Goofy's cry, he snapped to attention. The Nobody charged directly into the mass of Heartless and corkscrewed through the air with both Keyblades, successfully knocking back two of the birds at once.

"Nice, Roxas!" Sora yelled, and followed the other lion's lead. Char didn't join the fray until she saw Nala run off to the side like she had been doing whenever Heartless showed up earlier; only then did the tiger bring down one of her swords hard on the head of one of the shadows.

She managed to leap back from the Heartless' oncoming claws, but in her brief moment of distraction one of the birds managed to split off from its comrades and swing its talon-fists around to hit her in the belly. Char skidded back from the impact, the wind successfully knocked out of her, and the Heartless that she had been attacking chose that moment to set upon her with its claws.

Having taken out the remaining bird Heartless, Roxas turned his head about to look for the next enemy, and his gaze landed on the two Heartless attacking Char. Behind him, Sora finished off the bird he had been attacking with a stroke of the Hero's Crest and gasped when he followed Roxas' eyes, making as if to run and help Char.

But Roxas beat him to it. He raced toward Char and, upon reaching the Heartless, spun around in a circle in a way that made his two Keyblades a milky-gray blur before performing a complicated twist with his body that slammed the Oathkeeper and Oblivion into the ground together. The Keyblades slashing into their bodies from Roxas' spin, then getting impaled by the tiny rays of light that had emanated from the ground upon the Keyblades' impact with it, proved to be too much for the Heartless, and they vanished.

"Are you okay?" Roxas asked, leaning down to lend her his shoulder if she needed it.

Char got heavily to her feet, blinking hard to try and get her bearings, too dizzy to register her wariness at Roxas' sudden concern. That Heartless' claws hadn't been sharp, but it had made many cuts along her side and soft underbelly. "Y-yeah," she mumbled rather shakily, and cleared her throat to steady her voice. "I'm fine," she said for the second time in as many minutes, her voice a little clearer. She allowed a self-deprecating smirk to cover her face. "I must be losing my touch, if I let a pathetic shadow Heartless do that to me."

"Don't be stupid," Donald grunted, lifting his staff to heal her. "Like it was your fault you got the wind knocked out of you."

"Don't," Roxas cut in suddenly, holding up a paw to the mage's staff. "We don't want to use our magic too early on." Ignoring the way the duck lowered his wand and began muttering under his breath – something about "bossy newcomers" – Roxas turned his gaze back to Char. "Are you sure you're okay?" he questioned seriously, even as Sora, Goofy, and Nala came to stand around them.

Char huffed out a sigh. "Now you're just a broken record. Yes, I am. Just a Potion or so and I should be ready to go again."

Goofy immediately produced a Potion from inside his shell, extending it toward her from where he held it in his jaws. Char had to blink, eyes widened just a little, at the dog-turtle's instant response. Then that look of surprise faded to one of acceptance. _Yeah, guess I'm part of the group now, so they're helping me like they would each other._

She gently took the vial from him with a paw and a murmur of "thanks." After a moment of contemplation, she hooked one claw beneath the lid to pry it open before leaning down and licking up the contents. _Never thought I'd be drinking a potion like _this, she thought dryly as she finished up and lifted her head. She could already feel vitality flowing back into her limbs and her wounds beginning to close up.

"Let's get going again then, shall we?" she grinned.

"Yeah," Donald grumbled, and started ahead.

Up till this moment, Nala had remained in a kind of amused silence, but now she spoke – rather abruptly, to the point where even Roxas looked mildly bemused. "When Simba's father, King Mufasa, died," she said, causing everyone to turn toward her, "we were told that Simba died alongside him."

"'We' as in… you and the rest of the kingdom?" Char asked, tilting her head to the side. _She must have decided to give us some more information._ However random the explanation was after the previous incident, it was a welcome explanation.

Nala gave a single nod.

"And who told you that?" Goofy's ears swung as he copied Char's gesture.

The lioness' chest heaved in a sigh of despair. "Scar."

_Of course. He lied about Simba – the true heir's – death so that _he_ could take over himself._

"Scar said that since he was the late king's brother and Simba, the next heir, was dead, he was naturally the next in line for the throne. And since we were all in such despair from Simba and Mufasa's deaths…"

"You just went along with it," Roxas finished, looking a little sympathetic.

Nala nodded sadly. "Exactly."

In the past few minutes, it seemed that the silent contemplation that had left Nala had transferred to Sora; the Keybearer had been staring at the ground, reprimanding himself for not helping Char, but a flicker of movement caught his eye and he looked up. Seeing their leader's movement, the others followed his gaze and saw Rafiki standing atop one of the rock formations.

"It is time," the ape declared, sweeping his cane out dramatically and making the fruit atop the stick sway in the air. The group looked in the direction that his cane was pointing and saw that it led out of Wildebeest Valley, where the path wound off into the distance.

Nala gasped. "It must be Simba!" She whirled to face Sora. "We need to hurry!" Without waiting for a response, she charged off.

"Slow down! I won't be responsible for you if you get massacred by Heartless out there!" Char yelped as Nala rounded the corner. The tiger glanced at Sora. "Sora? We need to go."

"Huh? Oh, right." He nodded in hasty agreement and started after the Pride Land native at a sprinting pace. Donald, Goofy, and Char followed at a steady flap, roll, and gallop, respectively; Roxas was about to follow after, but a weird feeling on his spine made him turn.

Was it just him, or was the monkey watching him a little more closely than the others?

The Nobody shivered and raced after the others.

As Sora ran, something hit him: the answer to the question he had been asking himself since he had had to sit by and watch Roxas come to Char's rescue, since he had seen Roxas try to lend Char his shoulder for balance, since he had seen the way the two of them worked well together. The name of the feeling that had been percolating in Sora's chest during almost all of his time in this world.

And that feeling was _jealousy._

* * *

Anxclof didn't slow down in the slightest in her breakneck pace until the rocky ground beneath her paws was covered by long grass, and then was stripped again in favor of smooth stone. Only when she could glance over her shoulder and not spot even the slightest hint of Pride Rock protruding from the horizon could Anxclof come to a clumsy, albeit welcome stop.

Panting and gulping in air, she glanced around with narrowed eyes to check if she had been followed. Thankfully, the stench of hyena had vanished not long after she had left the plains behind her. After a few moments of tense silence that accelerated her heartbeat even further, Number XIV allowed herself to relax a little.

For the first time since she had escaped that weird baboon's dwelling, Anxclof surveyed her surroundings a little more closely. She couldn't help but shiver just a bit at the sight of the bones littering the ground. _Somebody was too lazy to bother throwing away their scraps,_ she thought, twitching her whiskers.

A strange scent wafted across her senses, something that was almost too faint to be detected, but felt familiar and warm, like coming home after a long ordeal. Anxclof tilted her head to the side, trying to figure out the source of these strange emotions at a _smell, _of all things; but the answer eluded her as successfully as she had just done to Scar.

Even though she could sense that it was barely late afternoon, the Nobody still staggered slightly at the weight of the exhaustion that suddenly swept over her with the force of a tidal wave. Running around all day tended to do that, she reasoned.

Casting her eyes about in case a Heartless decided to leap out at her – Pete had stationed them all around the Pride Lands – Anxclof spotted a slight groove in one of the rock ledges around her. She smirked to herself. _There we are, shelter._

She slunk across to the hole in the rock, still keeping her wits about her and summoning her Keyblade to be safe. Almost the instant her paw landed inside the small dwelling, though, she got an oh-so-pleasant surprise in the form of something distinctly _slimy_ scuttling over her paws.

Instinctively she swung her Keyblade in the direction of the offender, and felt it connect with a small, sentient being; the answering flicker of movement, discernible even in the shadows, told her that the creature, whatever it was, had been thrown off into a corner. Anxclof shivered as she hefted her golden blade and scanned the ground beneath her, just in case there were any more unwelcome visitors; when nothing greeted her eyes, she settled carefully right at the entrance. She would never like small, scaly things.

Unbidden, a memory of the Organization flowed into her mind at the mental mention of her little anathema – no, it wasn't a _fear;_ she couldn't have taken on countless Heartless, her fellow Organization members, or Axel's endless teasing and feel something as trivial as fear for insects, of all things. Having settled that, Anxclof didn't even try to hold back a tiny smile at her reminiscence of one such day of said pyromaniac's teasing.

He had returned from a mission with Roxas one day, on a day when Anxclof was just stepping out of her own dark portal that led back to the Deep Jungle. Needless to say, the Blade of Vengeance had recoiled in revulsion when the Flurry of Dancing Flames had presented her with a jar holding a long, hairy worm… _thing…_ she hadn't even bothered trying to give a name to its species. All she had cared about was that it disgusted her beyond all belief, and that she wanted it out of her lack of life right then and there, dammit. Axel and Roxas had exchanged smug glances, and only later did she realize that Axel wasn't planning on keeping the affront to nature: he had just taken it back to the Castle that Never Was so that he and Roxas could see Anxclof's reaction. Well, the thing had come from Halloween Town, after all. Anxclof had vowed on that very day never to visit that world as long as she tried to exist.

The grin faded from the lioness Anxclof's lips as she remembered the urgency of this situation: if things in this world didn't end well, she might end up breaking that little promise to herself to get Roxas back for good.

She shook her head to try and get this fog of confusing emotions out of her mind and laid her head on her paws like she had seen the lionesses at Pride Rock do, shifting in an attempt to get comfortable.

Sleep. That was the best thing to think about right now. And with that in mind, Anxclof's eyes slipped closed and she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

_Falcon and Copperhead are patrolling the forest together when the blond-haired scythe-wielder randomly speaks. "You should grow your hair out."_

_She has to blink at that, because it's so unrelated to what they came here for – taking down Heartless, keeping the Shadowed Desert safe, if only for the time being – that his off-hand remark almost seems like something to fill the silence. Briefly, Falcon takes a strand of her shoulder-length hair in the fingers of her free hand and stares at it, head cocked slightly to the side._

_Copperhead laughs, causing her to look back up at him, still with a mildly bemused look on her face. "I'm not saying it looks bad the way it is," he amends, a little hastily, Falcon notices. "But I think it would look even prettier if it was longer."_

_Innocent as the comment is, Falcon can't help but falter in her step at the genuine honesty of it. Why is she blushing? Stupid blush, go away._

_"Why?" she queries in a colder tone than she intended, slashing a vine aside with the Azure Ice Keyblade; it's as much an attempt to keep it from impeding her stride as to relieve her annoyance toward her hormones. Yes, Copperhead is gorgeous – and she cringes mentally to even admit that much. Yes, Copperhead treats her like an equal, whereas anyone else would either avoid her or revere her like their savior because of her Keyblade. Yes, Copperhead is her friend, and has been for months now. Yes, Copperhead always has her covered on everything, whether in battle or at school – his homework-thieving days, as she had elaborated to him a while back, are long over. But he doesn't like her in that way, right? He wouldn't egg on the gaggle of girls who are always shadowing him at school if he did – like Falcon, that is. So why does Falcon feel strangely _hopeful_ at his compliment? _

_Remembering that Copperhead still hasn't responded to her question, she continues. "Do you think I'd be eligible as a member of your fan club if my hair was down to my butt like all those other girls?"_

_"Gods, no," Copperhead says almost instantly, speaking around a bark of laughter. And she has to look up at that, because she had been laboring under the assumption that he rather enjoyed having a flock of giggling idiots swooning over him all the time. "Don't get me wrong, I like flattery as much as the next guy, but it gets kind of old after a while." At the look on her face, Copperhead winks and adds, "Why do you think I was lurking in the bushes on the day I found you with the Keyblade?"_

_Why does Falcon feel the sudden urge to sigh in relief?_

She shrugs, trying to hide her conflicting emotions. "Sure. Anyway, what's the story behind that little comment about my hair?"

_"Nothing," he replies loftily, shifting his scythe in his one-handed grip. "I just think you'd look nice with long hair."_

_"Oh." Sensing that this conversation is over, Falcon looks straight ahead again._

Stupid hormones.

_But she doesn't get enough time to dwell on even that, because the next thing she knows Heartless are materializing in their trademark spheres of murky black and purple, and all she's allowed to focus on is dodging attacks and beating Heartless down._

* * *

"_So," the blond-headed girl scoffs suddenly, as she and Falcon are standing next to each other putting the training rapiers up for the day, "you and Copperhead, huh?"_

_Falcon raises one eyebrow and furrows the other in bemusement. It's the first time that she has gotten that question from someone in the fencing club with her – from other people, yes. From people who are always focusing on tripping her to the floor, no. "Uh, not exactly. We're just friends," she says carefully._

_"Sure," and there's a hint of bitterness behind the girl's skeptical tone now. "Well, just so you know, I'm planning on asking him out later, so don't get in my way."_

_This time, Falcon has to roll her eyes. "Yeah, sure, not a problem. I don't really care, because – oh yeah – we're just _friends." _Though her words sound firm enough, there is still a tiny part of her that's fighting the urge to summon her Keyblade and hack this girl's head off. Steady, Falcon tells herself, why are you feeling this way, anyway?_

_"Good." And with a flip of sleek golden locks, the other girl is gone. Falcon stares after her for a few seconds before groaning rather loudly and leaning back against the wall, palming her forehead with one hand._

_Because if she doesn't like him in the way that high school is so famous for, then why is Falcon feeling oddly _jealous_ at the thought of Copperhead getting an actual girlfriend?_

* * *

"_Hide me."_

_Falcon snickers when the abrupt comment sounds behind her; she doesn't even have to turn around to know it's Copperhead. "And why should I do that?" she asks in a mock-aloof manner._

_"Because I'm your best friend and you love me." Falcon stiffens instinctively at the last part of his words, and, seeming not to notice, he continues. "And you want my sanity to be intact tonight when we go on a Heartless killing spree."_

_"Shhh, no one's supposed to know about that," Falcon hisses, fighting giggles as she casts her eyes about the teenager-filled hallway. She slams her locker shut and turns to face him, arms folding across her chest as she does so. "Come on, we're leaving."_

_"Thank you," Copperhead sighs in relief. He trails after her, weaving his way through the packed hallway in the same pattern as Falcon. She glances back every so often to make sure he's still keeping up with her, but she doesn't stop until they have reached one of the many back stairwells of the school._

_She turns to face him and finds that he is pressing himself as far back against the wall as the railing along said walls will let him; she's not sure whether to roll her eyes or laugh at his obvious desire to get away from whatever he is hiding from._

_"Think we're safe?" Copperhead whispers, his eyes flicking about nervously._

_"It depends. What are we running from, anyway?" Falcon questions, crossing her arms again. She gives him a look of chiding curiosity as she leans her weight against the railing. _

_"My stalker." At Falcon's raised eyebrow, Copperhead protests fervently, "I know I have that fan mob, but this chick is insane! She follows me to class even after the bell rings, she would try to sit with me at lunch if we had the same lunch period, and sometimes she tries to follow me home. Does that sound like your average fan-girl to you?"_

_Falcon winces. "Not really, no."_

_"Exactly, then. You see why I'm hiding like this."_

_"Yeah, kind of."_

_An awkward, pregnant silence permeates the air between them before Copperhead straightens rather abruptly and claps his hands in a way that makes Falcon rear back, startled. "Well, I think we lost her," he announces, voice sugary sweet with false happiness. "Let's head home."_

_Falcon gives him a look that unmistakably says _what the hell, man;_ but he's already moving off down the stairs. Somehow, she gets the feeling that a nonexistent stalker wasn't the reason he'd brought her in here._

* * *

Sora had to admit that this wasn't exactly the reunion he'd been expecting.

The instant that the six animals had appeared in the small clearing, the Keybearer hadn't even gotten time to properly appreciate the breathtaking view that the deeply-sloping cliff nearby offered, or the waterfall cascading gently down, before the sight before him made him halt in shock. At least Simba hadn't changed a bit: holding his own even as the same bird-like Heartless that had been plaguing Sora's group buzzed around the lion. He stood on a log that clearly served as a bridge to connect the two slopes that bordered a small brook, which seemed to originate from the waterfalls surrounding them, glowering at the enemies before him.

Sora heard Nala gasp behind him – whether it was in worry for Simba's current situation or out of happiness at seeing him again, he couldn't tell – the instant before said lion threw his head back and let out a ferocious roar, a sound that echoed around them and made even Char take a step back. The Heartless disappeared, as though frightened off by Simba's obvious resolve.

Simba stood there for a few moments, his form fully revealed now that the Heartless had gone. "Hey, Simba!" Sora called.

The lion turned just in time to see the five strangers bounding toward him, and those amber eyes narrowed warily. Surprise flared briefly within Sora; he had expected Simba to react a little more happily at Nala's presence, at least, since she had explained to Sora that she and the king-to-be had been childhood – cubhood? – friends. But when Sora turned, his growing smile flickered at the lack of creamy fur in his vision. He had a split second to wonder where she had gone before he turned around and spotted Simba crouching into a fighting stance.

"H-hey, it's me, Sora!" the Keybearer said hastily, flicking his tail toward the bird and dog-turtle behind him. "Donald and Goofy are here, too!"

Simba leaped down from the log-bridge and padded closer, his eyes still slitted as he eyed Sora, Donald, and Goofy; his gaze swept very briefly over Char and Roxas, who tensed, ready for a fight if need be. Then something seemed to light up in Simba's eyes and a grin spread across his face. "Sora! Donald! Goofy!" he cried, leaping forward and nuzzling Sora into a feline hug. The brown cub stumbled and fell flat onto his back at the force of Simba's strength, eliciting a few chuckles from his companions. Even Char had to grin softly at the sight.

"What happened to you?" Simba asked, staring in wonder at Sora's feline body.

Sora opened his mouth to answer, but a set of dual, terrified screams brought the reunion to a grinding halt in its tracks. Simba's head jerked up, his widened eyes directed toward the forest beyond the oasis clearing, obvious horror weaving across his features.

"Help, Simba! _Help!" _a shrill voice howled.

"She's gonna eat us!" a raspy voice screamed.

Simba leaped to his paws, allowing Sora to do the same. The younger couldn't help but think of how he hadn't seen Nala earlier, and felt a surge of fresh alarm within him.

"Timon? Pumbaa?!" Simba shouted, and when he got no response, he looked frantically at Sora. "Something must have happened in the jungle. I have to go help my friends!"

"Okay, we'll back you up!" Sora called, even as Simba was charging into the green-laden, leaf-shaded tunnel that led into the forest.

He glanced to his companions. "Let's go."

Roxas nodded, the light from his Keyblade summoning already dying down around his face and tail-tip. "Right."

Char blinked in fleeting surprise at Roxas' willingness to listen to his Other, but mentally shook that off and gave a smirk of her own. "You should know my answer by now, Key-boy."

Sora grinned in response and set off toward the jungle, followed closely by Donald and Goofy. Roxas left a little more sedately, casting a sidelong glance toward Char before leaving behind his Other. Char sensed that someone's gaze was on her and turned just in time to see Roxas trotting off. He looked back and called, "Are you coming or not?"

"Of course," Char bit back instantly, and bounded after him, still slightly uncomfortable knowing that he'd been staring at her, for whatever reason.

She summoned her dual swords to distract herself. Not like it mattered right now, because Sora needed her anyway.

Upon leaving the oasis behind them, the five of them were greeted by a strange sight: a large warthog cowering back against a fallen tree trunk with a long-bodied, skinny meerkat, and what looked like the side of a cream-pelted lioness ready to pounce at them. Sora's senses went on high alert when he recognized Nala, who was crouching low in preparation to dig her claws deep into her prey.

He opened his mouth and drew in a breath to try and stop her, but in the next instant, two things happened at once: she leaped, and a red-and-gold blur shot out from the foliage next to her and bowled her over. Sora's eyes widened. "Simba, wait!" he shouted, but he was ignored.

"Stop!" Donald yelled.

"It's Nala, you idiot! You know, your childhood friend?" Char's desperate words fell on deaf ears as Simba and Nala grappled, standing on their hind legs to get a better chance of slicing the other's throat. Simba managed to push Nala back against a tree, but she quickly turned it to her advantage, using both forepaws to slam his body down hard on the ground.

None of the animals watching could see Simba's expression, yet some kind of realization must have crossed his features, because in the next moment he gasped out, "Nala?"

At the sound of her name, the lioness' ferocious snarl died down into an expression of shock that lingered on her countenance even as she drew back to get a better look at the lion she'd known so well. She backed up into the tree she had just been pinned against, still eyeing Simba suspiciously.

"It's me, Simba," the aforementioned lion said, stepping closer and giving Nala a tentative smile. Char rolled her eyes as he echoed her previous words. _Maybe Nala will listen to him, at least._

Nala looked bemused; then recognition crossed her face and her eyes lit up – her whole face brightened. "Simba!" she cried. "You're alive!" She immediately closed the distance between them and pressed her head into the side of his neck, causing a look of flustered surprise to appear on Simba's face.

A flicker of moment drew Sora's gaze to the meerkat and warthog, who just moments prior had been cowering against the tree. Now, though, they appeared totally confused at this new turn of events, if the way the meerkat had dropped his jaw and his hands to the ground was any indication. "Hey!" the meerkat roared. "What's goin' on here?!"

"Well, if I didn't know any better, I'd say your friend over here is in love," Char pointed out dryly, and smirked when Simba swung his head toward her and gave her a startled grunt. She was sure that if his fur wasn't covering it up, she would see an obvious blush on his face.

The warthog and meerkat turned at the sound of Char's voice, screamed rather loudly at the sight of the three adolescent wildcats, and raced back to the refuge of the tree trunk. Roxas sighed as he watched the meerkat hide behind Simba's foreleg.

Simba chuckled down at his friend. "It's okay, Timon. They're all friends of mine."

"So that means nobody's planning to eat anybody else for lunch, right?" Timon asked, staring warily out at the group.

"Friends don't eat friends," Char pointed out, inducing a snicker from Sora.

"Are you sure they're not gonna eat me like I'm some kinda pig?" the warthog whimpered, trembling against the tree.

"Pumbaa, you _are_ a pig," Simba laughed.

"Hey!" Pumbaa barked, whirling around. "Call me _Mr. _Pig."

Everyone had to laugh at that, especially Char, who chuckled under her breath at the irony of this whole stupid situation.

Simba's own cachinnation died down a little, and he leaned down to Timon and Pumbaa's eye level. "Could you guys excuse us for a few minutes?" he queried, glancing not-so-subtly at Nala, whose eyes widened slightly.

Timon shifted his hands in a half-shrug. "Why am I not surprised?" he muttered.

Taking that as a yes, Simba grinned in thanks and followed Nala off through the forest.

"I'm just hoping they don't get attacked by Heartless," Donald murmured.

"Yeah," Roxas snorted. _"That_ would be kind of a mood killer." Though his tone was sarcastic enough, Sora caught a wistful look in the other lion's eyes, if only for an instant. He guessed that Roxas was thinking of Anxclof; some part of Sora was also wondering if she had gotten out of her predicament with Scar, but another part of him cast it off, hoping guiltily that she couldn't plague him or his companions anymore.

"Well, we might as well go wait for them to get back," Timon sighed. "Though somethin' tells me they could be a while…"

"I'm just glad you guys didn't get killed," Sora said, trying to smile.

As it turned out, a few minutes turned into an hour, during which Char watched, her lips twitching in the urge to laugh, as Timon and Pumbaa attempted to teach Sora, Donald, and Goofy some weird concept that they had picked up living here – "hakuna matata," that was the name of it. Roxas had gone off into the jungle to brood, as she had expected; she had mixed feelings about the Nobody's absence, because while she would rather not face the one who had been ready to kill her just a while ago, having him there would also mean she had someone to talk to, if only with a bantering or loathing tone.

As it was, however, with her watching Sora try to imitate Timon and Pumbaa's strutting across the log-bridge, all she could think about was this journey and how she had changed. If Riku had asked her, back in Twilight Town, before she had even met the key-wielding dork face-to-face, whether or not she thought this immense undertaking would impact her – actually, he had, a few minutes before Sora and crew had made their grand entrance into her life – she would have – _had_ – laughed and given him an emphatic _hell, no._ She was just supposed to use Sora to take her revenge on the Organization for stealing her away from her home and everything that the majority of her life had been, supposed to make him her tool and then throw him away like one.

But… along the way, something had changed. She wasn't sure what, but somehow, Sora had ripped all her walls down and wormed his way past her defenses.

And now he had destroyed the final barrier, and his presence had grown to have the strangest effect on her.

Her tail twitched idly and she curled up into a tighter ball from where she was lying near the waterfall. _Damn hormones._

A flash of creamy fur caught her eye, and Char spotted Nala emerging from behind the falls. She opened her mouth for a teasing remark, only to close it when she took in the crestfallen look on Nala's face.

"He isn't the Simba I remember," she murmured, passing the group and heading into the jungle. "Something about 'hakuna matata'…"

Sora, Donald, and Goofy exchanged glances, while Timon and Pumbaa looked caught between smugness and sympathy for Simba.

An instant later, Simba appeared from where Nala had come, and stopped in his tracks, looking after her. As soon as she had vanished, he walked right past his friends, ignoring their attempts to greet him, and disappeared into the foliage, his tail drooping.

"Somethin' tells me it didn't work out," Goofy said.

"Oh, _really?_ What makes you say that?" Donald rounded on the knight and berated him.

Roxas stepped into view, still holding the Oathkeeper in his jaws, casting a glance over his shoulder. "I take it things didn't go well with the royal couple?" he said.

"Oh, shut up," Char grumbled, laying her head on her crossed forepaws.

Roxas rolled his eyes as the Oathkeeper vanished and he joined Sora's side. "Well, now what?" he asked. "The rightful king's depressed, Scar's got Anxclof held hostage or dead, and we have no idea what to do." His voice tightened audibly as he mentioned Anxclof.

"Wait, wait, wait! Hold up!" Timon held up both hands for emphasis. "Simba's a king?"

"Pretty much," Donald sighed tiredly.

"And now he's gotta fight his uncle Scar to take his rightful place on Pride Rock," Sora added.

The meerkat's jaw hit the ground again.

"My head hurts," Pumbaa groaned, putting a hoof to his head.

"Uh, look…" Sora searched for the words to say to assuage his friends. "I'm sure Simba will come back," he managed at last. "If he's not okay then, then we can sleep on it and decide what to do in the morning."

"Because prolonging the decision is totally going to help," Char muttered, rubbing her temple with her tail.

"Well, do _you_ have a better idea?" Sora asked, narrowing his eyes at her. "It's the only thing we can do right now. Scar can wait a few more hours, right?"

"I think we're severely underestimating the situation, but hey, not like it matters. After all, procrastination makes perfect!" Char heaved a sigh. "Whatever. We'll be refreshed in the morning anyway, so at least your half-assed decision makes a _little_ bit of sense."

_Well, I'm so glad I have _your_ approval._ Sora shook that thought off almost the instant it entered his head. He couldn't afford an argument with any of his comrades right now. "So, is everyone else okay with it?" he asked. Donald and Goofy nodded, while Roxas simply gave a slight downward movement of his eyes and head to indicate his approval.

"All this is making me hungry," Timon said suddenly, and reached under the log to produce a large leaf that was filled with live insects. "Anybody want some grub?"

"Eww," Sora uttered immediately, recoiling at the sight; Goofy simply shook his head, looking vaguely disgusted. Donald, however, let out a cry of happiness and drove his beak directly into the pile of bugs.

"Hey, leave some for us!" Pumbaa cried, bounding over to get some of his own. Roxas shifted his own sapphire eyes away.

"I'm going to go look for some food," Char said, getting to her paws. "Hopefully some that _isn't_ wriggling as it slides down my throat." She turned away and loped off toward the jungle. She thought she heard Timon shout something behind her, but it went all but ignored in her annoyance.

_Stupid Sora. Stupid Riku. Stupid hormones. Stupid journey. Stupid Anxclof, stupid Scar, stupid… argh, everything! _Char hissed out a vulgar word in a language that she'd learned while studying the small village in the world that held Beast's Castle – some French curse, as far as she knew. She unsheathed her claws, drew her paw back, and slashed four deep ruts into the nearest tree trunk; it wasn't near as satisfying as punching it, but it somewhat soothed her mounting frustration. The tiger stood there for a few moments, chest heaving with the force of her ire, before the sound and feeling of her stomach voicing its need for food reminded her of the reason she was out here in the first place.

_Berries. I wonder if there are any berries around here. _Trying to keep her mind on food – oh gods, what she wouldn't give for a nice, juicy hamburger right now – Char cast her eyes about. Something bright pink caught her eye, a collection of small, round berries hanging from a nearby branch. She uttered a sigh of relief and, bracing one paw against the trunk for balance, reached up on her hind legs to get them.

"Better not. Timon said the pink ones give you the runs for a week." Char stumbled in surprise at the voice that came from behind her, but thankfully managed to land back on all fours, if a little clumsily. She whirled around, intending to vent on the one who had dared interrupt her quest for dinner, but relaxed, albeit only a little, at the sight of Roxas.

"Oh, it's just you," she growled, turning away again. "The hell do you want? Are you going to force me to come with you to save your precious Anxclof at Keyblade-point?"

"If I was going to try and save Anxclof, I'd do it alone." His words made Char glance over her shoulder in mild surprise. Roxas' face was neutral enough, but his eyes simmered in obvious annoyance at her. "I know you two don't have the best relationship in the first place, so I know better than to ask _you_ for help. And besides… if she's in trouble, Anxclof can make it out."

"Sure," Char snorted. "Why are you here?"

Roxas shrugged one shoulder. "The same reason you are. To try and get food." He lowered his head slightly, his tone becoming more dangerous. "Unless you want to make something out of it?"

Something from earlier came back to Char, of the way he had saved her from all those Heartless in the Wildebeest Valley. And something mellowed out inside her. "Look," she sighed, shoulders slumping in the effort it took to do this, to admit she was wrong; "we're never going to get through this if we can't get along, if only for now. I know, you can't get past the whole 'kidnapping you and putting you in a fake world' thing – I couldn't do it if I were you, either – but… well…" She hesitated, finally dropping her head. "Truce?"

Roxas blinked, then one side of his mouth quirked up in a half-smile. He stepped closer and lifted one paw, showing no effort at only standing on three legs. "Truce," he echoed, causing Char to lift her head in wide-eyed shock.

Of course, she realized that the reason his smile was growing was because of her own bewilderment at his acceptance, so she slitted her eyes and placed her paw on top of his upraised one. "Alright, now that I've gotten that out of the way," she sighed, lowering her paw so she could remain standing without stumbling, "I'm hungry. Let's go get some berries that _aren't_ pink."

"Right, right," Roxas laughed, following after her. After a few seconds of trekking after her through the forest, he glanced around. "There are no Heartless here, are there?"

"Of course not," Char grunted, her own gaze roving about for an entirely different reason from his. "You're a Nobody; you don't have what they want. As for me, well… I'm sure they don't care about a heart that's not the Keybearer's."

"Gee, thanks a lot," Roxas laughed. His smile faded, though, and he added, "It's kind of weird – being inside Sora's heart all this time, I've gotten sort of used to having Heartless chasing after me – him – all the time."

"You and me both," Char grunted, but there was an audible tremor in her voice.

Roxas' furry eyebrows lifted at her obvious aversion to discussing Sora. "What, are you still mad at him?"

"Who?" Char kept her eyes ahead.

Roxas let out an annoyed sigh. "Sora. I know you don't like the decision he made, but you shouldn't be angry at him even now."

"Oh, yeah. Well, you never know – by tomorrow, Scar could have decided to kill off all the lionesses, or…" Char's voice trailed off.

The Nobody stopped in his tracks, staring after Char as she kept moving. It took her a few seconds to realize that he was no longer following her, and she halted abruptly and turned to glare at him. "I thought you wanted food," she growled.

"There's something on your mind. And it has something to do with Sora." Roxas hated to be blunt, but with Char being as dense as she was, nothing else would work.

His words hit the mark. Char reared back a ways, staring at Roxas in a way that was thoroughly reminiscent of a fish flopping about on land.

"It's fine," Roxas went on. "You know he feels the same way."

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Char snorted, yet her own body betrayed the nonchalance of her words; her heart had suddenly decided to take up the pace of an inexperienced runner trying to do a marathon, and her legs suddenly felt rather shaky.

"Oh, come on." Roxas continued mercilessly, fighting the urge to smirk at Char's obvious new emotions. "Haven't you seen the way he looks at you? Just trust me on this, I know Sora better than he knows himself," he added dryly. "In fact, I don't think he'd even admitted it clearly to himself yet."

"Very funny," Char growled, trying to regain her composure and calm her frantically racing heart. And was that _hope_ making its traitorous way through her body? "But your little theory doesn't work, because, oh yeah, I don't feel anything like that for Sora."

"You're a good liar, Char, I'll give you that." The golden lion narrowed his eyes. "You've been lying to him this whole journey and we both know it. But these kinds of emotions… you can't lie about them. It just doesn't work. Anxclof and I proved that much, right?"

Why did Char suddenly feel out of breath? And her pulse was still roaring in her ears, to the point where she thought her heart would truly leap out of her chest. _It must be the feline anatomy,_ she told herself, _I wouldn't be feeling like this if I were human. _

Or… would she?

Roxas took her lack of rebuttal to continue. "After all, not even the lack of a heart can put down love, right?"

_Love. Love._ The word echoed in Char's head almost mockingly, and abruptly, she found herself feeling rather dizzy. _Oh gods, he mentioned the l-word. _"Kairi –" she heard herself saying faintly.

"Isn't the one Sora loves anymore," Roxas finished. He let the smirk that had been fighting to take over his countenance do so. "Think about it, Char. Leave it to yourself to figure out whether those feelings are mutual."

Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and vanished into the jungle.

Char stood there, staring wide-eyed after him, her chest heaving like a bellows and her legs feeling like marshmallow. For the first time, she let herself recall the way she had felt after Sora had taken out that massive Heartless on the Gummi ship. So many emotions hit her when she realized that the way she had felt then – how she'd wanted to hug him and kiss him and hit him all at once – wasn't just because of her own damnably rampant hormones; so many things assaulted her sense of emotion that she nearly stumbled with the force of it: confusion, anger at herself, the feeling of a heavy burden settling itself on her shoulders and refusing to move itself.

But more than anything, she felt a sense of _acceptance._ And the other emotions intensified at their single, overpowering partner.

And out of the quagmire of her own emotions, a single realization emerged, one that had Char stumbling back against the nearest tree and staring off wide-eyed into the distance in a way that did not fit the once-so-well-guarded Charisa Nightblaze.

_She was in love with Sora.

* * *

_

LOL WHO SAW THAT COMING? -immediately bricked by happy SoraChar fans-

Uh, yeah. x.x Review?


	48. Chapter XLVIII

Oh my God. DX I am so sorry this took so long. I know this is an excuse you've all heard before, but this is quite possibly the most difficult semester I've taken in my life. Not to mention my computer crashed, and I won't be getting a new one until the end of the month. The only reason I've been able to work on this is because of this 3-day weekend, and because I've been toting around a flash drive with all my fics on it.

Assuming you DO still want the chapter, here's a 25-page-long monster for you all to read.

**_Disclaimer-_** I only own Char and everything else that is obviously not from the game.

* * *

_Dammit!_

That was the only thing running through Char's mind as she raced through the growing shadows, the grass beneath her feet gradually growing thinner.

_Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, _dammit!

Something inside her seemed to cry out in pain at the sudden lack of soft foliage under her paws; almost as if that were some kind of signal, Char skidded to a clumsy stop, narrowly pulling back just before her body would have tumbled over the edge of the winding path into the canyon below. Her chest heaved and her sides felt as if they had been set ablaze, both in terms of temperature and in fatigue at her attempt to get away from the oasis – _Sora_ – as quickly as possible.

_Sora._ The thought of him only served to magnify her frustration, and she found herself groaning aloud, because behind that anger and self-hatred for even thinking she felt so strongly for him, there was a current of warmth pulsing through her body as the spiky brown hair and dark blue eyes came into her mind.

She shook her head furiously in a failed attempt to clear it. _You're being stupid,_ she told herself, allowing the voice of reason to take over. _You are only sixteen years old; you can't feel _love_ in its truest form. The way you're feeling is just because of hormones, the desire for affection – nothing more._

The argument sounded half-hearted, even to her.

Besides – the logic within her promptly took a traitorous U-turn – wouldn't love make sense, what with everything she had been feeling around him? Char let herself recall the events of the past few weeks or so, with the reluctance of a child having to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a doctor's office: the desire to apologize to him at Hollow Bastion; the way her heart had pounded when he had almost kissed her at the sultan's ball; the sudden, near-overwhelming impulse to kiss him in the Gummi ship. She understood, however grudgingly, that those feelings hadn't sprouted out of just the thought of her first kiss or just friendship; if it had just been friendship, she wouldn't have bothered to show Sora the meadow in Hollow Bastion – the very thing that had embodied Ienzo's own love for her – in the first place. Yes, love seemed like the only explanation that made sense.

Char suddenly wanted to run off the edge of the ravine, so strong was the abrupt feeling of self-deprecation. She couldn't believe she was actually allowing herself to submit to such an idiotic conclusion so quickly. After all, Charisa Nightblaze did not let something as stupid as _love_ make a moron out of her; make her run away from the people who had so kindly allowed her to assimilate into their group, or twist her mind and feelings into the confusing bog of emotions that they had become. The thought from earlier – about this only being the result of hormones, the desire to just let out all of her bottled-up lies and frustration and dwindling homesickness – returned with a vengeance at that moment, and Char sat back on her haunches with a huffy sigh.

_Still…_ She didn't realize it, but if another sentient being were in the vicinity, said being would have witnessed a notable softening of her eyes. Char allowed her chest to rise and fall a little more slowly as she sighed, trying to suppress her irritation from before, feeling humiliatingly like a dreamy schoolgirl thinking about her crush in that action.

She knew she hadn't felt this way since Riku. That much was obvious. Yet the fact that she was even allowing herself to acknowledge that she had felt these same symptoms of… _affection_ for the silver-haired teen only served to reinforce how far she had fallen.

With Sora, though, the whole affair had a significantly different aura about it. With Riku, she had felt almost shy, had nearly had to walk on eggshells around him. She understood that like Sora, Riku had loved Kairi for a long time now; that Char couldn't exactly take that away from Riku, since that was the one thing he could call his own after he had started calling himself Ansem.

_So why is Sora different?_ she wondered. _Why do I think Sora, who would throw himself sans Keyblade in front of a rampaging Heartless for Kairi if he had to, is any different from Riku, who feels the same?_

Perhaps it was the personality difference between them. Riku would have taken a possible advance much too seriously and demanded why she thought she could replace Kairi in his heart; Sora would… most likely do the same.

Char groaned, the timbre of her voice echoing off of the canyon's walls. This wasn't getting her anywhere. The whole thing didn't even make any sense. She didn't need to distract Sora from his real goal, which was getting home and meeting up with his friends again. And Char didn't need the distraction from her own goals: destroying the Organization.

It was much more than just vengeance now, though. Even Char allowed her stubbornness to step aside long enough to admit that much.

She lifted her head and saw that late sunset, all but obscured by clouds, currently was winding itself into the sky's pale blue hue in a soft mix of violet and red. With some effort, Char got to her paws and pivoted toward the emerald traces of the jungle's tall trees. She had been gone too long, she told herself, and winced when her stomach gave an emphatic rumble.

_You're still no closer to the answer to the Sora dilemma,_ her conscience reminded her. Char shoved it aside with an audible growl and, flicking her tail as she turned away, started back to the oasis at a steady lope.

The voice was right, though. And that little realization shadowed her all the way through the wastelands, back into the long, greasy blades of grass, through the still-eerily-Heartless-free jungle.

The sun and daylight had left for the time being, replaced by its silvery substitute and star-studded darkness, by the time Char returned. She came to a brief halt as the trees cleared out around her and the sound of the waterfalls were crashing down around her ears, for the sight of the golden-furred king-to-be standing at the edge of the cliff had caught her eye. Simba hovered there, clearly brooding, not even turning around when his sensitive ears had to have heard her coming. Char hesitated, about to speak to him, but relented when the similarity of their situations hit her. The last thing she herself wanted was someone bothering her about the internal conflict currently whirling inside her head like a maelstrom, and she had a sneaking suspicion that Simba would want the same courtesy extended to him.

So she turned on her heel and ran her eyes along the landscape, trying to spot her comrades. Soon she found Donald's conspicuous white feathers – it was obvious against the green grass – and headed toward the place where they were sleeping.

Goofy had withdrawn into his shell, so only a spherical yellow shape was visible of the knight; however, the sound of wheezy inhaling and exhaling could be heard, made strangely echo-like by the way it was reverberating from inside the shell. Donald was sitting on one side of Goofy, and he looked so reminiscent of a mother hen perched to keep her eggs warm that Char had to stifle a chuckle. In a way, that little comparison wasn't that inaccurate. Roxas was nowhere to be seen, which slightly worried Char, but she told herself that he could take care of himself if Scar – or Anxclof – came along. The thought of the latter coaxed a tiny smirk onto her lips.

A sharp inhalation on her part echoed starkly loud against the lack of wind as her gaze fell upon the one who had haunted her thoughts for this whole evening. Sora lay in a comically human-like position despite his current lion form, curled up on his side with one paw tucked against his chest, his breathing soft and deep. Char relaxed from the tense position she didn't even know she had been holding; why she had suspected he would be having nightmares, she had no idea. Her own nightmares had all but disappeared a while back, but perhaps she was thinking of his dreams in terms of her own.

She suddenly tore her gaze away, feeling oddly uncomfortable at watching Sora sleep. The discomfort only increased when she felt a surge of warmth along her spine upon doing so.

Hesitantly, she drew closer, half-expecting him to awaken and find her staring right at him; but not so surprisingly, he remained in a near-comatose state of slumber. Feeling more uncomfortable still – yet it was an odd kind of discomfort, something that urged her to just make it increase – she picked her way around Sora's friends and settled down flat on her back, her right side warming against Sora's back. She cast a nervous glance in the Keybearer's direction, but he seemed just as dead to the world as before. A shaky sigh worked its way out of her and she gazed up at the stars, trying to alleviate the sudden sense of pure loneliness inside her.

"Having trouble sleeping?"

The voice sounding above her head made Char's whole body jolt with surprise, and she arched her neck back just in time to see a spiky, golden-furred head appear just above hers.

She let out the breath she didn't know she had been holding. "Don't scare me like that, Roxas," she muttered, shifting her position and looking back up at the sky. Struck by a sudden sense of curiosity, she narrowed her eyes without meeting Roxas' gaze. "The hell were you doing out there, anyway? Mourning the loss of your precious Anxy-darling? Writing depressing poetry to vent?"

"No," Roxas answered, sounding very calm. He slid into a sitting position next to her, and Char turned her head to look at him, mildly startled at his lack of annoyed retort. From what she could see of him through her limited view, he seemed totally relaxed, even as his tail nearly flipped into her face and she was forced to pull back, frowning in irritation.

"But I _was_ looking for her," he continued. He sighed. "I didn't get very far, though – Sora came out looking for me and asked me to come back before it got too dark."

Char's eyes widened slightly at that. She couldn't help wondering whether or not Sora had been concerned for her, and immediately wanted to smack herself for thinking such things. He probably had thought she could take care of herself. _Thanks, Key-boy,_ she thought dryly. _Thanks for worrying about me._

She didn't know she had spoken aloud until Roxas snickered quietly. "Don't worry, he asked about you too," the Nobody said, smiling a little at the memory. "He kept saying 'I know Char can hold her own, but I really want her to come back soon.'" Roxas imitated Sora's voice in an uncannily accurate way – then again, though, he _was_ the other half of Sora's heart, so he knew how the brunette thought. "And trust me – he was concerned enough for all of us," Roxas added sardonically.

Char gave herself a few moments to fully take in all of what Roxas had said, and occupied herself by giving Sora a sidelong glance. He seemed to still be sleeping deeply enough, but now that she was really looking at him, his tail was twitching almost erratically. _Guess he was just tired. I can't really blame him, after all that happened today…_ Almost as if to set off her own thought, exhaustion tugged Char's jaws open and made her yawn.

"Get to bed," Roxas said, smirking slightly at the sign of Char's own fatigue. "We'll decide what to do in the morning."

"If Simba ever decides to stop brooding long enough for us to ask him his opinion," Char grumbled, twisting onto her side so she could face away from Roxas. At being faced abruptly with a wall of warmth-exuding, chocolate-colored fur, Char had the sudden, powerful urge to bury her face against his back and have that salty paopu scent in her nostrils as she drifted off to sleep.

_Gah, I must be more tired than I thought._

She yawned again and spoke. "Aren't you gonna go to bed too?"

Roxas shrugged, knowing she couldn't see it. "Nah. I'm not that tired yet."

Char snorted, keeping her voice down so the others could sleep. "Gonna kill me in my sleep?" she asked sarcastically. In the blur of sleepiness that her mind had welcomed, she reflected how ironic it was that she was exchanging banter with the boy she had kidnapped and thrown into a virtual world.

Roxas gave a short chuckle under his breath. "Truce, remember?"

Char rolled her eyes. "Right, right…"

And even with the emotional turmoil in her head and heart, she still let herself succumb to the tantalizing promise of relief from at least her physical exhaustion.

* * *

"_Hm," Falcon says suddenly, causing Copperhead to glance over at her. She shifts the green-tipped paintbrush over the meadow she is currently constructing on the canvas in front of her. "I don't know whether I should add flowers or not."_

_"Just add them," Copperhead yawns, bringing up one hand to cover his mouth. He is draped over the bed with the other hand balled up into a fist and pressed against the underside of his chin, and one leg is hanging idly over the side of the bed, while the other is bent at the knee to get into a comfortable position. This is one of the many ways in which he's moved around, trying to get comfortable, in the past few hours that he's watched Falcon paint. "C'mon, let's go kill some Heartless or something. This is boring if you're not the one actually doing it."_

_"Oh, shut up," Falcon mutters, focused intensely on the picture. She does follow his advice, though, fueled by impatience as it was; reaching over to the palette on the table to her left and dipping the brush into the bucket of now-murky water to clean it of any emerald paint before adorning the tip of the paintbrush with a bright canary yellow. "So, flowers. Got it."_

_Copperhead sighs and shakes his head, mutters something about wondering why she couldn't do this project on a day when he's _not_ here. But he doesn't try to pull her away from her work; if anything, he continues watching, something made obvious since Falcon can feel his gaze on her back._

_"Would you stop?" she flares up at last, whirling around and giving him one of her best glares: which of course is ineffective, if the way Copperhead's tiny smile widens is any indication. "I can't concentrate with you hovering like that."_

_"Well, what am I supposed to do?" Copperhead queries, and the soft look on his face turns into a sardonic grin. "Go downstairs and bother your parents?"_

_Falcon growls under her breath. "Well, no, but…"_

_"There you go, then." Copperhead lies back against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. "So, as much as you hate it," if possible, his lips curl up even further and he lazily brings up a finger to point at her, "you're stuck with me watching your every move."_

_Falcon rolls her eyes, adjusts her loose ponytail and turns back around. "Asshole," she mutters under her breath._

_"Oh, you know you love me for it," Copperhead answers without missing a beat._

_Falcon's shoulders tense unconsciously. She was starting to wonder about his constant usage of the words_ you still love me_ to turn around any negative comment she made about him. And of course that stupid feeling of hope starts to rise within her again._

Don't get your hopes up,_ she tells herself. _He's got his pick of the litter; why would he choose you? He's probably just teasing you. _She sighs through her nose and jams the paintbrush onto the canvas with renewed vigor. "We're gonna have some flowers," she growls, practically stabbing the ridged landscape of green that she just spent the past few hours creating._

_She hears Copperhead get up, but she doesn't realize he's right next to her until his voice sounds disturbingly close to her ear. "Gods, Fal, it's a field, not a Heartless," he says, sounding both amused and mildly alarmed at her new fervor. "I'm not the artsy type like you are, but even I know that flowers do not look like little dots." He places one hand on her shoulder and uses his free hand to point at the conspicuous tawny-colored pinprick, stark against its companion of chartreuse. "So something tells me that your art teacher will not take it very well if you just make more like that."_

_"Fine," Falcon huffs, trying not to fully acknowledge the way heat is rushing to her face and abdomen at having him so close. "Since you know everything, you paint the stupid picture." And she shoves the paintbrush at him, just in case she hasn't made her point._

_Copperhead barely catches the brush and eyes Falcon with a steadily rising eyebrow. _

_"As a matter of fact, take the whole palette, too," Falcon growls, her temper getting the best of her as she tosses the container of paint – still open – at his chest. "You'll need more colors than just yellow if you want to –"_

_She breaks off and suddenly has to fight back a snicker. Because when she had thrown the palette at him, Copperhead had made an uncharacteristic fumble trying to catch it. And so the palette had landed on his thankfully black shirt, paint-side toward him. And therefore, the contents of the container – paint – had exploded._

_All over his chest._

_And on part of his neck and bare shoulders._

_Oh gods. Falcon wastes only a few seconds attempting vainly to stifle the sudden fit of giggles before she acts much like the now-ruined palette and explodes into not a paint-induced mess, but an uncontrollable barrage of laughter._

_At least until Copperhead narrows his eyes playfully – after only a moment of giving his even-darker top and green-red-and-orange-speckled shoulders a bemused scrutiny – takes the paintbrush in his hand, and hisses around a snigger of his own, "Oh, you want war? You've got one!"_

_And without preamble, he smears the tip across her jaw and drags it down her neck._

_"In fact," he says, grinning like a wolf at the sudden dumbfounded look on her face, "let's go the whole nine yards and give you some darker colors, why don't we?"_

_He manages to dart behind her in a maneuver that he's mastered in their days of Heartless hunting, grabs the entire bucket of water from the table, and makes a move with it that makes her realize abruptly what he's doing. While she manages to leap back just in time and dodge most of the paint-darkened water, the aftermath of the spray lands on its intended target._

_She stares at him and slowly realizes that it's not anger that's bubbling up within her; it's only a playful desire to get him back for it. With the rational part of her mind, she knows that now the art project she spent the past three hours working on is ruined since all that water got on it, but strangely she doesn't really care. _

_"Bring it!" she cries and grabs a red-tipped paintbrush from the table. It's half-dry since it's been sitting there for the past hour or so, but it'll do for now. Brandishing her weapon, she lunges at Copperhead, only to have the brush knocked out of her hand with an expert wrist. He smirks at her and waggles his finger reprovingly at her, but she continues her advance, a smirk of her own on her countenance when his eyes widen and he takes a step back; clearly he'd expected her to stop._

_He is caught off guard long enough for her she can pounce on him. The tackle has more force than she'd originally thought and soon she finds herself pinning him down. Giggling like an idiot and barely managing to keep his squirming form down with one hand, Falcon gropes about with her free hand to try and find the spare paintbrush, only to let out a noise of disappointment that's half-obscured by snickers from both parties when she fails to find her instrument of revenge._

_"Ha!" Copperhead says breathlessly, even as she turns back to face him. In the brief moment that she's distracted, he somehow manages to flip her over so that they've reversed positions: for the first time, since her back is pressed up against it, Falcon realizes how sticky the newspaper set out around the canvas is, mostly due to their impromptu little paint war. _

_"I win," he whispers._

_Falcon's giggles finally peter off into silence at realizing that he's right. It's only after the initial laughing fit has ebbed that she also realizes how close they are; his trademark scent of coffee mixed with whatever he put in his hair this morning – something with coconut, she knows that much – is still strong despite the oily paint smell that's coming off of his body. She can feel the warmth coming off of him in waves, a warmth that's amplified even more by her own traitorous body's reaction to his closeness. Gods, she doesn't even _want_ to think about how he's reacting to this. The thought produces the tiniest iota of disgust before that, too, is snuffed out by her own stupid heartbeat increasing substantially. Violet and green eyes alike widen as they watch the other._

_Abruptly, Copperhead rears back and says, "I have to go." He gets to his feet and is gone before Falcon has recovered from both the relief and disappointment at not having him close anymore: relief that the discomfort is passing, and disappointment… Well, she doesn't want to think about that._

_It's probably that moment, when she's dimly reflecting on how she really needs to shower now and wondering how her parents will react on seeing their daughter's frequent visitor covered in paint, that Falcon Gracebreeze realizes – she has a huge crush on Copperhead Sandgale. A really, _really _huge crush. Something that might even merit the label, oh, say, _love.

_So much for fighting hormones._

* * *

"Mmph… paint… wha…?"

Anxclof blinked bleary eyes and shook her head, trying to wake herself up even as she took in her surroundings. From what she could tell, she had been asleep for the better part of the day and well into the night; the lack of light coming from outside her little hollow confirmed that much. She arched her back as she stretched, still unwilling to rise from her position on her side, and blinked hard a couple of times to get the sleep out of her eyes. No good – it seemed like she could only do so by rubbing her eyes, which of course she couldn't do. Well, she probably could; she just didn't want to think about what kind of dirt and gods only knew what else she would get into her eyes by putting her paws to them.

Anxclof thought back to the dream. The sequence of flashbacks – or lack thereof – had been unique in that it only consisted of a single memory of her Other and the boy she had clearly cared for, but had to discard. The Nobody cringed at remembering the dream she had gotten so far back, when Copperhead and Xemnas had somehow conspired against Falcon and betrayed the female Keybearer. That was another weird thing: Anxclof didn't know why these dreams hadn't always come in chronological order, but now things seemed to be righting themselves as far as the timeline of Falcon's life went. _Wonder if Roxas has been experiencing the same thing,_ Anxclof mused, surprising herself with the randomness of the thought that, really, she had mulled over countless times since the misadventure in Twilight Town, when these dreams had started.

Well –she should probably use the past tense when referring to Roxas' dreams of Sora. Roxas had reunited with Sora's heart, so any dreams that the Key of Destiny experienced were Sora's own. Anxclof grinned despite herself; most of Sora's dreams probably starred Char nowadays. _Poor Spike,_ the female Nobody thought, _having to constantly think about the girl that kidnapped him._

Anxclof didn't know it, but her gaze hardened into chips of emerald. She still had yet to make Char pay – _truly_ pay – for what she had done to Roxas. And Riku, too, now that Anxclof was really thinking about it. Well, having to take the form of Xehanort's Heartless had to be punishment enough. The Blade of Vengeance would hate to have to walk around with the Superior's face all the time.

After her initial amusement subsided, Anxclof allowed her contemplations to return to the dreams. The feelings she got during the dreams were strange: it felt like being carried along on a river's current in that she had no choice in what she was doing and that she could only watch and wait and see what Falcon decided. Normally Anxclof hated the feeling of not being able to choose for herself, but again, the feelings were strange in that around Copperhead, almost no hatred was present, only a sense of belonging that Anxclof normally got while spending time with Axel and Roxas. And Anxclof supposed that the relationship between Falcon and Copperhead was where she had obtained the capacity to feel what she felt for Roxas. The little self-confession at the end of the dream told her at least that much.

Though she and Roxas had never gotten into a paint fight…

_Falcon is brave, but weird,_ Anxclof decided. She kept talking about trying to fight back against "hormones" when really, she herself was falling prey to them. Maybe Anxclof's mild fascination over the whole subject had begun due to the fact that her lack of heart gave her no such problems. True, she had admired Axel and looked up to him like he was an older brother, but she had never cared for him as anything more than that. But when she knew she loved Roxas, she just knew, and that was that. Yes, there had been a brief period of trying to fight back against that, yet eventually her own feelings won out over her pride and she stopped resisting. In a sense, Anxclof felt a surge of sympathy for Falcon and, really, Char as well; they were both stuck in a stage of denial over their feelings toward their respective male friends – or _had been stuck,_ in Falcon's case.

Then something seemed to hit Anxclof and she frowned. Why was she worrying about Char, anyway? The redhead only seemed to give Anxclof more problems in her attempts to bring Roxas back to her, so why did she feel sympathetic about Char's lack of intelligence when it came to matters of the heart?

_Ironic,_ Anxclof mused, smiling a little smugly to herself. _I'm the one with no heart and yet I know more about this than she, a true being, does._

A streak of light shone in her peripheral vision and she turned her head toward the opening of the small cavern. The sun was rising outside and casting a bright glare over the barren ground; she shivered a little at the way the light caught the bones littering the area.

_Roxas,_ she told herself, _I have to find him._

She heaved herself to her paws; after a few moments of dots dancing in her vision at getting up so quickly, the initial dizziness wore off and she left the hollow.

Almost the instant she stepped outside, she was nearly blinded by the sun's rays and hissed, eyes squeezed immediately shut, against the light. She cracked one eye open and focused on her surroundings, the other eye gradually joining its partner in fully opening to check if there were any Heartless. Suspiciously, the area seemed clear.

She still summoned her Keyblade, just in case, before stepping forward. So far, so good.

Only now did it hit her, how stupid she had been to just run off from Pride Rock the way she had done yesterday. Anxclof groaned aloud with the force of her own self-frustration; knowing Sora's tendencies to follow anyone who needed help, Roxas could be miles away by now.

_This is going to be harder than I thought._

* * *

Roxas awoke to the sound of a self-deprecating voice, originating from not too far off. Dark blue eyes opened a fraction as he brought one paw up to press against the corner of his eyes; it didn't quite work so well without fingers, but at least it was an earnest attempt to get the sleep-blearing vision impediment out of them. As he moved over onto his other side, Roxas abruptly realized that earlier, he had been practically lying on top of Sora. The Nobody made a sound of light disgust to himself; he decided that he definitely wouldn't call himself a narcissist, because pressing against the other half of himself – the _real_ half, by Char's standards – was incredibly awkward.

The sound that had woken Roxas rang out into the air again, successfully getting his attention. He straightened up into a sitting position when his brain immediately connected the deep voice with the name Simba.

"My father's dead… and it's because of me. It's my fault."

Roxas' ears pricked. He glanced over at the sleeping animals around him: Donald, now flat on his back and with his beak half-open; Goofy still in his shell, having not shifted once during the night; Char pressed disturbingly close to Sora's back, murmuring something that Roxas couldn't pick up, but that sounded suspiciously like _master_; and Sora himself still on his side, all but comatose.

Again, Simba spoke, a sigh embedded in his still-self-demeaning words. "I can't go back," he murmured. "It won't change anything."

"Psst!" Roxas turned at the sound of the new voice, only a little startled at the new intruder. He blinked as his searching eyes found Timon and Pumbaa standing behind him, shadowed by the undergrowth.

"Are you hearing this?" Timon whispered, his eyes flicking about nervously, like he thought Simba might do something drastic if he caught his two closest friends listening.

"He killed his father?" Pumbaa asked, a look of shock on his face. Timon immediately shushed him in a way that was even louder than the warthog's voice, and Roxas winced, glancing back, half-expecting Simba to turn and realize they were eavesdropping on his little pity fest. To his immense relief, though, the lion remained staring up at the sky.

A flicker of movement drew Roxas' eye to Donald, who was stirring and barely opening his eyes. "Have you ever… heard of… keeping it down?" the duck demanded sleepily. Roxas simply drew his tail over Donald's mouth, ignoring the growl of irritation that followed that gesture; he prepared himself to have his tail suddenly in Donald's beak, but the mage did nothing.

The commotion was waking even Sora, who Roxas knew to be one of the heaviest sleepers that the worlds had ever produced. Sora's lids moved only a fraction to show the dark blue iris beneath, in the same moment that Char was arching her back to stretch from where she lay on the ground. Roxas considered giving a teasing remark as to how she had slept so close to Sora, but relented; they didn't need a loud argument right now.

Sora's eyes opened fully when he caught sight of the golden lion staring intently off to the side, at something he himself couldn't see. "Roxas?" he asked groggily, the name coming out slowly. "What's going…?"

"Shh," Roxas murmured, not taking his eyes off of the unknown object in the distance.

Char had already gotten to her paws in the second that the Nobody and his Other had spent talking, and she padded up to sit beside Roxas, her tread a little uneven both due to the old burn wound and the lack of coordination that just waking brought. "Why are you –" she began, only to break off when she caught sight of what had kept Roxas' attention for this long. She actually let out a tiny gasp before exchanging glances with Roxas himself. For once there had been no trace of sarcasm whatsoever in her voice, Roxas reflected dryly. Maybe that was just because she wasn't fully awake yet. Well, in any case, she had to be now; she was staring wide-eyed at Simba, without a trace of the bleary-eyed squint that awakening slowly usually heralded.

"Char?" Sora's eyes opened fully, then narrowed, even though there was only the thinnest thread of light lining the horizon. _The last time I got up this early was… hm._ He frowned when he realized that he couldn't actually remember. Pushing that aside for now, he spoke to the tiger again. "Char, what's –"

"Shh!" she hissed at him, twisting around to give him a wide-eyed glare for emphasis. Sora gave his characteristic pout, only this time it seemed to have a tinge of annoyance; at that, Char's eyes softened a little – Sora had to do a double take – and she answered his question in a whisper. "It's Simba." The Keybearer's look of disappointment melted into one of surprise and curiosity.

"I thought he was asleep," he said softly, moving to stand on Char's other side.

Char shrugged one shoulder as she turned to look back at Simba, who was currently standing still there, as if reminiscing about something. "Apparently not, unless he expresses his severe lack of self esteem in his sleep," she muttered.

Sora smiled despite himself; the argument from yesterday felt like eons ago, and so he was ready to talk to her normally again. "Don't you?" he joked.

Char gave him a sharp look, silently asking what had happened to him being angry at her; but then a new voice cut into the darkness. "Gawrsh, guys, what's everybody lookin' around for?"

"Simba!" they all hissed at Goofy, who blinked, bemused, before sticking his legs out of his shell in addition to his head.

Sora's lips turned upward a little. It occurred to him that Simba hadn't spoken for a few minutes at least, and he tried to take a step closer to hear well, only for his paw pads to scrape against something on the ground. He chanced a look down and gasped softly at what he saw; quickly he leaned down and scooped up the Keyblade chain in one paw. _It's been a while since I got a new Keyblade,_ he reflected; for the longest time he'd only been using the Hero's Crest. He glanced around, trying to decide what to do with the Keychain; it had what looked like a depiction of a lion cub's head as its charm, which was fitting, considering this world.

He didn't get much more time to do anything other than keep the chain in his paw, for their attention was drawn back to the royal heir as he spoke again. The amount of despair in his pleading voice was poignant enough to make even Roxas wince in sympathy. "Father… Are you there?" he cried up at the cloudy sky. "You said you'd always watch over me."

"Isn't he dead?" Sora asked Char, who just nodded mutely. The sympathy she felt took the strongest form of all seven animals watching; she knew all too well how it felt, to have to ask someone who wasn't in her life anymore for guidance, when she knew full well that no one would answer. _Master,_ she thought with a tiny sigh. And for the first time since Riku had let darkness take over his heart, she realized she felt comfortable calling DiZ by his true name: Ansem.

At any rate, though, it was no use for Simba to try and talk to his father, since he had just said himself that he was already dead and gone.

Then to everyone's complete and utter shock, Char's thought was disproved by a sudden swirl of violet purple clouds and – what was that, part of the sky itself? Even Simba took a step back in shock, and it was all Roxas could do to keep Donald, Timon, and Pumbaa from uttering cries of wonder and surprise.

A huge, dark blue lion appeared in the circle that the lavender clouds had created in the sky. From the gasp that came from Simba's direction, it had to be Simba's father.

"No way…" Sora gaped.

The spirit and Simba exchanged a few words that none of them could hear; Char wasn't sure whether the aura of gold that surrounded the former king's form signified the sunrise or not. _Is it the real sunrise or a symbolic one?_ she wondered.

But now the golden light was almost blinding, drowning out any trace of purple, and the spirit was disappearing to gods only knew where in a fading of fiery embers. Simba ran over to the ledge, as though trying to ask his father for more answers; clearly, what the spirit had told him didn't suffice. The sky darkened again, and Simba's form straightened. Then he spoke.

"You can all come out now."

"Crap," Char muttered, and followed Sora up to Simba. When the group of seven stopped, they were all standing – or in Donald's case, hovering – right behind him.

"Great job, guys," Donald grumbled. Roxas gave him a look that strongly suggested he was ready to call the duck a hypocrite.

Simba turned around, the ghost of a smile crossing his face at the sight of all his comrades ready to back him up. Then his face turned serious. "I'm going back to face my past. I could use your help."

"Like we're gonna say no?" Sora grinned.

Beside Goofy, Timon remarked, "He really is a king…"

As if to accentuate the meerkat's words, the sun chose that moment to make its entrance, and the bright gold light outlined Simba's form despite the clouds that tried to obscure it.

* * *

"So, new Keyblade?" Char asked.

Sora blinked at the abruptness of her question. He had to half cross his eyes to look down at the Keyblade in his jaws, the creamy-colored weapon that he had decided to dub the Circle of Life, after the way of life that Nala had told him about. "Yeah," he answered. "I found it back at the oasis."

"Hm," was all Char said. She looked away, focusing determinedly on the rock formations and sparse trees of the Wildebeest Valley; she had a look on her face not unlike that of Simba's. The adult lion marched on stoically, an odd shadow in his eyes to accompany his newfound determination, looking as though he had a bad memory of this place. Except Char's expression held something else besides the will to take Scar down once and for all; something else was in her eyes, something that Sora had a feeling she wouldn't tell him. She never did tell him very much, he knew that, but it still hurt to think about. Again, the thought of how much he cared about her – how much he _didn't want_ to care about her, it was betraying Kairi, wasn't it? – passed through his mind, and he shook it off hastily before the guilt could sweep over him.

Char was so glad her fur was red to begin with, because being around Sora was making the heat beneath her skin magnify tenfold. It didn't help that Roxas' words kept echoing inside her head. _You know he feels the same way… haven't you seen the way he looks at you?... Kairi isn't the one Sora loves anymore…_

_Shut the hell up,_ she spat mentally, and to her relief, most of the stomach-swirling hope that spawned from Roxas' comments went away. _What the hell does Roxas know about Sora anyway…?_

Oh, he was his Nobody. Never mind then.

Char wanted to hit her head against the nearest rock in frustration, and gods knew that rocks weren't in short supply in this place. So she glared at one of the square-topped rock formations, hoping that either her glare could incinerate it or that maybe she could sneak off and lose a few brain cells to its surface without being missed. Either would relieve the immense maelstrom of hope and anger and discomfort and everything in between that she felt, if only a little.

"Gee, Simba, what's wrong?" Goofy asked the royal heir, effectively dispelling Char's own attempt to stay out of any other conversation. She had to admit, she was curious about Simba's sudden change of expression when they had reached this place. When they had crossed the jungle and the canyon that led to it, he had taken down the Heartless that had gotten in their way with a fiery determination. Now, he simply looked grim, and any Heartless that dared cross their path had been effectively, icily disposed of, not unlike a butcher chopping a piece of meat.

Simba gave Goofy a look of warning, and the dog-turtle recoiled slightly, adding in a hasty tone, "Uh, you don't have to tell us if you don't want to. I was just wonderin'."

"Yeah, Simba, I kinda want to know too," Pumbaa cut in tentatively.

Simba's dark eyes flickered from one friend to another; then he sighed, and just like that, the wall of cold, simmering anger shattered. "This is… where my father died," he murmured, so quietly that they all had to strain to hear, which was difficult, considering that they had to keep moving.

Char's eyes widened, Sora and Donald let out a small gasp of surprise and sympathy, and even Timon, Pumbaa, and Roxas looked shocked. Goofy just looked like he felt guilty for even asking in the first place. "Gawrsh, Your Highness, I'm really sorry," he said.

Simba shrugged, not bothering to correct the knight on calling him _Your Highness_. "Scar had taken me out here so I could go play," he muttered, almost bitterly, like he couldn't believe that such a traitor had taken him in. Char remembered belatedly that Scar was Simba's uncle. "Then he just left. My uncle just left. A while later, the wildebeests came and started storming the valley."

Every word came out sounding like it had gotten caught on thorns in Simba's throat, but Sora couldn't stop his question. "So then what happened?"  
Simba took a deep breath; his eyes were already beginning to shine with tears. "My father came and took me up to a high ledge so I would be safe," he murmured. "He got pulled back down by the wildebeests. He must have gotten pulled up onto another ledge, because the next thing I knew I saw him falling down into the stampede. That was the last I saw of him."

Everyone let out sympathetic noises, and Simba turned his face to the ground. "I was wandering around, confused and crying. I half expected the hyenas to find me. I wanted them to."

"And I'm guessing that's when we found you, huh?" Timon asked, sounding notably subdued. "Geez, kid, I'm sorry."

Simba sighed. "It's fine. You didn't know; you couldn't have."

Char didn't speak. She knew that the words typical of an apology couldn't do anything to assuage Simba's newly raw grief; they were just an attempt to fill an empty silence, to make some kind of comment so that the speaker didn't look insensitive. Riku had tried the same thing when he had found out what had driven Char and Ansem from Hollow Bastion in the first place – the bloody birth of the Organization – and it hadn't done anything. Not even time did very much, though it did push the grief in the proverbial vault and lock it away for a time. But somehow, some way, something would come up that would resurrect the old sorrow all over again.

"Char, are you feeling okay?" Sora suddenly asked.

Char met his eyes; it was like looking into the sun and she had to tear her gaze away. "Yeah," she muttered. "Just thinking."

Sora blinked, as though he had expected more of a dry response, but he just touched his tail-tip to her shoulder and moved back to his position at the lead of the group.

Char realized that she was breathing shakily and the back of her eyes were quivering with… what was that, tears? She told them firmly to go away, and to her surprise and relief they did so. _Honestly, I used to cry roughly once a year. Now I'm nearly breaking down every single week._

She raised her head and saw that they had left the Wildebeest Valley behind them. Simba swept out ahead of Sora and stopped at the edge of the rocky ledge they were standing on. He took a deep breath as he absorbed the sight of the savannah and Pride Rock off in the distance.

"Wait, wait, wait," Timon said suddenly, standing next to Simba. "We're gonna fight your uncle for _this?"_

Simba cast a look down at his meerkat friend before lifting his head and looking out at Pride Rock again. "Yes, Timon," he answered relatively evenly. "This is my home."

His words unexpectedly struck a chord deep within Char. Despite everything that had happened to make him bitter about it, Simba was still willing to fight tooth and claw to protect his home and everything in it from anything. _If Master and I had stayed in Hollow Bastion,_ Char couldn't help thinking, _would the situation in that world be better? If we had been willing to fight the Organization there, fairly, instead of using Sora, Roxas, and Riku for an unjustified revenge, would things have been different?_

"Char! Hurry up or we're gonna leave you!" Roxas shouted.

Char started and looked around; she caught sight of the telltale spiky brown head and saw that the group had already descended the ledge and were getting ready to cross the savannah. "Like you'd do that!" she yelled back, and raced down the ledge back to level ground.

"I don't know, Char," Sora teased, as she took her place beside him. She mentally cursed herself for willingly returning to the boy that kept her so confused about her own emotions, but, as stupid as it seemed, she just couldn't stay away. "I was thinking about it…"

"Shut up," she muttered, playfully flicking his shoulder with her tail. She opened her mouth, half ready to ask him what had happened to their argument from yesterday, only to close it. There was, really, nothing to ask.

As they all moved off toward Pride Rock, weapons at the ready, they didn't notice a pair of dark green eyes widen in the shadows, then dart off in the opposite direction, almost like the owner was planning on entering the Pride Lands' main haven from the other side.

* * *

The clouds hanging closely above the top of Pride Rock's thorn-like structure looked as though they wanted to release their burden of rain and possibly thunder and lightning any moment. Sora shivered at the anticipation of rain; while it was welcome in the dried-up Pride Lands, he didn't know how the battle against Scar would play out if the ground beneath his paws was slippery. He had enough trouble moving around in this form as it was.

Simba suddenly let out a soft cry of surprise, and Sora turned just in time to see the telltale creamy pelt make itself visible in his vision. The Keybearer waved a paw in greeting as Nala bounded up, her eyes wide at the sight of Simba. "Hey, Nala."

She gave him a terse nod in reply, but didn't take her eyes off of Simba. "You came back," she whispered.

Simba smiled weakly. "I'm sorry about before. I'm here to take back what's ours."

Nala could only smile back, a breathless murmur of gratefulness issuing from her lips. Sora could tell that she wanted nothing more than to nuzzle herself into Simba's pelt in what Sora himself had come to know as a cat-hug, but he knew that now wasn't the time. She seemed to realize that as well, because her eyes hardened. "Scar is up there," she told them, jerking her head up toward the ledge that jutted out from the thorn of Pride Rock. Sora followed her gaze and saw that she spoke the truth; the orange-and-black lion stood there. Simba narrowed his eyes and turned to the rest of the group. "Are you ready?" he asked.

Char rolled her eyes. "If we've told you once," she muttered, speaking for everyone, "then we've told you a thousand times. We're with you."

Simba grinned. "Just making sure."

Without waiting for a response, he leaped up onto the nearest ledge and began making his way to where Scar stood, without actually directly ascending the hill that led up there. Sora glanced back at the others, who simply nodded, and he slitted his eyes in determination before he looked at Nala. "Let's go."

"Right."

They raced up the rocky hill and skidded to a halt just in time to see Simba prowling toward Scar. Simba's side was to them, so Sora didn't get a good glimpse of the true king's expression; but the Keybearer could see that Scar's emerald eyes were huge with dread and his jaw had dropped. "Simba! You're… alive!" he sputtered.

"This kingdom doesn't belong to you," Simba snarled, and Nala added, "Simba's the rightful king!"

Even from where they stood, Sora could see Simba unsheathe his claws and brace them against the ground. Scar clearly noticed that as well, because he backed up against where the ledge met Pride Rock itself and simpered, "Must this all end in violence?"

Sora opened his mouth, ready to deliver a reply along the lines of how this situation merited physically taking Scar down; but the usurper wasn't finished. His ears pricked up and he straightened from where he'd been crouching against the wall before starting to circle Simba. "I'd hate to be responsible for the death of a family member, Simba," he purred, finally coming to stand in front of the group.

Simba's eyes widened before they narrowed again. "I've put the past behind me!" he growled with renewed determination.

Scar tittered. "But what about your faithful subjects? Have they?"

"Simba, what's he talking about?" Nala asked, casting Simba a worried glance.

"You mean they still don't know?" Scar smirked and began to circle Simba again; Simba followed his uncle's movements with his head this time, a panicked expression slowly beginning to take over his features. "Go on. Tell them who's responsible for Mufasa's death!"

Simba hung his head and tried not to look at the others. "I am," he murmured. And all at once, Sora understood the reason why Simba's eyes had been shadowed when he had told them about his father's death. Nala's gasp beside him confirmed that not even she had known.

"You see?" Scar barked, swinging his head back toward Sora and the others. "He admits it! Murderer!" he rasped at Simba, beginning to push him back toward the edge of the cliff. "If it weren't for you, Mufasa would still be alive. Do you deny it?"

"No. But it was an accident!" Simba protested.

"Mufasa died saving his life!" Char snarled, surprising all of them. Her neck fur and tail were fluffed up in undisguised anger. "What, did you expect him to just let his son get trampled?"

Scar only ignored her and continued his tirade. "You're in trouble again. But this time, Daddy's not here to save you." His former ominous purr morphed into a vindictive snarl. "And now, everyone knows why!"

He gave one final lunge with the last word, effectively pushing Simba off the very edge of the cliff. Nala gasped, but Simba had managed to cling onto the edge with his paws.

"Now this looks familiar," Scar said, adopting a contemplative voice as he watched Simba squirm to try and keep from falling. He raised his head in mock thought before widening his eyes in feigned realization and looking back down at Simba. "Oh yes, I remember. This is just the way your father looked – before _he_ died."

He dug his claws into Simba's paws, causing the royal heir to howl in pain, before leaning down and whispering something into Simba's ear, something that Sora couldn't catch. Evidently it ignited Simba's calm temper, because the next thing Sora saw was Scar being tackled onto his back as Simba pinned him there with a snarl of agony and fury. "Tell them the truth!" he screeched, pressing a paw into Scar's neck.

Scar choked for a few seconds before he gasped out, "All right! All right!" And he spoke, still too softly for the others to hear.

"So they can _hear you!"_ Simba hissed through clenched teeth.

"Fine then!" Scar raised his voice, loudly enough so that even the lionesses could hear. _"I killed Mufasa!"_

At that moment, the hyenas came charging out of the king's den, as though summoned by Scar's voice. Simba's eyes widened as he lifted his head and saw them coming right at him, but dual flashes of white obscured his vision for a brief moment before it cleared and everyone saw what had knocked the hyenas off to the side.

"Geez, Scar. You really know how to make a dramatic speech," someone sighed from the other side of the two lions. "But seriously? Just give up. You're only making things worse for yourself." The owner of the voice stepped out from behind the shadow of Pride Rock, even as Roxas let out a pleased cry. "And trust me: you've gotten yourself into some pretty deep crap already," she growled in a low, threatening voice.

"Anxclof?" Char's eyes widened; she didn't know whether to feel shocked or angry that Anxclof was still alive.

"Unfortunately for you, yes," the female Nobody answered loftily. She turned to Sora. "As much as I'd like to talk more," she drawled, sarcasm etched into every word, "I think we've got bigger problems."

Sora followed where her tail was pointing and gasped; a flash of orange fur was the only trace of Scar, who had vanished into the king's den. Simba was looking after him, gaping in both surprise and fury. The hyenas made as if to follow Scar into the den, but Sora immediately threw himself into the middle of them, the Circle of Life brandished in his teeth. "Simba, you get Scar!" he called to the adult lion. "We'll handle these guys."

Simba gave a single, grateful nod before charging off after Scar. As his golden fur vanished into the shadows of the hollow, Sora glanced back at his comrades, but they were already flanking him with their weapons ready. "I thought we were done with these guys," Donald grumbled.

Sora shrugged with a helpless grin. "Well, this is Simba's battle, after all. The least we can do is buy him some time."

Char felt a brush of fur on one side and thought for a brief, horrifying moment that it was one of the hyenas, but when she looked, to her complete bemusement and suspicion, she saw Anxclof there, already hefting her Keyblade in her jaws. "What do you think you're doing?" the tiger snarled wittily.

Anxclof gave her a sidelong glance. "Something tells me you might need me here," she replied, bringing her pupils back to glare at the hyenas.

"The hell we do," Char spat, despite the very small part of her that was nodding in agreement. "What, are you going to pick us off when we're exhausted?"

"Look!" Anxclof finally snapped, giving up any semblance of calm, simmering anger as she whirled to face Char. "If I wanted to kill you, I'd have done it the instant I got here!" Her hackles flattened slightly. "I want to help Roxas out."

_Of course. It all comes back to Roxas. _Char allowed herself only a moment to struggle with her better judgment; they only had so much time before the hyenas decided to take off after their master. In the end, she only glowered at the ground and grumbled, "Whatever. Just don't expect me to let you do this again."

"I didn't," Anxclof growled, but a smirk was on her face.

Roxas had watched the whole exchange with bemusement that turned into amusement, which then twisted into a tiny smile of his own. He opened his mouth to ask whether or not Anxclof was on their side for this – he knew at this point that much was obvious, but he figured he may as well throw in the question, just to rub that fact into Char's face – but was cut off by a sudden shriek that made all of them, hyena and Keybearer ally alike, jolt in surprise and look around until they found the source.

"'Scuse me, pardon me, coming through!" Timon roared, riding Pumbaa's back like one of the odd-looking creatures that Roxas had spotted riding the dinosaur Heartless earlier. Unfortunately, this was all of the three-second warning that the group got before the warthog charged right through the force-field of hyenas, effectively knocking Scar's minions away and scattering them to the side. Pumbaa skidded to a halt right before he could tumble off the precipice and whipped around to glare surprisingly boldly at the hyenas, while Timon leaped off of his friend's back and copied Pumbaa's determined expression.

Then the hyenas rose, both ravenous hunger and rage obvious in their postures and on their faces, and Timon and Pumbaa deflated visibly. "Run away!" Pumbaa howled, and turned on his heel to charge into the king's den; Timon was hot on his heels, and eventually jumped up and seized the warthog's tail so he could move more quickly into shelter. "Morons," Char hissed, teeth gritted. Of course, while the six of them had been distracted, the hyenas had followed Timon and Pumbaa into the hollow at a steady gallop.

"That would be our cue to follow them," Anxclof muttered, and without waiting for a response, she raced into the king's den. Sora started when he realized what had just happened, and he turned to Char, uncharacteristic anger making his dark blue eyes blaze. "Are you sure we can trust her?" he demanded incredulously.

Char sighed. "She wouldn't betray us as long as _he's_ here," she pointed out, flicking her tail toward Roxas, who was standing off to the side. "Besides, what's she going to do in there? Eat Timon and Pumbaa?"

"I don't trust her," Donald grumbled. Goofy looked vaguely uncomfortable at his partners' behavior, but nevertheless he gave a nod of firm agreement.

"I dunno, Char," he said. "What if soon as we're done with Scar, she tries to kill Sora again?"

Char hesitated; she honestly hadn't considered that. But it was Roxas who spoke up. Not that surprising, really, considering his relationship with Anxclof. "I think we'll be fine," he said. "The only thing I'm worried about is what'll happen if we leave her alone in there for much longer."

"She's got a Keyblade; I'm sure she'll be fine," Sora retorted.

"Gods, Key-boy," Char couldn't help saying with a frown. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you actually don't care if we reach Scar or not."

Sora gave her a glare.

"Either way, we have to go in there," Char continued. "Whether or not we choose to help Anxclof is up to you."

Sora glared at her for a few more moments, ears flat and hackles raised in a way that Char could see even though his spiky hair would have been in the way. Then his muscles slackened a little and he sighed. "Fine," he muttered. "I just – it's hard to trust someone who tried to kill you."

Char felt her impatience dull, if only slightly, and for perhaps the thousandth time that day she wanted to hit her head against the nearest upright surface for the huge, undeniable soft spot that she had developed for Sora. "I get that," she said quietly. "But right now we don't have a choice _but_ to trust her." Half playfully, she added, "Do you think I liked rushing around to get you back to normal when she turned you into a Heartless?"

Sora smiled hesitantly. "I guess you're right."

He held her gaze for a few, brief, agonizing moments before his eyes hardened into determined sapphire orbs and he turned to the others. "Let's go."

Wordlessly, they entered the den, to be greeted by a sight Char had expected: four Avengers dancing across the hollow, blades flashing in midair as they dodged the blows of their respective hyenas. Anxclof stood off to the side, half-leaning against the wall, a few shallow cuts speckled up and down her flank. Roxas immediately let out a sound of surprise and concern and rushed to her side, the Oathkeeper glowing in a way that shadowed his face in an eerie green glow as he cast a healing spell on her. The majority of the cuts closed up and Anxclof gave him a brief, wolfish grin of thanks before she looked back at the others, eyes narrowing abruptly into a suspicious glare. "Decided to trust me?" she queried.

Char rolled her eyes, which had become icy blue slits. "We wouldn't be here if we hadn't."

Anxclof didn't answer as she got to her paws. Her eyes roved about the cavern for a few moments before she gasped suddenly and flicked her tail almost imperceptibly; immediately one of the Avengers veered off course from its original path toward its master and began slashing furiously at a hyena who had chosen to part from its fellows. As everyone watched the exchange, it became clear that the lone hyena had herded off Timon and Pumbaa and had been leering at them before the Avenger had distracted it with its blade. Char beat down the part of her that was saying _see, you can trust her for now. So she's protecting Timon and Pumbaa. That doesn't mean anything._

Roxas watched this while the others stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do; then to everyone's immense surprise – except for Char, who had expected it – he turned to Sora. "Sora, you go take care of Scar," the Key of Destiny ordered. "Anxclof and I will keep these idiots busy."

"Hey!" one of the hyenas yowled indignantly, which went all but ignored.

Sora's eyes widened. "Are you sure?"

Roxas grinned, even as the Oblivion appeared just above him and his tail curled around the hilt as gravity pulled it toward his form. "Positive. We'll keep Timon and Pumbaa from getting hurt."

"Yeah, please!" Pumbaa screamed from the corner.

Anxclof had a look of confusion akin to that of Donald and Goofy's on her own countenance, but that expression quickly dissolved into a grin of pleasure. Char thought that this had to be the only time she had seen Anxclof smile with anything other than sarcasm or sadistic triumph. "You can count on us," Anxclof asserted, lifting a paw to Sora in a way that was clearly supposed to symbolize a thumbs-up.

Sora gave her a mildly suspicious look – what he had said earlier, about not trusting someone who had tried multiple times to kill him, went through Char's mind again – but in the end he relented. He just looked at Roxas, smiled tentatively, and said, "All right. I trust you." Sora glanced to the other side of the hollow, which was briefly obscured by the mangy gray hide of a hyena dashing past it before it vanished. "I think Simba went up there."

The four of them left Roxas and Anxclof in the king's den; Sora risked a look back and saw that Anxclof had already summoned her own Keyblade – he tried not to think of the memory of his own blood on the tip of that Keyblade. The last thing he heard was the female asking cheekily, "You take two and I'll take two?" and then the four of Sora's original group were halfway up the ascending path and he couldn't hear any more.

The Keybearer gave Char a sidelong glance as they made their way to what he assumed was the top of Pride Rock itself. He contemplated asking her if he thought they could trust Anxclof, but then they found themselves abruptly practically in the clouds that had hung over the Pride Lands for the past two days. Sora braced his claws against the rock as he took in the sight before him.

Scar and Simba were grappling furiously on their hind legs, forepaws representing the proverbial swords as they clashed to almost no avail, except when one of them managed to get past the other's defenses and score his claws across the other's face. Sora recalled the days when Simba had been one of the beings he could summon to help in battle and knew that most of the true king's fighting skills came from those times.

"Simba!" Donald squawked, and made as if to interfere.

Sora almost mechanically put out a paw to stop the duck. "This is his fight, Donald," he told him, and looked back out at the battle.

The two lions had sprung apart and were now circling each other, at least until Scar suddenly reared up and slashed across Simba's face. He stumbled back and fell flat onto the ground, flanks heaving visibly; then he looked up, saw Scar in midair and ready to slice into Simba's throat, and something within him seemed to snap. Only Simba saw the triumphant expression on Scar's face warp into stunned, sick dread as the rightful king's hind legs came up, caught in Scar's belly, and tossed him over the side of the cliff.

The four animals watching let out the breath that they hadn't realized they'd been holding when they saw the blur of orange fur disappear over the edge with a howl of _"No!"_ from Scar as he plummeted.

Simba leaped to his paws and ran to the edge, staring warily down to see if he'd really finished off his uncle.

"Hey, nice job, Your Majesty," Sora called, causing Simba to jump in surprise; clearly his nerves were still frayed from the previous battle. His ears straightened from their previously-flattened position as he turned to face the others with a breathless smile of triumph.

"Aw, but that was just a sneak preview!" The telltale voice behind them made Char groan.

"And here I thought we'd lost him," she muttered, turning just in time to see the – what was that, an ape? A bear? – _creature_ that Maleficent had turned Pete into for infiltrating this world.

Pete took a few steps toward them, casting a few nervous glances over the edge of the cliff every so often to make sure he wasn't going to fall, but otherwise looking smug as always. "This ain't over – not by a long shot!"

"Is that your catch phrase or something?" Char sighed.

Pete gave her a glare. "Who asked you?" he blustered, before swinging his massive head toward Simba – or rather, directly behind Simba. The true king moved his head in bemusement before a sound from behind him made him leap back and stare, horrified, at the creature pushing itself up onto the ledge. Even Donald and Goofy let out cries of shock and dread as they saw the telltale black mane, the dark orange fur – and above all, the jagged pink line that ran through the being's left eye.

_Scar._

"Anger and jealousy turned the king of the Pride Lands into a Heartless!" Pete cackled, even as Scar's forelegs strained visibly with the effort of pulling himself up. The minion directed his next, relish-filled words to Simba. "Oh, your kingdom's gonna rise again – but this time, as the Pride Lands of darkness!"

In the same moment that Pete's jaws snapped closed, Scar leaped onto the apex of Pride Rock, his glowing green eyes moving almost erratically over the group before they landed on Simba.

Was it just Char, or did Scar's eyes become significantly brighter as they took in his nephew?

Simba narrowed his eyes. "That's what you think," he snarled, and charged at Scar.

Immediately, the Heartless sidestepped the attack, and as Simba spun around just before his hind paw could slip off the edge of the cliff, the sky darkened to an ominous black-violet and the clouds began to congregate over them.

An almost imperceptible smirk curled Scar's lips. He reared his head back and charged; to everyone's complete shock he veered away from Simba entirely and made a beeline for Sora. "Oh no you don't!" Donald roared, and lifted his staff with a grunt. A small lightning bolt absorbed into Scar's mane and he whirled toward the duck, his former smugness replaced by rage.

As if that were some kind of signal, everyone else snapped out of their trance-like state and leaped into action: Goofy leaped up into the air, casting his shield upward, and twisted in midair to hit the shield toward Scar with his shell; Char brandished her swords and dashed toward Scar, narrowly dodging one violet-rimmed paw of needle-like claws; Sora sliced his Keyblade deeply into Scar's side, noting with some alarm how the Heartless seemed to be unaffected.

"We could really use Roxas right about now," Char shouted in Sora's direction. Almost the instant the last word had escaped her lips, she immediately had to perform a complicated series of maneuvers so that her blades could block Scar's ruthless claws; even with Goofy, Donald, and Simba bombarding him from all sides, the Heartless was impervious, continuing his assault on Char as though they weren't there. Sora hastily ran over and, throwing back his head to give his next attack more force, drove the Circle of Life into Scar's flank, effectively pushing him back and getting his attention away from Char.

Scar's eyes focused on Sora for the briefest of moments, and Sora could have sworn he caught a hint of the smug expression from earlier in the usurper's rheumy gaze. He narrowed his own blue eyes and took advantage of that moment to continue his attack on Scar; pummeled the Heartless with the Keyblade until Scar was forced to duck away from the force of Sora's onslaught, right into Simba's waiting claws. A cry of anger and desperation and whatever else had been locked inside Simba for the past gods-only-knew-how-long pealed out into the muggy air as Simba slashed across Scar's body again and again, a golden-colored streak in his movements. Char, vaguely aware of Donald and Goofy casting and attacking from behind them, raced in to help as best she could; she and Sora trapped Scar between them with their respective weapons of dual swords and Keyblade.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Char could sense that they were gaining the upper hand on Scar, but something told her that they hadn't seen the worst of it yet. So far, the only thing Scar had used as a weapon were his claws, whereas she was fairly certain that most Heartless, aside from the small shadows that spawned every now and then, had some other kind of power.

Her attention was drawn by a sudden flicker of movement. In the split second before Simba could drive his claws into his body again, Scar lifted up into the air, and Sora shivered at the way the Heartless' back was arched and his paws dangled limply: almost like a puppeteer was pulling him up on worn strings. Along the way, there came a snarl of "It's time to burn!", and Char's eyes widened to an unsettling degree as Scar's paws became alight with orange flame.

_Gods, I hate it when I'm right._

The group was forced to scatter as Scar leaped from one edge of the platform to another, leaving fiery paw-prints in his wake.

_Fire. Fire. _Fire.

Char could feel her heart screaming in her chest and her limbs growing weak with fear. "Fire," she muttered as she skidded away from Scar's attacks, her chest heaving rapidly with quick nervous breaths. "Of all the stupid things for him to attack with, it _had_ to be fire." She was ashamed to hear the tremble in her own voice.

Sora glanced over at her, only to jolt sharply in surprise and pain when Scar grazed his paws. Wincing and shaking one paw to take the sting of the flame away, the Keybearer remembered the uncharacteristic fear that she had shown while fighting the fire Heartless in Agrabah. He wanted more than anything to assure Char that everything would be all right, that she had nothing to fear; but, even as his thoughts were cut off by a flaming claw very nearly impaling his eye, he knew they didn't exactly have much time to dwell on that.

Char forced herself to stifle the memories of Hades' fireball, of the agony that had raced up and down her leg upon its contact with her. She had made a promise to help Sora, and whether the reason behind keeping that promise had changed or not, she knew better than to go back on her word now. So, trying desperately to ignore the quivering bundle of nerves in her belly, she brandished her swords with new determination and rushed back into the fray.

Her eyes immediately landed on Simba, who had clearly been taken by surprise by Scar's change of tack and was currently making a conscious effort to stay back. Instinctively she barreled toward the Heartless, her heart and better judgment howling at her to stop before she got more seriously injured this time. As soon as she had twisted for one blade to slice deeply into Scar's leg, however, the Heartless swung his head toward her and the flames grew stronger. With a yelp of undisguised fear, Char jerked back.

"I don't think we can attack him while he's like this!" Donald roared from where he was casting nearby.

Sora gave a brisk nod of agreement. "You're right. All we can do right now is…" He trailed off; _stay alive and try to heal each other_ were the words that had been about to spill from the barrier of his mouth into the air, but somehow, he felt like the aura of despair would increase if he said them. Fortunately, Goofy took up where Sora had left off, and a Potion came flying in Sora's direction from the dog-turtle.

Casting a brief cry of "Thanks!" in Goofy's direction, Sora hastily pierced the top of the vial with one claw and took a few licks of it before the heat of Scar's flames licking against his back caused him to whirl to the side to avoid getting burned. Inwardly, the Keybearer winced; he hadn't realized until now what an impediment that healing without using any mana would be in such a serious battle. Thankfully, though, even that quick ingestion seemed to be working. Already the pain from Sora's wounds was beginning to dull, to the point where they were practically unnoticeable.

In the same instant that Char recovered from her staccato-burst of fear, the light around Scar's body faded and the fiery aura that had flared about him vanished completely. With a roar of "Finally!", Donald lifted his staff and generated twin beams of lightning to send crashing in Scar's direction; the newly-upgraded electric attack very nearly succeeded in toppling Scar, and so Char, Sora, and Simba took that opportunity to dash into the fray and deliver a few punishing attacks of their own.

Char spun her swords around in a circle before leaping into the air and slamming one of the protruding blades of the sword she held with her tail into Scar's back. He gave a gratifying snarl of pain and recoiled. _That's for scaring me, you asshole,_ she thought vengefully, her blood boiling both in shame and anger at the way his fire attacks had triggered her fear.

Of course, her triumph wore off the instant Scar lunged back forward with his claws unsheathed, scored said claws deeply across Simba's flank, and made a beeline straight for Sora.

Simba staggered back, blood beginning to gush forth from his side in response to the wound his uncle had given him. Donald and Goofy screamed the true king's name and immediately got to work on healing his injury. Char winced, mentally wishing all three animals good luck in that, and raced to help Sora. As worried as she was about Simba, the battle at hand - paw, whatever - was more important right now.

Sora had just enough time to at least try to bring up his Keyblade to block it before Scar had successfully pinned him to the ground. The Heartless' dagger fangs braced in a smirk that oozed both hatred and relish at once, and Scar reared back his head to deliver a death blow to Sora's exposed throat.

Something inside Sora seemed to explode. He hadn't come this far just to get killed in a battle for another world's rule. And that surge of anger was enough for him to bring back his hind legs and whip them up, hard, into Scar's underbelly.

Scar went flying across the zenith of Pride Rock and would have fallen to his second doom had Char not immediately caught him on the points of her swords. She hadn't seen everything that Scar had tried to do to Sora, but the fact that he had been on top of him, about to drive his teeth into the Keybearer's jugular, was enough of a reason for her to strike with everything she had. She ripped and tore at Scar's body with her swords, completely losing all thought of the others in the heat of the moment. All she could think of was how this lion, this _thing,_ had nearly killed Sora, and Simba too, now that she considered it. She could hear Scar's voice raised in repeated cries of pain with every slice of her sword and every time his skin burst to release more blood, but it was all reaching her in a nebulous haze of bloodthirst and frustration that seemed to surround her. A dark veil began to descend over her eyes and almost unconsciously, Char's lips curled up in a twisted smirk...

But then the next thing she knew Scar was crying something about his anger having grown for far too long - _don't even try to talk to me about that_ - and then his body was rising up into the air again in another caricature of an invisible puppeteer controlling him, and a dark light was surrounding him, and she was being knocked away, nearly crashing into Simba in the process.

"You okay?" Simba asked, straightening her body with one paw.

Breathing hard, Char glanced back at him, the dark curtain that had been over her eyes melting away to reveal the true colors of the world again. Simba's dark eyes were worried, as were Donald and Goofy's as they dashed past her. It hit her then that she had nearly let herself yield to darkness with her thirst for revenge against Scar, and she shivered at how close she had come to meeting the same fate as the other apprentices. Yen Sid's words returned to her: _"If one chooses to yield to the darkness in their heart, they too will become a Heartless."_

With a shaky start, she realized that Simba was still waiting for a response. "Of course," she grunted, getting to her paws and trying to ignore her feeling of self-trepidation. "I was beating him, wasn't I?"

"Never mind that, we've got a bigger problem!" This came from Sora, who was barely managing to avoid Scar's onslaught. Despite Sora's efforts, Scar's claws still sliced viciously into Sora's body, causing the Keybearer to withdraw in both pain and fear.

Char narrowed her eyes, trying to forget the way her heart was still pounding with the adrenaline rush of her earlier bloodlust. She'd figured all along that Scar would have more powers than a garden-variety Heartless, and now it looked like her prediction was coming true. Again, she thought, _I hate it when I'm right._

Scar seemed to have morphed into an imitation of his former self: merely a flaming silhouette of darkness, surrounded by lavender flames. With a roar that was filled with so much raw fury it made even Simba flinch, the usurper reared back and began to charge toward the three felines who were standing together.

"Crap!" Char yelped and veered away. Sora and Simba leaped in opposite directions as well, both with an expression of horror and fear on their faces. She could understand how they felt; if none of them could attack Scar when he was like this, what hope did they have of winning this fight?

She almost expected Scar to chase after Sora again - the memory of earlier returned, bringing with it a feeling of nauseating dread and a shudder that rippled along Char's spine - but to her surprise, Scar avoided Sora completely this time, choosing to pursue his nephew with fiery claws held ready instead. Then again, though, maybe it wasn't so shocking, considering what Pete had said about anger and jealousy turning Scar into this thing in the first place: anger and jealousy that was, obviously, directed toward his nephew.

Simba cried out as Scar tore into the place where neck met shoulder, blood automatically welling up to soak his amber-brown mane. For the first time, Char noticed how badly Simba was wounded; clumps of dusty golden fur hung off his body, and a thin trail of crimson liquid was speckled across the ground from where he had been moving to attack Scar. Thankfully, both Donald and Goofy, who seemed to have taken up healing duty while the three felines tried not to suffer a gruesome fate at the ends of those deadly claws and fangs, had already made their way over to Simba's side. Goofy was fishing out a Potion from the endless stash of healing items that he had brought, while Donald was lifting up his staff to cast a healing spell. Char gave the two Disney residents an approving look; the fact that they had gotten this far without getting gored too badly by Scar's attacks said something about their fighting skill.

She figured that looking away from the battle for even this long had been a stupid mistake on her part, because when she turned around Scar's darkness-wreathed body was so close she could smell his foul breath. "I'm guessing they don't have breath mints in the Pride Lands!" she grunted, hating that she couldn't bring up her swords to guard against Scar's onslaught without twisting awkwardly in midair. Forced to leap back out of the way, she found herself standing next to Sora. The glow of green was already fading on his Keyblade after he had cast Cura on Simba. The Keybearer turned toward her and opened his mouth to say something, an urgent expression on his countenance.

But then a flicker of movement caught everyone's eye, movement that wasn't accompanied by flaming purple. And as Char, Sora, Donald, and Goofy looked toward it, they heard, rather than saw, Simba charge right past them, with a roar of anger that pealed out into the stagnant air.

Right toward Scar's waiting claws.

Sora yowled, "Simba, wait!" but the adult lion would not be dissuaded. He continued his dash toward his uncle, the sound of liquid spattering the dirt echoing every time his paws battered the ground. With some alarm, Sora saw that it was blood.

He cried out Simba's name again, intending to repeat his previous statement, and was echoed by Donald and Goofy behind him. All four of them charged forward to help Simba and heal him if Scar managed to get in one more deadly move.

And then they stopped dead. Char felt Goofy nearly crash into her back and strangely didn't even notice.

Because in the split second that Simba had taken to knock the usurper onto his back, the light had faded around Scar, leaving him vulnerable. And the true king, digging his claws deeply into that soft, creamy underbelly to keep his lightheaded form anchored, battering Scar fiercely with his hind claws, leaned in, snarled something into Scar's face before leaping back.

There was a moment of tense silence.

Scar got up.

Char's eyes widened. _You have got to be kidding me!_

They all readied their weapons as Scar staggered toward them, glowering furiously. His gaze landed on his nephew very briefly before he suddenly collapsed to the ground, his body fading on contact.

Scar, the most difficult opponent that the group had had in a long while - with the notable exceptions of Anxclof and Oogie Boogie - was dead.

Simba's chest heaved, the golden fur there spiked up with dried blood. Sora saw the adult lion sway with the effort to keep himself up and immediately rushed to his side to cast Cura on him. With a murmur of "Heal," most of Simba's less onerous wounds closed up; Simba gave Sora a grateful look.

"What did you say to him?" Char couldn't help asking as she padded up with Donald and Goofy behind her.

Simba turned his gaze on her, and she very nearly winced at the shock and pain that clouded his dark orbs. He _had_ killed his own uncle, she reflected; any triumph he felt at regaining his kingdom from a tyrant would be numb for a little while. After a few moments, as though letting her question sink in, Simba slowly shook his head. Recognizing that what he had said to Scar - his Heartless, anyway - would remain his secret until his grave, Char respectfully dipped her head and said nothing more.

"Simba!" The desperate female voice coming from nearby caused them all to turn. Nala's form gradually became clear as she raced up the steep incline that led to Pride Rock's peak and made a beeline for Simba. Her eyes widened in alarm when she saw the blood that covered his body and she instantly began cleaning his wounds; Simba just sighed and submitted to it.

"He's fine," Donald growled, sounding offended that Nala seemed to doubt his healing abilities. He received no reply.

A flicker of movement drew Char's gaze to the shapes evanescing behind Nala: Timon and Pumbaa and, surprisingly, Anxclof and Roxas. The two Nobodies looked exhausted but triumphant, their thick coats mostly clear and unmarked, and Char guessed that they had had an easy time fighting off the hyenas.

"How you doing, Your Highness?" Timon asked Simba.

The lion groaned. "I've been better, that's for sure."

"I'm just glad you're okay," Nala mumbled around a mouthful of Simba's fur. Simba gave her a startled look, then relaxed with a tiny cat-smile on his own lips.

Sora and Char exchanged grins of their own, grins that faded when their respective gazes of sapphire and ice-blue came to rest on Anxclof and Roxas. For the first time Char realized how bedraggled they must look compared to the Nobodies, whose battle had been much easier than the one the Keybearer and his comrades had waged up here; she became aware of the sticky blood matting her fur. While she knew she could never bring herself to do the fully feline thing and start to lick her pelt clean, Char thought that not caring about having a mouthful of fur would really help her situation right now.

Anxclof's green eyes narrowed as they alighted on Char. For a brief, terrifying moment, Char thought Anxclof would leap in to finish both the tiger and Sora off, and braced herself to summon her swords just in case. But to her immense surprise, Anxclof merely flicked her tail and remarked, "You guys look like you had fun."

"'Fun' isn't the word I'd use!" Donald grumbled.

A half-smile crossed Roxas' face before his amusement faded and he became serious again. "We chased out the hyenas," he explained obviously. "And something tells me the lionesses had their fill of revenge driving off the others."

Nala lifted her head from where she was still busily cleaning Simba's pelt and only smirked in confirmation of what Roxas had said.

"Anyway," Roxas continued, looking at the Pride Land residents crowded around Simba, "don't you guys have something else to celebrate?"

Char's ears pricked as the meaning of Roxas' words hit her. "Well, Nala, you did say the one to save the Pride Lands would be the next king," she reminded the lioness.

Simba and Nala rose to their paws, after the former had informed the latter of his ability to do so, of course. "That's right," Nala agreed, giving Simba a warm look.

Simba's shock at his uncle's death seemed to have finally worn off; now his countenance wore only a look of nervous excitement. "You'll be fine," Sora assured his friend with a grin. "You've more than proven you're worthy to succeed your father."

The new king of Pride Rock's eyes shone. "Thanks, Sora."

"Well," Anxclof announced abruptly, causing all eyes to turn to her, "as touching as this is, I've got somewhere to be."

Char gave her a suspicious look. The hell she did; she just wanted to steal Roxas away and be done with it. She tensed, ready to intercept Anxclof if she decided to open a portal right there.

"Anxclof?" Roxas followed after her as she began to make her way down to the king's den.

None of them could see what was going on between the two Nobodies, since Roxas and Anxclof had vanished into the king's den. But when the animals on the zenith of Pride Rock arrived in the hollow, only Roxas stood there, a look of numb shock and - what was that, _sorrow?_ - on his features.

Sora approached Roxas with his mouth open, wanting to ask what had happened to make the golden lion look that way; the Keybearer had seen Roxas' experiences in his dreams long enough to know that Roxas was not easily shaken. But Roxas only hung his head and started plodding toward the entrance to the den, his tail drooping.

"Wonder what she said to him?" Goofy murmured to Sora. Sora could only shrug helplessly in response.

Char only spared them a passing glance as she walked right past them, to Sora's surprise and suspicion. He followed Char with narrowed eyes and watched her match Roxas' pace as she caught up to him.

"Looks like someone's jealous," Donald teased.

Sora whipped his head toward the duck and beat down the very small part of him that was agreeing with Donald. "Am not," he protested.

Sora, Donald, Goofy, Timon, and Pumbaa followed Char and Roxas down the rocky stairway from Pride Rock itself to the ground, where the lionesses had been joined by other animals, watching Simba come forward to survey his subjects. As Simba let out a ferocious roar that was taken up by the wildcats around them, Char reached the bottom of the stairway and turned to Roxas, who was padding up behind her. Curiosity got the better of her and she asked, "What did Anxclof say to you?"

_As if you care,_ Roxas thought. He took a deep breath, fighting the very strong urge to tell her it was none of her business, then deciding that she would know soon anyway. "She wanted to know how I'd gotten here in the first place. I told her what I knew: that somehow, when Donald had transported Sora down here, I'd gotten ripped apart from his body."

"And?" Char pressed roughly.

Roxas jerked his head down, glaring at the ground. "Like I know what was going through her head at the time!" he spat angrily. "All she said was that if that was the case, then I would just recede back into Sora when we got back to the Gummi ship anyway."

Char blinked. Some part of her had seen this coming, ever since Donald had lectured them about having warned them about the possible results of using that new staff to go to other worlds. If the staff had taken Sora's heart apart, so to speak, then it could put him back together again.

Or could it? Char's breath caught. What if that staff, which had once belonged to a Heartless, only had a splitting effect when used in such a way? What if when they went back up to the Gummi ship, Roxas didn't vanish, but Sora's heart got torn beyond all repair? Her eyes began to sting and her vision began to blur at the thought.

She blinked repeatedly and shook her head to stave off the impending tears, knowing that Roxas was still watching her with a critical gaze. "So basically she decided you were a lost cause and left you?" the tiger queried.

Roxas nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off the ground. A flash of light appeared in his peripheral vision, but he ignored it for the sake of not wanting to meet Char's eyes. "In a nutshell, yeah," he muttered. "That, and I think Anx wants to get revenge on you and Sora properly. It's some kind of weird honor code she lives by, even when we were in the Organization. If she can't take it down herself, then she doesn't even bother."

Char was rendered speechless by her own surprise and frustration. Yes, Sora needed Roxas to complete his heart, but if Anxclof had decided to just take Roxas now, then they could be free of her entirely and Char could stop glancing over her shoulder for any ripple of dark brown hair or glitter of emerald eyes in the shadows. The tiger lashed her tail and braced her claws against the dirt, ignoring the fat raindrops that had began to spill onto her back in her anger. _Dammit, Anxclof - just once could you try and make this journey easier on me?_

"Char?"

Sora's voice snapped Char out of her thoughts. Feeling like she had just surfaced from deep, churning waters, she turned toward him. He stood there with the Circle of Life Keyblade in his jaws, and Char knew that the light she had seen earlier must have been of the Keyblade unlocking the way to more worlds.

She sighed inwardly. How many more worlds _would_ they have to slog their way through before Riku and Mickey showed up?

"We're just getting ready to go," Sora told her, stubbornly refusing to look at Roxas. Char knew he was wondering what was going to happen to Roxas: the boy from his dreams who had shown up here for no particular reason at all. "We've already said goodbye to everyone, so we're leaving when you are."

"Right," she said, struck by a sudden desire to just move on. "I'm ready."

Roxas stood on heavy paws, and a distinctive shadow flickered over his blue eyes as he responded. "So am I."

"Here we go, then!" Donald lifted his staff into the air, and Char suddenly wanted to knock it away from him so he couldn't go through with this. She understood that none of the others knew, _couldn't_ know why she was fidgeting, painfully aware of how the seconds it took for Donald to cast his spell dragged on, but the feeling of urgency and wondering frantically why no one would stop this wouldn't go away. So many thoughts were rushing through her mind. _Something's going to go wrong, something bad is going to happen to Sora if we go back and what if Roxas doesn't return to his heart -_

She opened her mouth at last, but it was already too late.

Spheres of green light enveloped them all and coalesced into thin beams, shooting upward toward the Gummi ship; except for the one that appeared around Roxas, which was black with swirling white, and the course of which was directed not toward the vessel waiting up above, but toward the sphere containing the Keybearer.

And Sora's world exploded.

* * *

Bum. Bum. BUMMMMM. :D Damn, I missed doing that.

Anyway, sorry for the mild OOC for Sora in the middle of the chapter. I figure even HE wouldn't trust Anxclof after what she did to him.

Now that you've read the chapter, I would like you all to REVIEW!


	49. Chapter XLIX

fdkljyghtriiuyh GOOD LORD. This has got to be the crappiest chapter I've churned out in a while. (alliterations... heheh... -weak chuckle-) Maybe it's because this has to be the first chapter for this fic in a long while, where NOTHING happens at ALL. I know, a filler from Saf? The world must be ending!

In all seriousness, though, this is more a transition chappie than anything else, something to tide you all over before we get to the really juicy parts, a.k.a. Twilight Town/the next HB visit. And boy, do I have plans for those... -rubs hands together and smirks evilly- In this chapter, the only really eventful thing is a Riku flashback. Zomg, so much. Eh, I'd just beaten Re:CoM: Reverse/Rebirth right before starting that part of the chapter, so I figured Ri-Ri needed some love. x3

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** Bah, how many more times do I need to say it before you get it?! I don't own KH and I never will! Though I do have shiny copies of II and Re:CoM, and am saving up for a shiny copy of 358/2 Days...

* * *

Char arrived on the Gummi ship feeling like her entire body had been set aflame; the pain lancing along her body gave that illusion, at least. For a long, terrifying moment, she thought that Donald's use of the staff had only produced the fire effect that its original owner had plagued the group with during their fight with it; then she calmed herself down by telling herself she was being stupid, letting her infuriating fear of fire take over her common sense. Besides, if Donald really had only cast Fira, surely the others would be feeling the effects of...?

Immediately Char's pain was forgotten and her eyes widened as the interior of the Gummi ship's main area took over the blackness that had previously blotted her vision. _The others... Sora! _Her previous panic returning instantly, she scrambled to her feet despite her newfound clumsiness; she had gotten used to traipsing about on four legs instead of just two and therefore was unused to the previous norm. Thankfully, the first thing her hand reached out to grab for support was the top of the pilot's chair, instead of Goofy's head or Donald's hat. Swaying unsteadily on her feet, ignoring the dizziness swirling through her mind at getting up so quickly, Char cast a frantic look around. Donald and Goofy were getting to their feet as well with the same shaken expression she undoubtedly now held, but those two were the least of her worries. Sora, where was Sora?

Then Donald let out a piercing cry of shock and dread and dismay, pointing at something lying on the floor. Char dared to follow his gaze, her heart hammering against her chest with horror with the knowledge of what she would see.

Oddly, she had expected Roxas to be lying prone on the ground next to Sora, which wouldn't make any sense, since she herself had seen the sphere surrounding Roxas direct itself toward his Other. But it still came as an immense, sickening shock to see the brunette unconscious there, his ashen cheek lying against the cold tile floor and his breathing barely distinguishable.

Char felt Goofy shaking her shoulders desperately to try and snap her out of her trance and heard Donald shouting for them to get Sora to his room; the sound hit her sharply, as though she were emerging from dark waters, and she shook her head to clear it. _Now isn't the time to get all panicky,_ she told herself sternly, and jerked her shoulder away from Goofy's touch.

"I'm fine," she growled at Goofy's worried look, trying miserably to sound tough, and turned back to Sora. "Let's just get Key-boy out of here."

Goofy didn't look convinced, but nevertheless, he grabbed hold of Sora's feet and strained vainly to push the brunette up to a manageable position. Char mechanically seized the brunette's arms, and together they carried Sora to his room with Donald looking on and pacing in desperate worry.

_Why did we have to put his room at the very back of the ship? _Char seethed inwardly as she struggled with Sora's dead weight. Thankfully, growing up training with two swords had supplied her with at least _some_ amount of upper body strength, and Goofy's mastery of fighting with a shield had enabled him to do some heavy lifting as well. Between them, they managed to get Sora to the doorway of his room, with Char cursing under her breath as she fumbled with the doorknob both out of nervousness and fatigue, and deposit him onto his bed. Char noted with some minute amount of disdain that he had failed to make his bed this morning - the sheets still lay strewn about on their surface, and it looked like Sora had thrown some pillows about in his sleep - and suddenly felt like crying, for what felt like the thousandth time that day.

"Hey, um, Char," Goofy spoke gently. "Let's go back, okay?"

With some effort, the redhead tore her eyes away from the brown-haired shape lying unmoving on the bed, and forced herself to push her concern over his state out of her mind. They had some more important things to worry about - like Donald and Goofy's inevitable questions about why Roxas had failed to come back with them. The very thought weighed Char's shoulders down with even more exhaustion.

"Right," she muttered, and followed Goofy out of the room.

* * *

"I tried to tell you!" Donald squawked furiously at Goofy and Char. The latter was only half-listening; she paced the interior of the Gummi ship, her heart pounding and hoping against hope that this wasn't the end of the Keyblade wielder. _Honestly, Sora - just one collision of the heart and you're half-dead? You're weaker than I thought. _The attempt at a joke, even a mental one, failed miserably, and the sardonic laugh that had almost built up in her throat turned ashen. She fought back a cry of despair, suddenly hating herself even more for wanting to cry yet again.

"I tried to tell you," the duck continued, his voice shaking from both anger and concern, "that using this thing would be bad." He shook the fire-bedizened wand, glowering at it almost accusingly, probably knowing that if his original staff hadn't gotten broken in Agrabah, Sora wouldn't be in this situation. "But neither of you would listen to me, and now Sora's..." He broke off, faltering very slightly in his tirade; but then the mask of fury was back in place and he waved the staff again. "I told you!"

Up until this point Goofy had simply stared at the ground, both in sad acknowledgment of his comrade's words and something else he hadn't yet put words to. As Char whirled around and began pacing in the opposite direction - _six more steps and you'll have to turn around again,_ she reflected dully - she heard the knight speak. His words made her unconsciously freeze in her tracks.

"What I'm wonderin'," he murmured, so quietly that both duck and girl alike had to strain to hear him, "is where Roxas disappeared to when we got back here."

Donald looked like he was about to dismiss Goofy's concern, but then what the dog had said seemed to sink in, and the mage blinked. "Hey, yeah, you have a point there," he conceded, his previous storm of anger now having died down into an aftermath of contemplation.

Char took in a few deep breaths to calm her suddenly racing heart. She knew they couldn't possibly have any idea of how much she was hiding when it came to their beloved Keybearer's past and heart, but at the same time she couldn't help but feel anxious. And - what was that, _guilt? _She must really be going soft at this point; she hadn't felt guilty about the secrets she was keeping for days now, hadn't had time to think about such feelings.

"Char?" Goofy's tone, though gentle, held a hint of anticipation. She tried not to cringe, but she couldn't stop herself.

"You know something, don't you?" Donald supplied the voice to what Goofy was too polite to bluntly say.

_Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. _Char knew this day would have had to come eventually, that even these poor dorks had their limit when it came to ignorance. Yet reminding herself of what common sense had forewarned, practically on the day she had promised Riku to follow Sora, didn't help the overwhelming desire to just confess everything she knew.

_Roxas is Sora's Nobody. The Organization was formed when my former fellow apprentices embraced the darkness. The Ansem you defeated wasn't the real Ansem. Anxclof is hunting Sora down because she loves Roxas. Riku is -_

And then she had to stop herself, because for the first time, she realized that she didn't even know where Riku was. With Ansem? Highly unlikely. If she knew Riku, he was probably wandering around some other world killing Heartless with the Soul Eater's bat-wing blade and bemoaning his stupidity in taking Xehanort's appearance.

Still, the fact remained that the answer to Donald's pugnacious query was indeed yes. She hesitated.

_You should tell them._

_But what good would that do? You still have to take your revenge on the Organization._

_What's the point? Using Sora hasn't come to anything anyway. He wants to help people out, not wipe out Nobodies._

_What about Castle Oblivion?_

_That was different. That was -_

Donald and Goofy were still waiting for a response. It hit her that she would have to make a decision on the spot. No silent contemplations here.

_No._ She mentally shook herself. It wouldn't do, to destroy the trio's - or at least Donald and Goofy's - trust in her, not when it had taken so long to build it up.

Not now that she actually valued their trust.

Not now that she may or may not harbor secret feeling of _love_ - or at least extreme friendship - toward their unspoken leader.

So only these words came out of her treacherous mouth. "I know as much as you all do," she answered fairly evenly, meeting both pairs of dark eyes and giving them equal eye contact to cement her point. "I don't know where Roxas came from, but I do know one thing. When I saw Donald teleport us all back up here -" she gestured vaguely at the metallic walls of the inside of the Gummi ship - "I saw the little sphere thingy around Roxas go toward Sora's body, not up toward where the ship was waiting. Maybe that has something to do with where Roxas came from."

Well, she comforted herself, that wasn't exactly a lie. She figured the least she could do was drop subtle hints and hope they figured it out.

Donald didn't look convinced. Goofy opened his mouth to say something, but then an almost inaudible noise sounded.

"What's that?" Donald twitched irritably. Clearly, his earlier tirade hadn't exhausted his copious supply of temperament. "Do we have Heartless in the engine again?"

Char's lips twitched with a shadow of amusement; she figured there had to be a story behind that, but before she could ask the noise was heard again, a little louder this time.

"No, that kinda sounds like..."

_Sora!_ Char mentally finished Goofy's sentence and felt a wave of relief wash over her and leave weakness in its wake. She ran her fingers through her bangs in an attempt to steady herself and chuckled softly. Not even the other half of his heart colliding with the half that resided within him could bring Key-boy down.

Donald let out a cry of happiness and, Char thought, intense relief before dashing past her as fast as his tiny legs could take him in the direction of Sora's room. Goofy followed at the same relatively-breakneck speed, albeit moving a little more slowly to accommodate Donald's shorter stride. Char fought back the desperate gratefulness that made her legs tremble as she set out in the wake of the Disney residents and tried to adopt a fairly detached air. _You're his friend,_ she told herself, _you have a right to be concerned._

Friends? She could almost hear Riku's voice in the back of her mind, see a fine silver eyebrow raised at her and turquoise eyes narrowed in amusement. It wasn't even supposed to get _that_ far.

She fought back a sigh and, growling to herself at the way that Donald had barely left the door open when he had entered, pushed the door to Sora's room the rest of the way so she could get in.

The familiar head of spiky brown hair greeted her eyes, confirming her suspicions and amplifying her relief at knowing he was all right; the sight of him served to cement that knowledge in her mind, since before it had lingered only as a fervent hope. His dark blue eyes were cloudy with pain and confusion and his face looked strained, but Char figured the sudden shift from lion to human had caused that. At least, she hoped it was that way.

"Are you all right?" Donald demanded, immediately heaving himself onto the bed with some rather amusing effort. He raised his staff, which glowed the notorious shade of emerald green that his Cura spell had patented, and began furiously casting healing spells on Sora, the sparks of green shooting off harmlessly in all directions and lighting up the dim room.

Sora blinked groggily and tried to smile; the pitiful attempt to adopt his regular blithe demeanor elicited a sympathetic wince even from Char. "Of course," he insisted in a ragged voice, only to prove himself wrong when he tried to push himself up onto his elbows and collapsed at the effort.

"Don't be stupid," Char growled roughly, pushing her way past Goofy. She ignored the startled look that that garnered, as well as Donald's narrowed eyes; she knew she hadn't behaved this way since their visit to Disney Castle, but anxiety made her pulse accelerate and her nerves twitch. "You're not fine and we all know it. Just..." She hesitated. "Just what happened to you back there?"

As she spoke, Char was fully aware of Donald and Goofy's suspicious eyes on her, and mentally told them to stop. The uncomfortable knowledge that their trust in her was wavering wouldn't leave her, and she knew full well why that knowledge was bothering her so much. _Just humor Key-boy,_ she inwardly begged. _He trusts me, and that should be enough, right?_

Of course, memories of what Roxas had said to her about Sora's feelings came fast on the heels of that thought, so she immediately banished it before her heart could betray her.

Sora's gaze locked hazily on her, and she flinched at the obvious exhaustion in both his features and the languid way in which he was lying on his bed: limbs akimbo, half-limp and pale with fatigue. "I... I'm not sure," he admitted. He half-lifted one hand, as though he were going to push some hair out of his eyes, then clearly thought better of wasting the effort and lowered his hand.

"Then get sure," Donald advised, tapping Sora's head with his staff. The Keybearer winced at the impact of the weapon on his head, the pain of which was magnified even more by his half-conscious condition; Char figured it was something not unlike the aftermath of a concussion. _A concussion of the two halves of his heart crashing together,_ she thought dryly.

Donald was continuing, his voice so irritated only because of his relief and remaining nervousness; they _had_ almost lost the boy they had sworn to protect and become friends with, after all. "We can't help you until we know what caused this," the duck said.

Goofy nodded in agreement. "Yeah, the rest of us were fine when we got back here. You're the only one who got all weird and loopy on us."

Sora blinked hard a couple of times, trying to get the sleep out of his eyes and to see his comrades better, for their forms danced in front of him in barely discernible blurs. Donald and Goofy's words rang true within him; what had caused only Sora to fall unconscious upon arriving in the Gummi ship, and with such a burst of agony at that? Sora still winced inwardly at the memory of his last sight before the effects of the shape-shifting had knocked him out: Donald raising his staff high, Char fidgeting anxiously beside him, Roxas with his head and tail drooping...

_Roxas._ Sora's brow furrowed.

"Where's Roxas?" he found himself asking.

That turned out to be the worst possible thing he could have asked. Donald and Goofy exchanged a nervous glance, while Char stiffened briefly before suddenly finding the sheet-littered ground very interesting to look at.

The palpable tension in the air was contagious, and even Sora found himself clutching the blankets around him anxiously with one hand, as much to stave off the pain as to show his own response to their lack of responses. "Do you guys know where Roxas went?" he repeated less steadily, his heart beginning to pound. If Roxas, the boy Sora had been having so many dreams about, had only shown up in one world because of the unstable magic of Donald's staff - if Roxas was gone now, then what could that mean?

"No one knows, Sora," Goofy answered quietly. "He up and vanished on us right after we found ya half-dead in the vessel."

_He up and vanished on us._ The words struck a deeper chord within Sora than he had anticipated, and he shivered suddenly despite the warmth of his own body heat soaking into the bed sheets. Because as he focused his blurry eyes on his comrades, he suddenly realized that something - something beyond his knowledge - was going on between the three of them.

"Sorry," Char muttered, raising and lowering one shoulder.

Sora told himself to calm down; they knew as much as he did about the situation with Roxas - less, even, because none of them had experienced the realistic dreams that he had involving the blond.

"Okay, then," he answered carefully with a sigh of unfeigned frustration. He had looked forward to asking Roxas himself the questions that were constantly plaguing him. _Who are you? Why are you in my dreams? Why were you in the Organization? Why does that Anxclof girl keep trying to get you back? And -_

He forced himself to cut off his own mental questions when the green light of Donald's healing spell flashed again and suddenly, painfully, the world came into sharp focus. Sora groaned and fell back, his head landing with a soft noise against the pillow, at the dizziness the abrupt change in vision brought him.

"Now do we have your attention?" Donald growled.

Sora turned his head to the side and closed his eyes as the pounding in his head was born anew. "Why wouldn't you?" he muttered. More than just tiredness had created the dryness of his voice. For some reason, a feeling of _mistrust_ toward the ones who had always, always protected him until now, had followed their promise of "all for one and one for all" even until now - toward _Donald and Goofy,_ was rising up within him with the force of a choking, dark cloud. Why did he get the feeling they knew something he didn't?

And then there was the matter of Char. Sora recalled Char and Roxas' vitriolic, angry conversations with one another, and for the first time it hit him that that enmity hadn't just sprung up out of nowhere; while he had acknowledged it before, he hadn't had time to fully contemplate their hatred of each other until now. Something had clearly happened between the two of them even before this journey, something that merited Roxas' obvious hatred of her. For the first time in a while, the knowledge of the secrets Char refused to disclose about her past nagged at Sora, and he flinched at the bitter sadness that scythed through him at remembering it. He knew he cared about her as much as he had Kairi, but he also knew he couldn't fully love someone whose heart was shrouded in mystery and shadows.

He shook that off. Right now, all he wanted was to be alone to think.

He didn't see due to his eyes being on the wall, but Char's eyebrows went up ever so slightly before her eyes softened in a look of understanding. She turned to Donald and Goofy, who looked as if they wanted to linger in Sora's room. "Come on," she said quietly, causing Sora to glance back and move his head along with his eyes. He hadn't expected Char to be the one to speak, and his surprise only increased when she put a hand behind Donald's back and began gently pushing him toward the edge of the bed; the duck squawked indignantly, wriggled free, and leaped down clumsily. "He wants to sleep," she went on more brusquely. "Leave him to it."

"But -" Goofy tried.

Char only seized them both by the backs of their shirt collars and ushered them out of the room, with Donald protesting rather vocally the whole way. As she pushed the mage and the knight through the doorway, the redhead hesitantly cast a glance back. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but thought better of it and turned away just in time for the door to close behind her.

"Why'd you have to do that?" Donald spat angrily as soon as the door to Sora's room had swung securely shut behind them.

Char rolled her eyes. "He wanted to be alone. Couldn't you see it?" Dryly, she continued, "Once even Key-boy starts sounding annoyed, you know you've got a problem on your hands."

Donald looked as if he wanted very badly to disagree with her and opened his mouth to do so, only to have Goofy cut him off. "She's right, Donald," the knight acquiesced, giving Char an anxious look. She guessed he was as concerned about Sora as the rest of them were. _Without the stupid "romantic feelings" factor, of course,_ she mentally added with an equally unvoiced sigh.

Then she blinked in slight confusion. Strange - before all this, whenever something drastic happened to change her life - her new situation in Hollow Bastion, the Organization's birth, realizing her little crush on Riku, the works - she dealt with it by avoiding thinking about it as much as possible. Now, practically within the hour that she had realized her feelings for Riku had swung to his spiky-haired, light-advocating friend, she could think about said feelings without wanting to vomit or scream, or both, at her own weakness. Maybe, she decided, if she thought about it enough, it would help her get used to it more quickly.

Or maybe she just enjoyed deluding herself. Either worked.

Goofy suddenly yawned loudly, successfully knocking Char out of her thoughts. The interruption, she had to admit, was not an unwelcome one. "Gawrsh, I'm tired," the knight murmured, reaching up and stretching his arms above his head before dropping them back down again.

Donald hesitated, then muttered something that seemed to second that notion.

Char folded her arms and narrowed her eyes, readying herself to scoff and say they had just spent one night in the Pride Lands, they didn't need to waste any more time - then as if in vindictive contradiction of her own thoughts, exhaustion crashed over her like a black wave and started to weigh her down. As much as she hated to admit it, she shared the Disney residents' feelings of fatigue. Just thinking about heading to another world today made her mind groan in dread.

"Well, we'll see how we feel in the morning," she said carefully. "For now, Sora needs time to rest too."

"Yeah," Donald agreed, probably trying to cover up his previous agreement with Goofy's comment by agreeing with the reason behind Char's.

A few more heartbeats passed as the three of them stood there awkwardly, tension hanging in the air between them. For the first time Char became aware of the fact that really, aside from a little temper problem that she and Donald seemed to share, the trio had nothing much in common. Their only shared goal was to help Sora any way they could.

Abruptly, trying to break the silence, she spoke. "Okay, well, see you guys in the morning," she said, turning on her heel as she finished and striding off to her room, trying to ignore their gazes on her. Her footsteps echoed conspicuously loudly in the clacking noise of shoe against tile, and came to a loud, unceremonious stop when the door to her room slammed behind her.

She winced at the sudden noise and ran her hand through her bangs a couple of times, clenching that hand into a fist the second time it reached the ends of her hair. The attempt to clear her head failed miserably, as she had expected it would, and she closed her eyes briefly before opening them again.

Now that the situation was fully sinking in, it hit her, how stupid she had been to just walk in here and hope to get some sleep. Not after the events of the past couple of days, anyway.

And now that she got some time to fully reconsider said events, the force of the memories of those events created such a confusing whirlwind of emotions in her mind she felt dizzy with the force of it. Roxas showing up, Anxclof's failure to finish Char and Sora off when the fight with Scar had weakened them...

Char flinched as the final, most important memory entered her mind: Roxas' dark blue eyes, staring mercilessly into hers, as though he were aware of the internal conflict he was causing her and rather enjoying tormenting her.

_You know he feels the same way..._

A snarl ripped itself out of Char's throat and she shook her head in another vain attempt to thin the fog that was wreathing itself over her senses - a fog of both hope and anxiety.

Trying to distract herself from her heart's idiotic choices, she pulled her jacket off over her head and chanced a look out the circular window on the opposite wall. As far as she could see, the Gummi ship still floated in the world between worlds, if the mass of murky chartreuse clouds lurking outside the windows was any indication. _We definitely need to set off tomorrow morning,_ she thought; _who knows what'll happen if this thing's just floating here all night? _The thought of Heartless and Nobodies ruthlessly setting upon the Gummi ship's outer defenses while its pilots slept made a shiver ripple down Char's spine.

"We'll just have to hold on until then," she muttered aloud, and tossed the jacket off into the corner, marveling at how even after such a long, strenuous day, the brown fabric remained mostly clean and unmarked. Maybe it was another effect of Donald's magic.

Her brow furrowed as she thought about what the staff had done to Sora. Now that her initial worry and nausea-inducing anxiety had mostly subsided, Char's reason and researcher's curiosity took over her thoughts and wouldn't let go. The frown deepened almost imperceptibly in contemplation.

Donald seemed to have put Sora's heart back together, for lack of a better term, but the Keybearer was still a little shaken by the collision of his Nobody's presence with his heart, so maybe the magic hadn't done its job as cleanly as it seemed. Char made a mental note to go back to Sora's room, preferably before he chose to whisk them off to still more worlds in search of Riku, and check on him; physically he seemed to be fine, but that meant nothing in the context of the heart.

Her shoulders tensed unconsciously and her breath hitched just a tiny bit as the thought of her gently pushing the door open, eyes searching for a sleeping Sora, took hold of her mind and refused to relinquish its grip.

_Stop,_ she mentally ordered in a tone that sounded rather weak even to her own mind.

To give herself something to do, she began working at her shoes to get them off and focused on the eternally-shifting wisps of green clouds, at least the few that were visible through where she was standing. As the murk undulated and moved outside her window, she sighed softly to herself, both in defeat and self-chiding. She knew it was fairly pointless to keep pushing back her own emotions, when emotions were, really, the one thing their opponents lacked and therefore, the Keybearer and his allies could exploit.

_Exploitation of weaknesses... defeating the Organization... right._ Char's reminder of what she had really come along on this long-winded venture for felt even more half-hearted than usual. She huffed out a sigh, slung her shoes in the same corner as her jacket, and flopped down on the bed, not taking her eyes off the view of the Gummi ship's surroundings.

Honestly, what was the matter with her? Char narrowed her eyes into irritated, icy slits, glowering fiercely at the porthole, as though she could indirectly take her frustration out on the glass separating the ship's interior from the world outside. She could almost see Ansem shaking his head admonishingly - _honestly, Charisa, I believed you were truly focused on our revenge_ - and Riku smirking smugly. _Sora, Char? Sora? Seriously, I thought you had taste._

The echo of the latter's voice, nonexistent as it was, drew a small chuckle out of Char, and she reached up to run her hands through her hair again, dimly noting that she had to find the brush sometime soon. Unbidden, the memory of the day she had first realized her little crush on Riku came rushing back into her mind, and the flood held such an air of poignancy about it that suddenly moisture was coming to her eyes all over again.

* * *

_"Riku?" Char rapped sharply on the door to the silver-haired teen's room with her knuckles. "Riku," she called, drawing out his name almost teasingly. Seeing his failure to answer her summons, she huffed angrily and drew back. "Why isn't he answering?"_

_"Don't be so hard on him," Namine murmured, her white-clad shape a stark juxtaposition to Char's taller, darker-bedizened form. "You know DiZ chewed him out yesterday after..." Her soft voice trailed off when she saw Char's almost imperceptible wince, and her sapphire eyes surveyed the ground as the two girls shared the same apprehension._

_Oh, yes, they remembered yesterday, all right: Riku opening a dark portal, grinning blithely and telling them he would bring Roxas back no matter what as he pulled the dark blindfold over his eyes, somewhat dampening the hope of his departure; and then Riku's bent head and blood-spattered robes as that same dark portal and that same confident young man from earlier returned. Char had watched him leave for the basement with anxiety and growing dread for Riku and the punishment DiZ would undoubtedly deliver to him for failing to accomplish his mission._

_Shaking that memory off, Char let out a noise that seemed caught between a growl and a sigh. "Well," she muttered, "just because he screwed up doesn't mean he can just sit up on his ass in his room all day." Renewing her efforts, she began pounding on the door again, ignoring the part of her that agreed with Namine. "Oy! Dark emo boy! Open up!" the redhead shouted._

_Namine flinched. "Char, he needs time to -"_

_But then the door swung open, and Char forced herself to stand her ground at being faced with blazing turquoise eyes. He held the blindfold in one gloved hand, she noted vaguely, and wondered if that meant anything._

_Icy eyes met blue-green before the owner of the latter spat. "What do you want?" he snarled, acerbity and anger clear in his voice._

_Char snorted. "Good morning to you too, sunshine. You can't hide in here forever, y'know."_

_Riku growled deep in his throat, as though he were seriously considering just letting Xehanort's Heartless loose on Char then and there. But his reason eventually won out, and he narrowed his eyes. "I know that. I'm not stupid."_

_"Could've fooled me," Char remarked, smirking at the eye-roll her comment induced from Riku. "Anyway, I wanted you to come out to Twilight Town with me... just for today." As she spoke, she became aware of a weird feeling of warmth tracing its way up her spine, and added the last part hastily for good measure, because one of Riku's eyebrows was slowly starting to arch up on his forehead._

_She wondered why she was acting so odd; they had gone out together before. Then again, though, the situations surrounding those other times had held so many differences from this: DiZ was angry, Riku had failed..._

_Namine was watching them with a look of slight amusement on her face. Riku only shrugged, the ghost of a smile appearing on his features. "Yeah, I guess I'll go."_

_"I said I want you to come with me and that's - huh?" Char had started to rant full-tilt again in preparation for the refusal she thought was undoubtedly coming, but now she stopped, uncommonly flustered. That feeling only increased when she saw the warmth on Riku's face._

_"Well... fine then, awesome stuff," she mumbled, trying to ignore the heat that rushed to her cheeks._

_He pocketed the blindfold for good measure and opened up a dark portal right then and there. As Char turned to bid Namine farewell, she caught a flicker of movement and looked just in time to see Riku casting Namine what was almost a glower - something rare for him to do to her, because she was practically Kairi's shadow. Namine only smiled innocuously and waved him off._

_Before Char could ask Riku about the cause of his annoyance toward Namine, he had whisked the redhead off to the town. Once, he even offered to pay for snacks and little trinkets for her while they browsed the shops, which was weird, because ordinarily he would have waved one hand and told her to pay for herself, however teasingly. Char had politely declined; at the same time, a not-entirely-unwelcome little shiver rippled through her abdomen._

_Char brooded both on this and Riku's odd behavior as they sat on top of the clock tower, both holding separate sticks of ice-blue sea-salt ice cream. As she took in the shadows and shifting glow that the twilight sun cast on the town beneath them, she realized, with a slight start, that she actually enjoyed this new side of him._

_An enjoyment that was tempered quite a bit by the knowledge of her pounding heart._

Weird,_ she mused, idly devouring her sea-salt ice cream and ignoring the way it was melting and dripping onto her other hand, making the glove fabric sticky as a result. Char had had these strange reactions to Riku's little bursts of chivalry before, but it was never as strong as it was now; now it felt as though her heart would burst through her chest with both... what was that, _anxiety_ that accompanied her happiness? She frowned and turned to Riku._

_"You're being weirdly nice to me today," she remarked, deciding to forego all of her tact and just ask._

_She knew the moment the words exited her mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. Immediately the dark look from this morning returned to Riku's countenance and he directed his eyes to the speck-like people moving about below them, squinting in a way that, Char knew, hadn't come about because of the dying sun._

_She half-expected him to ask something teasing like _can't a guy do something nice for his friend? _But, not so surprisingly, he said nothing._

_"I don't like this place," he muttered suddenly, making her glance over. She blinked; she had heard him say it before, but something felt different about this time. A little more inflection and anger lurked in his voice, behind the repeated words._

_"We've been here too long," he continued, still refusing to look at her. "Sora needs to wake up."_

_Char couldn't hold back a small scoff. "That's what DiZ sent you to go get Roxas for yesterday, remem...?"  
She trailed off when Riku suddenly jerked his head up and fixed her with such an intense stare that it almost seemed to become a fist - a fist that hit her on the side of the head and demanded as to her intelligence's questionable existence._

Yesterday.

Oh.

_Oh._

_"I messed up, Char." Riku's eyes were still on her, and though the fading sunlight shone and cast a slight glare, she could still see a blazing intensity within his turquoise orbs. That determination was enough to make her squirm just the tiniest bit out of mild discomfort and growing self-consciousness._

_Because when was the last time _she_'d felt that passionate about anything?_

_"But," Riku was saying, "I'll bring Sora back. Whatever it takes."_

_And even though his gaze was fixed on her, she couldn't help feeling like she wasn't the person Riku was really addressing. Like Char's dark red hair was replaced with maroon, and her icy eyes with blue-violet. Like he was trying to make a promise to the one person who he couldn't see, but who he still loved._

_As the wind tugged at their cloaks and hair, as the sea-salt ice cream continued to drip all over Char's hand - she needed to wash that glove later, she dimly noted - it occurred to her that her heart had never stopped pounding, especially at the fact that Riku could easily replace Char with Kairi in his mind._

* * *

Now that Char was taking the time to really reconsider that day, she realized so many more things than the relatively small epiphany that had assailed her then - _small_ because, really, it had been obvious to everyone but herself; even Namine had known, despite Char's inability to admit it in such clear terms. First and foremost among the new knowledge - new knowledge that, Char realized, wasn't so new after all - was the fact that Riku _knew_ he would have to use Xehanort's Heartless to defeat Roxas. The thought sent an unexpected feeling of despondency through her.

_This time is different,_ she reminded herself. _Sora doesn't have to do anything like that. He's focused on his goal, sure, but not to the desperate point that Riku was..._

Was that really the point, though? Sora was working on finding his friends; saving worlds along the way just happened to be an added bonus. Riku had worked so hard, had been so driven by the thought of nostalgia and childhood and his friends again, that he was willing to kidnap a somewhat-innocent boy, wipe his memories, and replace them with ones he had never wanted.

_Well,_ Char mused, _there's one way they're not so different. They both only want to go home again..._

Her thoughts petered off into silence as a yawn suddenly seized her jaws and stretched them wide. Frustratedly, she reflected on how her own stupid emotions weren't going to let her sleep tonight despite her own exhaustion.

Sighing, she turned to flick the switch on the desk lamp next to the bed, and, when her eyes got used to the newfound blackness, gathered the ice-cold sheets around herself to try and get warm. She could see, out of the corner of her eye, the watery puddle of pale green light that the view of the world between cast on the floor from its vantage point at the window.

She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on trying to get some sleep for tomorrow. _For Sora,_ she thought. _Have to be in top shape for whatever wild goose chase he decides to drag us on next..._

Amazingly, even with that somewhat-mocking frame of mind, Char allowed herself to succumb to the once-elusive offer of sleep.

* * *

There we go! One of my shorter chapters, I must say.

Before I sign off, I have a question for you readers out there. Whenever I write certain character interactions/pairings in this fic - i.e., RikuChar, SoraChar, FalCopper, etc. - I usually have a few set songs I like to listen to while I write those parts. Like, for the RiChar flashback in this chapter, I had the songs **Shadows** (Red) and **Dear Angel** (April Sixth) on super repeat.

So - if any, what songs do you associate with some of the pairings in this fic? I'm just curious. :3

Now, I must go work on RftL before my readers of that fic pound my skull into the ground for neglecting it to write endless chapters of this fic.


	50. Chapter L

Holy crap, I honestly did not mean for this chapter to get as long as it did. And I was originally going to include the rest of Twilight Town after Sora's "zomg kairi wutwutwut :DDD" moment, but when I saw what a freaking monster this thing was already... -sweatdrop- Yeah. I know you guys are used to (and probably enjoy) long chappies from me, but all the same, I hate when they get this long.

U-uh... in other news... Merry Christmas, bitches! :D

**_Disclaimer-_** If I owned Kingdom Hearts, I would have found Sora wrapped in wrapping paper under my tree this morning.  
Riku: 0__o Okay... bad image...

_

* * *

_

_The day after the paint incident, Falcon spots Copperhead in the hallway on her way out of art class. For a moment she almost doesn't want to meet his violet eyes, but, as she gets a better look at what's going on, she realizes she doesn't have to. The sight fills her with a mixture of sadness, anger, and disappointment: Copperhead is even now flicking his sleek blond hair out of his eyes and giving one of the girls surrounding him a charismatic grin._ What kind of compliment is he giving her - giving all of them?_ Falcon wonders dully, watching the girl blush and giggle at her friends. _

_Then she freezes in place as his head swings toward her. His eyes lock on hers for a few heart-pounding seconds, then he looks back at his fan mob and opens his mouth to say something else; the playful, teasing expression from before has vanished._

_But Falcon doesn't see this, as she takes that moment to sweep out of the entrance to the art room and leave in the opposite direction._

_"Fal, wait!"_

_The term of endearment - that, it seems, he's just made up for her - causes Falcon to stop in her tracks. Inwardly, she curses; she was planning on leaving school without him noticing. Out of the corner of her eye she catches sight of the ferns surrounding the sidewalk leading up to the school doors swaying in the light breeze. _

_She lets out an irritated breath through her nose as the pounding footsteps halt directly behind her. "Hey," Copperhead says a little breathlessly. Falcon chances turning around and sees him smile almost apologetically. "You wanna go take out some Heartless or something?"_

_"I have homework," she replies, more coldly than she had intended. It takes all the force of will she has to turn away and resume her path down the sidewalk, fingering the dagger-shaped charm on the end of the Azure Ice's Keychain and taking comfort from its solid smoothness. "Besides, I'd think you wouldn't be free today. Since you were getting along so well with that girl and all."_

_"Oh, gods, Fal," Copperhead huffs out a sigh. Falcon's stride falters just a bit at the exasperation in his tone. "That girl was boring the hell out of me and we both know it. I was actually just about to leave when you came by."_

_"Didn't look like it to me," Falcon snorts, despite the voice in her mind that is agreeing with him. "Why do you tolerate all of them, anyway?"_

_"Eh, I'm just a big sucker." For some reason, she can imagine him shrugging as he said that, even though she can't see him. "Besides, didn't I tell you? Flattery's nice."_

Like you need confirmation that you're hot, you pompous jerk, _Falcon thinks, and immediately wants to take it back. Bad Fal, she admonishes herself. Bad._

_"If you think about it..." The abrupt husky tone in his voice makes her halt immediately, so great is her surprise. If she didn't know any better, she would actually say Copperhead Sandgale was hitting on her. His next comment only confirms her suspicions, even as she makes the mistake of turning around and finds herself nose to nose with him, his purple eyes staring unflinchingly, almost tauntingly into hers._

_"The only way those girls would go away," Copperhead whispers, smirking at how he's caught her off guard, "is if I established that I already have a girlfriend."_

_Why is she breathing so hard? _Stop, you idiot, stop, _Falcon's senses plead, but she's deaf to them. That coffee scent has become her air, and she can't stop breathing it in, trite as it sounds. His touch is undeniably gentle as he reaches up and lets his thumb stroke the side of her face, and she holds her breath, more nervous - excited? - than ever. Right then, she realizes, in a surge of panic, that she needs to make a decision as to whether or not to lean away or in. The latter doesn't sound too bad, actually._

_But the instant she completes that thought, Copperhead jumps back, a look of wonder having replaced the teasing expression on his face. "Hey, I just felt something cold!" he exclaims, and tilts his head back to look at the cloudy skies. Dumbly, disappointed, almost infuriated, Falcon copies his gesture. Sure enough, she feels an unmistakable snowflake land on her face. Normally she loves the first snowfall, but now she just wants to howl her disappointment to the skies._

_Copperhead looks back down on her, seemingly totally oblivious to her emotions, and grins breathlessly. "Sorry, but I have to cancel the Heartless genocide for today," he says excitedly, even as more snow falls around them. "Dyme and I have a little tradition we enjoy on the first day of snow, and tradition calls." He waves flippantly at her as he bounces off. "See ya tomorrow!"_

_Falcon stares numbly after him. After a moment, seven words formed from her lips._

_"You should have kissed me, you idiot..."_

* * *

_A week later, she gets her wish._

_And admittedly it's not exactly the situation she envisioned: they're standing in front of a ranch's fence; Copperhead asks her moronically if he's her cow - she remembers thinking _honestly, Copperhead, you're supposedly such a smooth operator and that's the only pick-up line you can come up with?_ - the cold makes them both shake nervously; Falcon is seized by a desperate curiosity as to whether or not she's doing it right - _

_But even though it's not the romantic situation she would have rather had, Falcon knows she wouldn't have it any other way._

* * *

_"So, word on the grapevine is that Copperhead finally stopped being stupid long enough to confess his feelings."_

_Falcon blinks at Dyme as she stands, bundled up in the same purple scarf she had worn that fateful day and the thickest jacket she owns, in the threshold of Copperhead and his brother's house. Strange as Dyme is, he's never greeted her with this before._

_"Uh, yeah," she says intelligently in response. Dyme looks like his face is going to split open, he's grinning so widely. "Um, may I come in?" she asks at last, shivering violently as a fresh gust of snowy wind from outside threatens to push her off her feet._

_"Oh, yeah, of course!" Dyme hastily steps aside and allows her to enter the house. She rubs her arms in an attempt to get warm and begins unwinding her scarf from around her neck. Dyme, still grinning like an idiot, begins scraping the snow off the doormat with his feet, only to stop and look at her, his smile fading completely._

_"You know," he says abruptly, causing her to halt her movements and meet his gaze, "Copperhead acts like a little womanizer half the time, but honestly, you're the first girlfriend he's ever had." His face is totally serious as he speaks, which is an oddity in and of itself, but Falcon is too preoccupied with what he's just said._

_"Really?" she gapes, nearly dropping the scarf in shock._

_Dyme nods. "Yeah. I remember first grade, when he came home and immediately started yakking on and on about 'this stupid new girl.'" His former grin returns with a vengeance and he shrugs nonchalantly. "I knew right then and there it was love."_

_Falcon doesn't know if this is exactly _her_ idea of love. Suddenly a thought strikes her and she speaks, however hesitantly. "So... it's okay if I go out with your brother?"_

"Are you kidding?" Dyme exclaims, and Falcon winces, bracing herself for a rude remark. But he continues, his smile wider than ever. "I rooted for you guys ever since then!" He lowers his voice conspiratorially, his green eyes flicking toward Copperhead, who is coming down the stairs. "Just know that you should never let him make out with you on the first date. That's a sure_ sign he's just trying to get into your pants."_

_"Dyme!" Copperhead groans, pushing his brother's shoulder. Falcon tries to stifle her giggle, but it escapes nonetheless._

_"Not like you've done that or anything, right?" Dyme laughs shamelessly. Copperhead just groans again and whaps him on the back. The show of brotherly affection, while confounding her - she's never understood why boys showed their friendship by hitting each other - makes her laugh even harder._

_And for the first time since the Heartless appeared in the Shadowed Desert, Falcon feels almost content. _

_

* * *

_

_The curtain of rain falling heavily around her nearly blocks out Falcon's vision, but she still spots the bedraggled, hunched shape hovered over the gravestone. Squinting her eyes to see through the heavy deluge, Falcon sloshes through the mud toward that shape._

_Copperhead's normally-glossy hair is matted to his back by the spring storm, and the clean black suit she had helped him pick out to wear to the funeral is ruined. So much munny down the drain, just like that. But she's not worried about the suit. She's more worried about the man wearing the suit._

_Falcon comes to a stop next to Copperhead. He hasn't taken his eyes off the writing on the grave, still legible even through the rain; she doubts he's even noticed her approach. His entire face is veiled in shadow that, she knows, isn't just because of the darkness created by the storm. _

_The rest of the mourners have left long ago, including Falcon's parents, but she alone remains. She knows Copperhead probably doesn't want her there, but she doesn't care. He may not want her, but he does need her now._

_Together they stare down at the writing on the gravestone._

_"HERE LIES DYME SANDGALE - CLOSE FRIEND, FOSTER FATHER, LOVING BROTHER."_

_"You know," Copperhead speaks abruptly, causing Falcon to turn to him, "they couldn't even find a body." His fist clenches, and his voice, barely audible above the sound of the downpour, is taut with grief and anger. "He just... vanished, after the Heartless took his heart. Like it just ate him. And I just watched it happen."_

_"You couldn't have done anything," Falcon tries to reassure him, and knows instantly that it's the wrong thing to say._

_Copperhead whirls to face her, his dark blond hair dripping around the violet fire in his eyes. "You don't know that!" he snarled. As if in response to his flaring temper, thunder crashes and lightning lights up his face; Falcon winces at the desperate grief contorting his features. "I could've gotten my scythe and ripped the Heartless to bits," he continues, his voice rising to a shout that's louder now even than the storm around them. "I could've pushed him out of the way and let it take me instead, or - or - something! I could've..." He gropes for words, and he sounds like he's speaking around a large lump in his throat. "I could've..."_

_Wordlessly, Falcon opens her arms, just in time for him to fall forward into them. The storm rages around them, just two mourning teenagers standing in front of a grave._

* * *

It almost felt like the whole thing hadn't been a dream at all, since the rain was still pounding around Anxclof as she came awake. She blinked blearily and raised her head to look around. The bright lights of the vacant shops of the World That Never Was greeted her eyes, causing her to squint even more.

Even now, Anxclof wasn't sure what, for the life of her, had possessed her when she had felt the impulse to leave the Pride Lands immediately after her talk with Roxas. Even more so, she wasn't sure why she had chosen to come _here,_ of all places, when she knew what would happen if one of the other Organization members found her here. Past acquaintances or no, the penalty for deserters was death, and if she possessed the bad fortune for Xemnas to come waltzing by at that very moment, then she would undoubtedly be rendered lightsaber fodder on the spot.

Thankfully, though, all of the Organization members had to have left for other worlds at the moment; at least the remains of Anxclof's existence testified to that. The Blade of Vengeance uncurled very slightly, wincing at the stiffness of her limbs as she unwound from the ball she had slept in; though she did notice that she had woken up in a different position from the one in which she had fallen asleep. Maybe the dream had made her toss and turn, its emotional weight tugging her along; but, thankfully, she remained under the awning she had chosen as her shelter from the rain, so her clothes weren't totally soaked. The moisture on her jacket and pants had only come from the spray created by the rain pounding on the ground around her.

Anxclof's mind returned to the dream, and she wanted to cry aloud at the sudden grief she felt. _Memories of what Falcon felt,_ the Nobody told herself wearily, _that's all it is. _

She was starting to get sick of just thinking of her emotions as merely mental vestiges of life.

Maybe this was why Xemnas and the other Nobodies, who had lost their hearts before Anxclof had, existed with such a dark aura about them: the thought of not having what they once had possessed any longer, and coveting what they had lost, was enough to make even the generally carefree Axel disconsolate at times.

Anxclof shook that thought out of her mind and refocused on the dream. Then she frowned; they weren't even _dreams_ in the truest sense, because while the memories lurking in her subconscious did spawn these recollections, dreams never were as harshly real as these... what were they, anyway? Flashbacks of her true life?

"It'll work," she muttered under her breath.

Having gotten that little internal conflict out of the way - for the time being, at least - she considered the chain of flashbacks, particularly the last one. Oddly she felt like she recognized Dyme from somewhere else: not just because Falcon had known him, but from somewhere else, within Anxclof's own half-existence. _At least that's something I can call my own,_ she thought, and if she had been speaking, she would have heard a bitter undercurrent in her words.

She drew her knees up against her chest and folded her arms on top of them, staring out into the storm. Despite herself, she shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the icy wind that always seemed to blow in the World That Never Was. For some reason, she had to remind herself that this was the real world, she had left the landscape of her dreams behind her the instant her eyes had opened - yet the sight of the rain pouring down in an endless curtain, lit preternaturally by the lights of the "shops," resurrected the memory of Falcon and Copperhead standing around Dyme's grave and refused to let it leave.

Unfortunately, the only memory that pervaded her thoughts once she pushed the image of that girl and that boy away, the only thing she could even consider once she stopped thinking about her Other and her best friend, was the look on Roxas' face as Anxclof had coldly, detachedly, pushed the image of them together again aside and left him standing there.

Anxclof shook her head in silent protest. _He would have been put back into Sora's heart again as soon as that duck had waved his wand, anyway,_ she argued mentally, then winced at the way she had thought of Roxas' return to Sora's heart: it conjured up the idea of Sora's heart, puzzle piece-like, sitting waiting for the piece that was Roxas to complete it again.

_You were just being honest,_ she continued in her mind, trying to convince herself that she had done the right thing in turning Roxas away, when all she really wanted was to pull him into a dark portal with her and take him to some secluded world where Sora and Char couldn't try anything against them. _What would be the point in leading him on when you already knew what was going to become of him as soon as they left?_

Unconsciously, emerald eyes squeezed shut in a vain attempt to stave off the angry tears burning at the back of her eyes and in her mouth, only to open again when those attempts didn't work. Her throat sealed itself off, and with a surge of fresh infuriation, she realized she could feel a hollow space yawning in her chest, where her heart was supposed to be.

Dully, through her frustration, she registered that if this many emotions were roiling through her, then Falcon had to have felt this same mixture of anger and sorrow and self-hatred; and if Falcon had felt this same mixture of anger and sorrow and self-hatred, then this surely foreshadowed more heartbreak yet to come for Anxclof's Other.

_Great,_ she thought, and a harsh, bark-like laugh escaped her. _My Other's life is now a source of entertainment. What's gonna happen next? What waits around the corner next time?_

The laughter got lodged in her throat, somewhere between the lump that now resided there and her mouth, so Anxclof eschewed the attempts to be humorous and curled into a tighter ball, hating the self-deprecation that had reduced her to this. "You moron," she murmured. "You could have just grabbed Roxas and left right then. What the hell was stopping you?"

She knew full well what; the desire for revenge against Char for everything she had done to the former Number XIII had held Anxclof back from making the easy choice. Before all this, Anxclof realized, she would have just taken that opportunity. Now, it seemed, Anxclof's other goal was to take both Char and Sora out of the picture entirely.

A flash of lightning caused Anxclof to surface from her self-induced mire of turmoil and lift her head. The sight lit up before her pulled a ragged gasp out of her mouth.

Because, through the downpour, revealed by the brief flash of light, she had spotted a silhouette standing in the middle of the street. And this silhouette had one hand outstretched, with tendrils of darkness waving and entwining in front of the shape, stark against the light. The sight that had elicited such a sharp response from Anxclof, though, was the spikes flaring out behind the tall silhouette's head.

She opened her mouth to call out his name, but the Flurry of Dancing Flames had vanished before she had found her voice.

Axel's appearance was like a red flag, a hammer that smashed the opaque glass of grief and anger that had veiled her thoughts this morning, and let her see clearly again. And suddenly Anxclof wanted to slap herself for nearly succumbing to her self-pity earlier.

Because Sora and Char were heading gods only knew where, _with Roxas in tow,_ and here Anxclof was - Anxclof, who had vowed to get the boy she loved back no matter what the cost; Anxclof, who never broke a promise - here she was, letting her past mistake shake her to her core and force her to sit crying on the ground. _I'm almost as bad as Char now,_ Anxclof thought wryly, but with determination.

She rose to her feet, ignoring the rush of dizziness that assailed her at such an abrupt change of position, and reached out with one hand. A dark portal opened up before her.

She wasn't sure where the silhouette had been headed when he had vanished into the dark portal, but she recalled how they had lost Kairi before. Anxclof guessed that he was going to wherever he had directed the portal that Sora's childhood friend had vanished into on the beach of Destiny Island. Quickly she ran through the list of possible destinations in her mind: certainly not here, Axel knew better than to take one of the Princesses of Heart straight _here _of all places, when Kairi might possibly tumble out of the portal right where Xemnas was standing; definitely not Twilight Town, since as far as Anxclof knew it wasn't linked to this place.

Not one of those, but maybe an unlikely world, one that the Organization wouldn't think of exploring, one that the dear old Superior wouldn't _want_ to explore...

Something dawned in Anxclof's eyes, darkening them with realization and new vigor. She had a winner.

A sharp-toothed, almost wolfish smirk grew on Anxclof's countenance, a smirk of self-chiding and slight vexation, as the shadowy snakes wreathing the portal of darkness coalesced before her. And as she stepped into the portal, bound for the ruined castle and dark cliffs of Hollow Bastion, one thought prevailed in her mind.

_If Axel can sneak around behind Xemnas' back to betray the Organization, then certainly I can sneak around behind Char's back to bring her little Keybearer down._

* * *

Now, Char thought, the only question that had to be in her mind was, _Now what?_

She shifted uneasily in her chair, folding her arms more tightly around herself and twitching the fingers on one hand against the opposite arm. Next to her, Sora, Donald, and Goofy were gathered around the screen that normally displayed the radar map that detected new worlds for them to visit. The two Disney residents' faces looked drastically different from what Char could see at her limited vantage point; the mage's brow was furrowed in a frown of both frustration and bemusement, while Goofy had one finger to his chin and simply looked confused.

Char didn't dare lean in closer to see Sora's expression for fear of her body's response.

_Stop being stupid,_ she told herself furiously, and expressed her self-anger by tightening her fingers' grip on her arm and angling her glare downward. _He's bound to notice something's wrong if you keep acting like this._

The sound of the subject of her thoughts' voice successfully cut off said thoughts, and for some reason, she didn't know whether or not she should feel relieved. Sora's words, though, put that out of her mind immediately.

"That's weird..." he murmured, one fist curled under his chin as he stared down at the screen. The elbow attached to that fist was currently propped against his knee, and Char watched him drop his hand to the control panel and press a few buttons. "I don't see any more new worlds on the radar..."

Though his voice sounded mostly contemplative, Char could detect an underlying impatience and growing desperation. She could understand those two emotions; with the proliferation of more and more worlds on the map following their departure of the worlds already on said map, Sora had probably begun to expect the same thing would keep happening. Now, apparently, that wasn't the case. Char had to admit, she felt a tiny surge of annoyance as well, at the thought that maybe they'd have to go through all those worlds again and see if Riku and Kairi had turned up in the time that Sora and his comrades had been absent. The same exhaustion that, last night, had pushed her to simply go to sleep instead of trying to visit another world damn near took over her when she considered it, and she fought back a groan.

Sora could only stare helplessly down at the screen, a sense of panic wreathing itself over his senses and beginning to cloud his thoughts. The set of worlds on the screen greeted him - there was the Coliseum, and the pumpkin of Halloween Town, and the thorn shape of Pride Rock poking up from within the Pride Lands' snow-globe-like structure - but nothing new chose to show itself.

"Well, now what do we do?" Donald grumbled, sitting back on his haunches on his chair and folding his arms. Goofy gave a helpless shrug in response.

Char hated to admit it, but she shared their concern. _Seriously, _she couldn't help thinking a little self-deprecatingly, _why couldn't the World That Never Was pop up, at least? Then the Organization would finally show their stupid faces, Sora could kick Xemnas' ass, and I could finally move on with my life._

The question remained, though, whether or not, if and when that possibility presented itself, she truly would want to leave Sora.

Then she frowned, after her mind had uttered that strange, completely _random_ question. Well, she tried to justify herself, even if they found the Organization now, Sora was more focused on finding his friends anyway; their journey would continue even then.

_And would you stay, even after your revenge had been enacted?_ a voice in the back of her mind asked, very seriously.

"Char?"

She tried not to jolt in surprise, but she still felt she jerked her head toward Goofy's voice a little too quickly. "Yeah?" she asked, trying to sound like she hadn't just been thinking about the end of her journey.

"We were just wondering if you knew what we should do next," Sora quipped, leaning over the control panel in order to see the redhead better. Privately, he wondered whether or not she had gotten enough sleep last night. Yesterday had been exhausting, especially for him; in fact, the only reason he'd had enough strength to peel himself out of bed this morning was because Donald had cast multiple healing spells on the Keybearer after the latter woke, and even then, an occasional, flickering dull throb in the back of his skull reminded him of yesterday's ordeal. Sora winced very slightly and rubbed his head as another twinge went through him. Donald immediately made as if to raise his staff, but Sora reached out a hand to stop the duck. He couldn't help noticing the absent manner about Char this morning, and honestly, it worried him.

The brunette was so wrapped up in his concern that he almost missed Char's response. "I... really wouldn't know," she muttered, averting her eyes from his. "I mean, we didn't exactly have many units about the inner workings of a Gummi ship's radar..." Behind Sora, Donald let out an almost imperceptible scoff; the Keybearer missed the duck's wordless expression of skepticism, but Goofy turned to give the mage an admonishing look, so Sora figured Donald had said or done something.

Char apparently had caught it as well, because she immediately jerked her head up and fixed the duck with a fierce glower. "Look," she spat, "I'm terribly sorry for not being all-knowing about your stupid vessel's faulty radar, all right? I'm sure there are other worlds we haven't seen yet; we just haven't taken the time to search for them!"

Silently, Sora agreed with her, running over the list of worlds from his last journey that they had yet to spot on the map. _Traverse Town, Wonderland, the Deep Jungle, Monstro... okay, maybe not that last one. _He held back a tiny shudder; the less time he spent in that whale's belly, the better. Although he certainly wouldn't mind seeing Geppetto and Pinocchio again, Sora had too many bad memories of that world: like the jarring realization of Riku's turn to darkness...

"Hey, guys?" The sound of the hoarse, yet high-pitched voice sounding tentatively in front of them caused the group to turn and look at the dashboard. As they watched, two pale brown shapes leaping up onto the dashboard signaled the appearances of Chip and Dale.

"Y'know what I was just thinkin'?" Chip, who had just spoken, asked. "We haven't gone to visit Twilight Town in a while."

Sora's eyes lit up, and for some reason, when Chip mentioned the place where Sora and his comrades had first awoken, felt a wave of nostalgia. And... an almost achingly _longing_ feeling, one that Sora only got when he thought of Riku and Kairi and his island.

"Gawrsh, you're right!" Goofy gasped and turned to Sora and Char. "We oughtta go back and pay Hayner and his friends a visit!"

_Oh, no._ A foreboding feeling seemed to arise within Char's stomach, as, with the mention of Twilight Town, the old temptation to just ditch the group and head to the mansion and wait for Riku and Ansem there - a temptation that hadn't troubled her in gods knew how long - returned with a vengeance.

_Don't be stupid,_ she thought firmly. _They're bound to notice - and care - by now if you just up and leave._

Then again, though, the tension from last night, and the knowledge that Donald and Goofy knew she knew more than she was letting on, still hung in the air like a thick, poisonous fog. Char knew it was stupid, but she hated feeling this kind of tension after she had worked so hard to earn their trust.

"Sora?" Donald angled his head so he was looking into the Keybearer's face.

Realizing that the others were waiting for his decision - especially Chip and Dale, who were rocking back and forth on their feet anxiously, as though they just wanted this argument to be over - Sora snapped out of the strange trance that the mention of Twilight Town seemed to have brought over him. "Yeah," he answered, trying to keep any trace of the bemusing effect of that nostalgia out of his voice. Why should he feel so attached to a place he barely knew about, anyway?

"I think visiting Twilight Town sounds like a good idea," he continued a little uncertainly, as Char had given him a wide-eyed look of horror. Now that he thought back, when they'd found Char in the old mansion, she had seemed agitated about something or other. _Wonder whether or not the way she's acting now is because of that... _"If there's nowhere else for us to go," and now there was a peremptory tone to his voice, "then we should at least check Twilight Town."

"The King might've come back there," Donald pointed out, giving Char a belligerent glare, as though daring her to argue.

Sora gave a single nod in response. "And Riku might be there right now, too."

Immediately, instinctively, he turned his gaze to Char, despite his misgivings about doing even that much. Her eyes had remained locked stubbornly, almost pleadingly on the three of them, as though by force of will she could dissuade them from going back to the place where their journey had begun. Sora thought her pupils flickered downward when he tried to make eye contact with her, but she refocused on him so quickly that he couldn't really be sure she had looked away at all.

"Okay, fine," she agreed, if a bit grudgingly. Immediately after acquiescing, though, she tempered her seemingly-easy agreement with an ultimatum. "But we give the place a once-over for Riku and the King, and that's _it," _she growled.

"But don'tcha wanna visit Hayner and the others?" Goofy pressed.

He received no response other than an almost perfunctory glance from her, and decided not to push the matter any further.

Sora could feel the tension in the air between his three allies, and for the first time that morning, his mind let itself wander to the memory of last night, and the obvious secret being held between the three of them. And at the thought of that secret and the inauspicious feelings attached to it, the tension seemed to begin to seep into his veins as well.

He shook his head to clear it and rolled his previously-stiffening shoulders in an attempt to rid himself of the effect of his thoughts. "W-well," he said, a little awkwardly, "it's all we've got to go on right now."

"Yeah," Donald muttered, not taking his eyes off Char.

Chip and Dale seemed pacified, and indicated this with a few happy chirps and eager comments on what the group might do upon arriving at Twilight Town; but this went all but unnoticed to Sora, as he had spotted something that hadn't occurred with Char in quite a while. It was akin to the effect that being back in Hollow Bastion had had on her, before her leg injury had required her to spend time in her old home for a while and, apparently, had practically forced her to relax among the gray stones and buildings she had once lived among - had all but cured her of whatever had made her balk at heading to Hollow Bastion in the first place.

Now, it seemed, that feeling about her had transferred to Twilight Town. Sora spotted the tower poking up from within Twilight Town's snow-globe - a stark shade of beige against the green wisps of cloud surrounding the Gummi ship - and almost absently flicked a switch so they could descend upon the world's surface. He could still remember the day he had met Char, though the few weeks since it had happened had passed in a chaotic blur: the scent of the hallways of the old mansion, a mix of cinnamon and old building; the sound of Char's voice, irritated and agitated, spouting obscenities that, despite his having heard said words from his father time and time again, still made Sora flinch...

What was it she had said that day? Sora tried to remember, but the memory scuttled out of his mental reach. _Great,_ he couldn't help thinking dryly, _I can remember all the useless stuff about that mansion, and not something so important._

"Sora, slow up!" Donald suddenly screeched. Sora snapped back to reality just in time to see the clock tower of Twilight Town flashing very vividly in the windshield. He let out a cry of panic and jerked the steering wheel sharply in the opposite direction, causing the vessel to narrowly avoid crashing into the clock tower entirely.

"Dammit, Key-boy..." The vulgarity and feminine voice signified it was Char speaking in a breathless, half-reproving voice. Sora didn't dare glance over at her for fear of nearly hitting something else, but he cringed at the feeling of her glower burning into his spine. "You think you could maybe concentrate on driving?" she continued, sounding somewhat strained.

Sora narrowed his eyes and felt a flash of irritation at her admonishment. He figured it was just panic that made her so edgy, but that didn't stop him from feeling annoyed. "You drive like this even when you're fully concentrated on it," he pointed out as the Gummi ship began to descend into the seemingly-empty back alley that led to the Usual Spot.

Char opened her mouth to retort, then closed it again. He kind of had a point.

"Just don't do that again," Donald panted, clinging to the armrest of his seat as though his life depended on it, which, a few moments ago, it had. "We can't afford to wreck the vessel now."

Sora fought back an annoyed reply and just concentrated on landing the Gummi ship. As he brought the ship to a surprisingly-gentle halt - _let Donald make what he can of that,_ he thought triumphantly - the brunette cast a rudimentary glance around the back alley to see if anyone had noticed. Somewhat disconcertingly, no one was about; Sora thought it was strange, because the last time they'd been here, the streets had been swarming with people. Not even the movement of the ragged, red curtain that sealed off the Usual Spot from the rest of Twilight Town announced the presence of Hayner, Pence, and Olette.

"Where d'you think Hayner, Pence, and Olette went?" the Keybearer asked, relaxing in the pilot's seat and looking around at his comrades.

Donald gave a tiny shrug. "Maybe they're at school?" he offered.

Sora tilted his head to the side. "School?" he parroted bemusedly. Truth be told, he hadn't thought of school since - well, before this journey had started, since the storm that had taken Destiny Island had come during the summer break. He wasn't sure what sounded worse: dealing with a pack of fellow students or dealing with a pack of Heartless. The thought sent a pang of homesickness through him.

"Yeah, they did say they had to finish summer homework the last time we were here," Goofy added helpfully.

Char blinked and wondered how the hell such a deceptive idiot remembered back that far. Then again, it _had_ only been a few weeks since then.

_A few weeks... right._ Her resolve faltered the tiniest bit at thinking of how much time it'd been since she'd had to see this place: the place where she and Riku had roamed Twilight Town; the place where she had closely monitored Sora's progress in getting his memories back; the place where she had realized her little crush on Riku, albeit a realization steeped in denial.

"Char! Hurry up or we're leaving without you!" Donald shouted.

The redhead jolted in her seat and spotted the three of them standing at the entrance to the Gummi ship, looking back expectantly at her. Noting Sora standing next to the two Disney residents - how had his getting up escaped her notice? She'd been sitting right next to him, after all - she pushed herself to her feet. "I'm coming; keep your feathers on," she grumbled. "Just let me pick up a few healing items and we'll be on our merry little way."

"Healing...?" Sora looked confused.

Char huffed an impatient sigh. "Just in case. None of the other worlds we've gone to have been safe," she added irritably at the expressions on Donald and Goofy's faces; the looks that seemed to say _ha, you _do _know something more, _"so what makes you think Twilight Town will be?"

"It was okay the last time we were here," Donald muttered, yet his voice faltered a tiny bit at the end of his sentence.

Char silently thanked whatever god was watching over her at that moment, because, now that she thought about it, her little excuse for stalling had some validity; the day they had been attacked by the Nobodies returned to her mind and she nearly breathed a sigh of relief.

She pocketed a couple of Hi-Potions and made her way over to the others, slapping some healing items into each of their hands as she went. "Okay," she said, hoping she sounded steadier than she felt. "Let's try that again."

Sora smiled and nodded before turning on his heel and pushing a button on the side of the Gummi ship; the ramp dutifully extended down from the hatch in response to his action, and the door slid open.

Char took a few deep, steadying breaths, not even knowing why she was suddenly so nervous. _We'll be fine,_ she tried to reassure herself. _Even if more Nobodies are here..._

Her thoughts trailed off as, all at once, it hit her what she was so worried about. _Nobodies... Roxas... Anxclof! _The redhead felt like hitting her head against the brick wall along the back alley and damn near stopped in her tracks to do so, so strong was her self-annoyance. As it was, though, she only faltered slightly in her stride and mechanically responded in the positive to Goofy's question about whether or not she was okay.

Of course - if Anxclof had had even that brief amount of time with Roxas in the Pride Lands, of course she'd redouble her efforts to find him. And if she showed up here, with Sora's heart already somewhat weakened from Roxas' collision with it... A shiver worked its icy way up Char's spine and she tried to shut out the thought entirely; yet suddenly, the shadows cast along the walls by the dying sun seemed much more menacing, and she half-expected emerald green eyes to be watching them even now. No... that little attempt to stop thinking about it definitely wasn't working.

Char pushed that thought to the back of her mind; she didn't have time to worry about something that probably wouldn't even happen. _Probably. _

_Oh, come on, we'll be fine!_ she mentally argued against the doubtful little creature in the back of her mind. _We've gotten this far, haven't we?_

Besides, there was a much more pressing matter, something else that claimed her heart in its ragged little talons and refused to let go. It had plagued her during her very first visit to Hollow Bastion with Sora, and, now that the return to the place where she had made her closest friend was pouring salt into her already-wounded dignity - at having fallen in love again so soon, and for Riku's goofy, key-wielding, Heartless-bashing _best friend,_ nonetheless - that emotion that had wrapped itself around her heart grew stronger. She knew its name well, but that still didn't stop the self-deprecation roiling through her, that it was able to reclaim her yet again.

Nostalgia.

The group was only walking through the back alley, a path that seemed innocuous enough; however, even this relatively limited exposure to this part of Twilight Town seemed to deluge Char's mind in rather unwelcome memories. Her eyes found themselves flickering to corners of the alley that, were she looking down at this world from a bird's-eye view, would reveal other parts of the town to her, other parts that heralded the presence of different memories. That path led to the kiosks where she and Riku - mostly Char herself - had wasted time haggling to lower the price on something; that tunnel over there led down to where she had allowed her guard to drop long enough to show her face to Roxas; this path that she and Sora and the others were walking on led to the Sandlot, where she had watched the town assiduously prepare for the Struggle tournament...

As the four of them walked on in silence, Sora found himself glancing over at Char multiple times. The absent-mindedness that had prevailed over her normally rational demeanor had returned fast on the heels of her decision to bring along some Potions, and it worried him, that she could slip back into her own world so easily. Again, he recalled that there was something about the day he'd met her, something that could probably easily explain her stiff posture, her wandering eyes, everything about her that made her something other than the Char he'd come to know and care deeply for - _love,_ if he really wanted to put a word to it. Sora didn't like thinking about the l-word - it brought too heavy of a burden to the one already on his shoulders and made him feel as if he were betraying Kairi - but it seemed to fit the context of everything he felt when he was around her.

Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, causing Donald to crash into his back with an indignant "wak!" and commence a tirade as to why Sora had halted. The duck stopped, however, when he saw what Sora had had to stop and look at.

A small shape, clad in a high-cut, pale blue cloak that barely revealed the shape's dark face and yellow eyes, dashed past them into the town itself. Its run was slightly hampered by the one hand that it - _he, _now that Sora was looking more properly - had over its witch-like hat to keep said hat upon its head.

"Help! The sandlot!" the shape wailed for all to hear as he disappeared into the town square. "It's... Seifer! _Somebody please help us!"_

Sora's eyes widened; the last part was a little softer due to the distance that the kid had put between himself and the Keybearer's group, but Sora understood that something wasn't right.

He turned to his comrades; asking Char about what was bothering her would have to wait. "Sounds like we've got trouble," he said.

Char snorted, bringing her eyes up and folding her arms. "Naw, really? I didn't quite understand with the whole 'somebody please help us' part." She raised her arms and did air quotes on the part that she had quoted from the boy.

Sora grinned, even though Donald was rolling his eyes and glowering at her. _That_ was more like the Char he knew.

"The Sandlot's that way, right?" the brunette asked, nodding straight ahead. At Donald and Goofy's somewhat-hesitant nods, albeit after a moment's thought, Sora gave a single nod of determination. "Then let's go!"

He charged off straight ahead, with his three companions following close after; the sound of their footsteps raining against the ground unexpectedly reassured him and gave him a newfound sense of determination.

Sora didn't dare stop to wonder how he'd known where the Sandlot was. He knew it would slow him down if he thought about it.

The sight of a solid, creamy wall looming up ahead halted Sora in his tracks, and he gasped at the sight before him: three teenagers, somewhat familiar, lying prone on the ground as a group of Dusk Nobodies undulated in their sinuous dances around them. A single, abandoned blue bat lay on the ground next to the boy in the long white coat. As the four looked on in growing horror, the aforementioned boy raised his head and glared defiantly at the Dusks before dropping back down again, as though he were too exhausted to keep fighting. "You think you're so tough?" he growled half-heartedly.

Without hesitation, Sora dashed forward and planted himself in front of the white-clad teenager; wordlessly, his comrades fanned out in a circle to guard the other Twilight Town natives. The anonymous boy raised his head again and glowered at Sora. "And just who the hell are you?" he demanded.

_Wow,_ Sora thought. _You're welcome._ Outwardly, he smiled as the Circle of Life appeared in his hand. "We'll take it from here," he asserted, and got into his battle stance. On his other side, Char cast a somewhat-doubtful glance over at Seifer; the guy was kind of a bastard even in the virtual world, but dammit, if Sora wanted her to help him protect the little jerk, then so be it.

One of the Dusks wove forward, and Sora dodged around its blows in order to deliver a counterattack of his own. Around him, Char drove her blades into another Dusk's rubbery body, while Donald and Goofy concentrated on confusing the two remaining Nobodies by going all out on both at once; the former cast multiple ice spells in a row, while the latter used the gaps in the Nobodies' attention to lay into them with his shield.

Char couldn't help but feel like things were a little _too _easy. They'd fought Dusks before, sure, so they were used to the kinds of strategies that this class of Nobodies employed. She flinched as the Dusk she was fighting struck her side with its sharp feet; apparently it had angled itself onto its head and twisted toward her in a caricature of a gymnast's stretch in order to attack. Ignoring the slight surge of blood and warmth that the wound brought to that part of her body, she struck it one last time with both swords at once, and it vanished. _Little strategies like those._

She leaped back and looked around. Donald and Goofy looked like they were doing well - again, she thought it shouldn't really surprise her that the head mage and head knight of Disney Castle were so experienced in combat, but the fact surprised her anyway - but she couldn't see Sora anywhere.

Panic surged through her. If that idiot had gotten himself hurt...

Suddenly she felt something latch itself onto her back and drive her to the ground; from the rubbery feel of it against her back, she realized it had to be a Dusk. As the weight increased and she found herself unable to move her arms and attack them, she growled ferociously into the dirt. "Of all the underhanded..." she spat, and wriggled furiously. Miraculously, she got one arm free and, twisting that arm awkwardly, managed to slice through one of the Dusks on top of her. It disappeared in its telltale squelching noise, but that didn't ease the weight on top of her.

Then a flash of light caught the edges of her peripheral vision, and abruptly, gloriously, she found herself free. Scrambling to her feet, she spotted Sora standing in front of her, mildly bruised but otherwise triumphant.

"The hell was...?" She found herself gasping for breath and felt stinging pain all along her back. The Dusks had clearly left their mark on her.

Sora gave a breathless shrug. "Dunno," he answered, reaching into his pocket and pushing a Hi-Potion into her hand; Char flinched as their fingers brushed, but tried not to let it show too much as she took the container and, fumbling her own fingers to get it open, gulped down the healing blue liquid. "I was just fighting like normal, and then something exploded out from my body... I think it was my magic."

Suddenly he gasped and, grabbing Char's wrist, jerked her out of the way of something. Char caught herself on the ground with her hands and sprang up immediately, mouth open and ready to deliver a furious demand as to why he'd done that; but then a pale brown blur assailed her vision and she felt the briefest vibration on the ground as warning before she was knocked into the air.

The landing was almost worse than the impact of the miniature earthquake, and it took both of them a few seconds to get up from their winded positions. Char gasped at the sight of the strangely human-like figures limping along before them, using a kind of claymore to support themselves. Despite the human nature of the creatures, the distinctive Nobody symbol was distinguishable on their bodies.

Despite herself, Char felt a small trickle of fear along her spine. She didn't recognize these types of Nobodies - had never seen them before, and Riku had never described them to her, either.

This was going to be tougher than she thought.

"Hey! A little help would be nice!" Donald roared.

Sora saw that the duck was holding his own against one of the strange Nobodies; Donald was casting furiously, but aside from impeding its stride a little bit, the countless bolts of lightning and balls of fire had no effect on the Nobody, which leaped up into the air and... just hung there.

"Not exactly what we're looking for, but we'll take it," Char muttered, and together, she and Sora raced forward to attack the strange Nobody. Goofy took Donald off to the side and handed him an Ether, and the duck reluctantly wolfed the panacea down before shaking his comrade off and throwing himself back into the fray.

"What _are_ these?" Sora panted as he carved spirals against the Nobody's body in midair.

"Oh, like _I'm_ supposed to know," Char growled, landing after delivering a combination attack of her own. Goofy thankfully managed not to hear her remark in favor of cutting into the Nobody with his shield.

Donald was casting frantically again, disregarding their lack of Ethers in favor of going all out with his magic; in his haste he had forgotten about the other Nobody.

When the pale brown streak caught her eye, Char gasped and shouted some kind of warning - and then the Nobody crashed down into the ground repeatedly, sending shockwaves along the ground and causing the group to stumble and fall under the force of the waves. Sora barely got to his feet in time to roll out of the way of another relentless attack, but his comrades didn't have that kind of luck. The brunette felt anger surge through him at the sight of the trio's wounded forms mingling with the Twilight Town natives' on the ground, and he turned to the still-frenzied Nobody with the full intent of striking it down. Behind him, Donald, Goofy, and Char rose with some difficulty. Donald took one look at all their wounds and cast a healing spell with what remained of his mana and raced back into the heat of battle. Goofy followed close behind, along with Char, who fought the powerful urge to wince in pain; stupid leg was acting up again.

The three of them surged up behind Sora just in time for two more of the strange Nobodies to appear. "Dammit, do these things _ever_ stop coming?" Char roared.

However, Sora managed to catch one of them from behind with the shaft of his Keyblade, and as he furiously attacked the prone one, the one that had just been attacking returned to its original state. Therefore, the impact of the magic exploding from Sora's body as he slammed his Keyblade down into the ground hit all the Nobodies at once.

There was a moment of silence; then, as the light cleared and Sora looked around, panting heavily with sudden fatigue, a wave of relief passed over him and made him ever weaker. The Nobodies had all disappeared.

Char nearly stumbled, but Goofy quickly steadied her with his shield. Leaning heavily on the knight's weapon, she opened her mouth to ask about everyone's status, only to give a start, along with the others, as an unfamiliar voice sounded.

"Impressive."

She searched the area - but no, Seifer, Rai, and Fuu were still unconscious.

Then Donald let out a cry, and the others turned in time to see a black-hooded shape clapping almost sardonically. The figure lowered his hands, and they could almost hear a smirk behind the Organization member's words. "By the way... have you seen a man named Axel? I expect he's here somewhere."

To Sora, the Nobody's silken voice sounded almost condescending, patronizing, and he felt something akin to _hatred_ of this man rising up in him. Maybe it had something to do with Roxas...

"Like we care," Char spat.

The figure turned to face her, and she held her ground against his invisible stare. "Ah, yes - the seventh apprentice. The Superior has told me all about you..."

"Do you have something to say, or are you just going to babble on about nothing?" Char growled, with more bravado than she felt. Inwardly, her heart was pounding, as Donald was now looking at her in slight anticipation. Goofy just seemed uncomfortable.

The smile beneath the hood was almost palpable. Then the figure turned back to Sora, who clutched the Circle of Life more tightly than ever, glaring fiercely despite his injuries. "You see," the Nobody explained, "Axel is no longer acting in our best interest."

"Is he with the Organization, too?" Goofy asked.

Char half-expected a cryptic response, but the figure only gave a simple "Yes."

"You havin' a fight?" Donald almost snickered.

"Not a very organized Organization," Sora remarked with the tiniest smirk.

The Organization member lifted a hand and pointed at Sora, whose sense of triumph ebbed slightly at the obvious intensity behind the gesture. "Don't let your guard down," he warned. "Axel will stop at nothing to turn you into a Heartless."

Sora snorted. "Gee, thanks for the warning, mister, but I can take care of myself."

Inwardly, Char grinned. _You tell him, Key-boy._

The Nobody lowered his hand. "Glad to hear it. You see," and now a vague tone of _bitterness_ lurked in his voice, "it would break our hearts if something happened to you."

"Hearts?" Donald demanded. "You don't even have any hearts!"

The figure lifted his hands again, and the group started visibly, only to see that he was merely going to remove his hood. Char remained in a tense position; although she didn't recognize this Nobody's voice, effectively ruling him out as one of her former friends, there was still the slight chance she would recognize his face from Roxas' memories.

She had no such luck. The removal of the hood yielded only long, ice-blue hair, feline golden eyes, and an X-shaped scar across the man's forehead. Char allowed herself to relax, if only slightly.

"True, we don't have hearts. But we remember what it's like." Somehow, the smooth, urbane voice seemed much more intimidating now that they could see the face behind the hood. Goofy could sense something lurking, twitching beneath the surface of this man's fabrication of gentlemanliness. And that wasn't lost on Char, either. The fact that this Nobody was echoing the words she had heard from Anxclof didn't help her rational thought, but even she could catch that much.

_Maybe Anxclof is right,_ the redhead thought. _I mean, these other jerks seem to believe it just fine..._

"The fact that we have even the vestiges of human emotion," the blue-haired man continued, "makes us special."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sora demanded.

In response, the Nobody sighed in an almost-bored manner before reaching out a hand; tendrils of darkness announced the dark portal coalescing behind him. "We know very well how to injure a heart," he answered, eyes fixed directly on Sora. "You just keep on fighting those Heartless."

The brunette blinked in surprise, startled into lowering his Keyblade. Up until now he had kept taking down Heartless because he considered it the right thing to do and the wrong thing by the Organization. But... was that really...?

He shook himself immediately. This guy was probably just trying to make him let his guard down.

He turned to Donald. "Let's jump in after him!" he hissed.

Char fought the urge to wince. Even now, Key-boy still hadn't quite perfected his stage whisper.

"How come?" the duck whispered.

"Well, maybe he'll lead us to the Organization's world," Sora answered lowly.

Gods, if only. That would solve all of Char's problems.

The blue-haired Nobody had clearly heard everything, because he spoke above the two's alleged whispering. "Don't be so reckless," he admonished, his tone now almost fatherly. His brows drew down over his eyes in a dark smile, and Char sensed what was coming before he even dropped the comment. "Do you want to end up like Riku?"

Sora felt something jar inside him, something that hadn't shifted so drastically since that day in Port Royal when Char had murmured Riku's name in her sleep. He shot to attention and nearly dropped his Keyblade, so great was his shock. "What?" was all he could say, near speechless in his surprise

In response, the Nobody merely bowed his head and extended his arms almost welcomingly before stepping back into the portal.

"Hey, wait!" Sora shouted, but the portal had already vanished.

He turned to his comrades, a visibly deflated look on his face. Until now he'd gone on with the hope of finding Riku safe and Ansem-free, free from the dark realm along with King Mickey - but for the first time Sora allowed himself to face the negative possibility: Riku's possible death at the claws of the Heartless in the dark realm...

Sora swallowed the tears that had begun to rise behind his eyes at the thought. "What did he mean, 'end up like Riku'?" he murmured, staring at the ground.

For a moment, watching him there, seeing his normal blithe mask slip off his face and crash to the ground and break into pieces, Char had the strangest, most powerful impulse to put her arms around him the way he'd done to her so many times before now. Yet she shoved that impulse to a dark corner of her mind and instead chose to watch him sympathetically. Nearby, Donald and Goofy cast each other helpless glances.

She knew very well what that Nobody had meant by _end up like Riku: _consumed by darkness in order to maintain a higher goal. The very idea of Sora succumbing to the same fate was ridiculous - he was the chosen hero of light for a reason, after all - yet she could see a point behind the Nobody's words.

The thing that was really bothering her was that the identity of that Organization member was unknown to her. The redhead found herself folding her arms and tapping her fingers against the arm that said fingers lay against thoughtfully; later today she'd have to go through her memory and try to remember if Roxas' memories had ever shown her this guy.

"Hey - you mind getting out of my town now?" Belligerent as it was, the voice that had uttered those words only made Char sigh and drop her arms back down to her legs. Simultaneously, she turned to see Seifer and crew standing properly again. "You've caused enough trouble," Seifer went on, glowering right at Sora.

"Oh, come on, Seifer," Char grumbled. "He just saved your sorry ass and now you're bitching about it? Give me a break. Nobody's that ungrateful."

"Hey!" Rai blustered on one side of Seifer. "Seifer just said he wants you guys out, y'know?"

Fuu raised one eyebrow and said nothing.

"Riku..." Sora mumbled, clearly still lost in thought.

Char cast him a worried glance before looking back to the Twilight Town natives, narrowing her eyes as she did so. Seifer looked to have the worst injuries of all of them, but even so, he still managed to meet her glare just fine. "Fine," she spat. "Have it your way." She turned on her heel and strode off toward the Sandlot exit. "Let's go, guys."

"Hold it," Seifer suddenly said, causing Char to stop in her tracks. Despite herself, a smirk began to curl the corners of her lips, but she curbed her smugness just long enough to turn around and ask, innocently, "Yes?"

"Shut it, chickie," Seifer growled. He mumbled something about _just like that stupid girl before_ as he looked at Sora. The brunette still was staring at the ground, but the gleam of light off of something caught his eye and he looked up.

Seifer was holding out a trophy that held different-colored orbs on each of its branches. Char barely held back a gasp at the familiarity of it, and at the thought of the irony that now, in the real world, the real Sora was getting the same trophy that the fake Sora had gotten in the virtual world, a wave of nausea took her stomach and refused to leave.

"This goes to the toughest guy in Twilight Town," Seifer was saying - growling, really. Sora was still staring down at the thing like Seifer had just shown him a two-headed worm, so Seifer huffed out an impatient sigh and shoved it into the Keybearer's hand.

This seemed to rouse Sora; he blinked, shifted the trophy so it lay in the crook of one arm, pointed at himself questioningly with his free hand, and when Fuu rolled her eyes behind Seifer, simply looked more confused. "Thanks, but... we don't really need it," he answered carefully.

Seifer growled deep in his throat. "Just take the stupid thing!" he snarled, and pushed his way past Sora. The brunette stumbled, but didn't fall, just stared after the blond as his bulky and silver-haired friends followed him out of the Sandlot.

"O...kay..." Donald muttered.

"That was weird," Goofy agreed.

Char pushed her bangs out of her eyes in an attempt to clear her head and looked at the others. "Well, now what?" she asked.

Sora lifted his gaze to her and seemed ready to respond, only to be interrupted by the sound of a voice behind him. "Sora!"

The Keybearer pivoted around and spotted a dark-haired, somewhat overweight boy making his way toward him. "Uh... hey," the brunette greeted somewhat hesitantly as the other boy came to a stop in front of him, grinning like an idiot. Sora had to crane his neck to see around the massive trophy, and the other boy looked a little bemused, but thankfully he didn't ask. "Pence, right?"

Char mentally smacked her forehead and cursed the Keybearer's short-term memory loss; apparently Donald did as well, because he pushed against Sora's leg with one hand and a reprimanding expression on his feathered face.

Pence just nodded. "Hey, do you know a girl named Kairi?"

Sora almost dropped the trophy - Goofy reached over and caught it just in time - and a huge grin spread across his face. Char watched and slowly became aware of something hollow echoing inside her as his excitement permeated the air. "I sure do!" he blustered with the same moronic grin on his countenance.

"Then you'd better come to the station. The others are there." Without another word, Pence turned and jogged off in the direction of the train station.

Still smiling idiotically - _honestly, get that grin off your face; if the wind blows wrong it'll freeze like that_ - Sora turned to his companions, completely oblivious to Char's inner turmoil. "Do you think Kairi's here?" he asked, and the hope in his voice was so obvious Char suddenly wanted to cry with the force of the hollowness within her chest.

"I don't see any other way it makes sense," she muttered, looking away.

Goofy peered at her over the trophy in his grasp and opened his mouth to say something. But Sora interrupted him. "Well, what're we waiting for? To the station!" he announced, and without waiting for them to respond, he whirled around and charged off in the direction where Pence had left.

Donald gave a start and squawked out an irritated "Hey, wait up!" before following at what was, for him, a breakneck pace; Goofy cast Char a helpless glance and, running rather clumsily due to his burden, followed after his friends.

Char stood there a few more moments, during which the hollow space inside her tried to eat at her and nearly swallow her up in despondence. Roxas' words echoed in her head again. _You know he feels the same way..._

_How can he, though,_ she thought almost for the sake of arguing, _when he just _hears_ Kairi's name and then acts like _that?

Well, she _was_ his friend; Char had to expect Sora to miss Kairi in some way.

Just, she couldn't help thinking, not in the same way Char would miss Sora when this journey was over.

Char shook her head very slowly. Dammit. She hadn't gotten this deep in hopelessness in a while. That sense only served to increase when she heard voices up ahead, one hoarse and squawk-like, the other boyishly excited, and suddenly she felt loneliness accompany that hopelessness for herself.

Very slowly, feeling as though her limbs were made of lead - the fact that the damn injury, the proof of what her dedication to what this journey entailed meant to her, was acting up didn't help either - she started forward. Char knew the way to the train station by herself; she had to have some time alone to think for a little while.

* * *

Agh, that ending was bad. Way too angsty. D: I've been lauded before for not allowing Char to fall into the "sea of angst," but hey - think of it this way: if the guy you really liked - and who, really, likes you too - suddenly started spazzing out over seeing his old crush again, wouldn't YOU get a little depressed, too? -/fail justification-

Also, remember last chapter, how I said I have music I listen to for certain parts of the fic? Yeah. **Remembering Sunday** by All Time Low on super-repeat for the end of this chapter. :) It fits SoraChar really well, I swear...

Now I'm off to TRY and work on RftL...


	51. Chapter LI

AT LAST. After almost six months of sitting on my ass/finishing my junior year/suffering through the swim-coach from hell, it's finally here. Chapter 51 yays!

...that's the good news. The bad news is that not much happens in this chapter except Twilight Town gets finished up. Whoo. The better news is that all the juicy stuff is in the next chapter. I'm planning some FalCopper flashbacks, RokuAnx moments, some RiChar memories, and some long-awaited SoraChar fluff. :)

But in the meantime, you get these 13 pages to gnaw on. (Haha... 13 pages... Organization XIII... bad pun...)

_**Disclaimer-**_ I own nothing except for the four characters that are obviously not in the original games.

* * *

"Sora, wait up!"

The aforementioned brunette came to an unceremonious halt at the sound of Donald's squawk. Sora knew he was probably getting his hopes up over nothing – how could Kairi possibly have made it this far, even with the way she had drifted away from him in the End of the World, to Twilight Town? – and yet the thought of seeing her again, getting that reminder of what he was fighting for, finishing half his quest sent breathless hope thrilling through him. He waited, shifting from one foot to the other restlessly, as his two comrades caught up to him: Donald stopped on one side, panting hard due to the shortness of his legs, and Goofy came up on the other, his stride hampered slightly by the oddly-familiar trophy in his hand.

"Gawrsh, Sora," the latter grunted, looking plaintively at the Keybearer. "I know you wanna see Kairi again, but we're tired too."

Donald simply folded his arms and tapped one foot, as though his dignity was holding him back from verbally agreeing with the knight.

Sora sighed, feeling guilt roil through him: not just for the way he had recklessly rushed on ahead, but for other reasons, as well. "Sorry," he said, forcing a smile at his two longtime comrades. "Guess I got a little carried away."

"Just slow down," Donald muttered.

An almost anticipatory pause followed, a pause whose silence over the past few weeks had become filled by a sardonic feminine response. Donald glanced around at the lack of said response, his eyes now narrowed more in confusion than in annoyance. "Hey, where'd Char go?" he asked no one in particular.

Goofy shrugged helplessly, the action and the worry on his face all but obscured by his colorful burden. "I'm not sure, Donald," he said anxiously. "I guess I kinda just thought she'd follow us when we left the Sandlot, a-hyuck."

Donald huffed and began berating his comrade almost out of sheer habit, while Goofy ducked his head sheepishly in response to the mage's words, despite the glaring obviousness of the situation not being his fault. Sora, however, had all but stopped listening after Goofy had confessed he had left Char standing alone in the Sandlot. Under any other circumstance, the brunette would probably be adding his own little quips and theories as to where Char had gone, but the anomaly of the redhead's actual departure from the group's Keybearer-led path made this unlike any other circumstance. Unconsciously, Sora brought up a hand so his index finger and thumb framed his chin as he thought. The last time Char had done something like this, the snowy landscape and icy air of the Land of Dragons had surrounded the group, and she had felt such a strong reaction to Shan-Yu's return that she'd gone to the imperial city by herself to try and take him down. Even though last time she had only been with them for a few days and therefore didn't feel the degree of loyalty to them as she did now – at least, Sora hoped with a pang that she did now – the situation had still had an odd taste to it, since even then she didn't seem like the type to go back on her promises.

And that was the least of his worries. To be honest, Sora wasn't entirely sure what he would say or do if, in fact, Kairi was currently waiting for him at the train station. The thought made his fist clench slightly, but not, he hoped, enough for Donald and Goofy to notice; he did get a mildly suspicious glance from the former even as he continued to rant and a bemused look from the latter, but Sora failed to register these things.

If it turned out that Kairi was here, well… Sora let his mind roam over what would likely happen. She would turn to him, her violet eyes brightening as they always did – _had_ – when he approached; he would move toward her; and after that…

Strangely, his prediction of what might occur if he did see her standing next to the clock tower with the perennial sunset lighting her maroon hair came to a screeching halt after the mental image of her initial glance at him.

Guilt suffused him so abruptly that he drew in a sharp breath: guilt, along with the realization of why he couldn't think on the possible upcoming encounter anymore. After all, really, he had no business pretending to feel the same love for Kairi that he once had – and he knew he had, had known that practically since the day he'd left his house and spotted a lost-looking, red-haired girl wandering around the piers, almost ten years ago.

He couldn't pretend he felt the same way about her anymore, when he thought of the one he loved and automatically Char's icy eyes appeared to him instead of Kairi's sapphire.

What he couldn't understand was why and how Char had come to replace Kairi so quickly. A tiny sigh pushed its way out of him at the thought.

"Sora, are you okay?" Donald asked, breaking off in his tirade at Goofy to angle his head in order to eye the brunette worriedly; the latter mirrored the gesture.

Despite his comrades' concern, Sora felt a twinge of rather half-hearted annoyance. So much for trying to hide his emotions. "Yeah," he answered. "Just worried about Char… and Kairi." He couldn't help but feel like he had tacked Kairi's name onto the end of his words just to make himself feel better; if anything, though, it had the opposite effect of increasing his guilt more than ever.

Donald and Goofy exchanged glances, the former hindered by the height difference. However, if they had the slightest idea of why their unspoken leader was balking even in sight of reaching part of the goal he – they – had worked for for so long, they said nothing about it. Instead, the mage turned to the knight and put one hand up next to his mouth, as though readying himself to whisper something.

"Why do you think Char's gone?" Sora heard Donald mutter under his breath, and the degree of venom in the duck's voice caused the Keybearer's eyes to widen. Char and Donald had never exactly liked each other, but why did _suspicion_ lurk in Donald's words?

"I'm sure she'll be back, Donald," Goofy hissed in response, flicking an anxious glance at Sora. As Sora looked on, the feeling of distrust from last night, when the brunette was lying half-conscious in his bed after their visit to the Pride Lands – the reminder of that came in the form of a twinge of pain in his skull, which, wincing, he tried to quell by pressing a hand to his temple – returned. That feeling caused his heartbeat to accelerate even further when Donald seemed to catch Goofy's unspoken command to change the subject and turned back to Sora with a soft grumble.

"Look," Sora said a little awkwardly, at the same time trying to tell himself that he had nothing to worry about, "all we can do, really, is wait for Char to come back." At the incredulous expression that covered Donald's face upon hearing that, Sora continued, "We have to get to the station, remember? She has to know the way."

_If she was really living in the mansion, then she has to know this town. She has to._ He barely managed to ignore the voice in his head that was reminding him that he didn't know that. For perhaps the thousandth time on this journey, the thought of how little he knew about her – other than a few details of her previous life as a researcher – crossed his mind and sent the now-familiar pang of disappointment ringing throughout his whole body.

Goofy nodded; it took Donald a few seconds, during which his eyes narrowed, to do the same.

Sora smiled almost for the sake of trying to do so. "Okay then," he said. "Now…" He hesitated before putting his arms behind his head sheepishly. "Which way's the station again?"

_More short-term memory loss?_ he could almost hear Char saying. _Honestly, Key-boy, that can't be good for you._

"I think it's up the slopes in the road." Goofy pointed toward the aforementioned hills; Sora followed his gaze and, upon craning his neck slightly upward, spotted the clock tower that marked the Station Plaza's location.

"Alright then." The brunette squared his shoulders and began to make his way up the road; Donald and Goofy followed close behind. "Kairi, we're on our way," he murmured, though his thoughts had strayed to someone else entirely, much to his growing guilt. He barely restrained another sigh at the thought.

_Char… just make sure you show up._

* * *

The dying sun beat down as Char left the Sandlot behind her in favor of the streets of the Tram Common. Like the back alley, the marketplace was almost empty, which, she thought with a momentary pang of unease, seemed strange, considering that every other time she'd been here, the residents of Twilight Town had filled the streets with their presence and the low hum of activity.

Then again, she reflected dryly, that made the way she limped due to the persistent flaring of her leg much less public.

She tried not to wince at the very tangible twinge of pain that shot up her calf every time she dared put weight on the leg Hades had scarred, but the fact remained that the injury was still plaguing her. Not for the first time, she berated herself for impulsively jumping in front of the fireball that was obviously meant for Sora to take in the first place; and then, not for the first time, she had to mentally concede that she couldn't have just let Sora die. Raging hormones or not, she had made a promise to Riku to protect Sora.

Her eyes slipped shut, and she came to a halt, placing one palm on the adjacent wall to get her bearings. Belatedly, she realized her breaths were puffing out of her in heavy pants.

"Damn," she half hissed under her breath. "I must be more tired than I thought."

She opened her eyes again and cast a rudimentary glance around. No, she noted, still no people around. Instinctively, the researcher part of her mind got to work as to inferring the reason why the place was still practically empty. Maybe Vivi had scared all the townspeople off with his wails for help, or maybe… maybe the Nobodies had gotten further than the Sandlot.

_Moron. If there were more Nobodies they'd have picked you off by now,_ she reminded herself. With the knowledge of the lack of witnesses as well as the lack of enemies, she allowed her body to slacken enough to slip down the wall into a sitting position. One hand came up to run itself through her bangs as the other arm wrapped itself around her knees.

Only now did it hit her, how stupid her act of just breaking away from the group for no reason had been. A noise of frustration escaped her with the force of that realization, and although the act would have gone unseen, she fought the urge to slap her forehead nonetheless. Now Donald and Goofy's rising suspicions would be pushed even further; at this point they had to think she was secretly working for the Organization and had left Sora's group to join the Nobodies. Though that couldn't be further from the truth – the very thought sent a steady current of revulsion spiraling through her veins – her knowledge of Roxas' relation to Sora, along with the Disney residents' knowledge that she was definitely keeping some things left hidden, must have reinforced that assumption even more.

And Sora might think…

A different kind of pain from that of her leg began to dully throb in her chest at the thought of what Sora would undoubtedly think.

_Why would he care, though? _a petulant part of her mind asked suddenly. _He'll forget all about you once he sees Kairi again. _

Char uttered four choice words aloud, as though silencing her inner doubts were that simple. As it turned out, it was.

_You know he feels the same way,_ Roxas' voice echoed for what felt like the umpteenth time.

Unconsciously, the redhead groaned and pushed her forehead against her bent knees. For some reason, the desire to have Riku's turquoise eyes staring down at her when she lifted her head pulsed so powerfully within her at that moment that her fingers tightened over her knees with the force of it. _You okay there, Char?_ she could almost hear him saying. _You know talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity…_

_Which you would know all about,_ she automatically thought in response to his imaginary jab.

She lifted her head and stared out at the empty streets. The sunlight faded slightly for a few moments as a cloud passed over it; with the arrival of the cloud, the streets and shops were cast in a shadow, but as the cloud moved away from the sun, the golden glow cast upon the town returned with as much force as before. Char didn't realize it, but her features softened visibly at remembering all the times she and Riku had shared here: sitting at the clock tower eating ice cream; talking about Ansem's goals; watching Sora's memories; the occasional sparring sessions; daring to drag Namine away from her "pressing" duty of linking the chains of Sora's memory back together and take her out to the town every once in a while…

Pathetic as it was, the redhead knew that all she wanted was to go back to the simplicity of those days. Because although the memory of how her fellow apprentices had died hung constantly over her head, although the knowledge of her feelings for Riku could never fully make itself known until she was faced with the possibility of his absence, the year she had spent living here, in Twilight Town, was the closest to the way she had spent her time in Hollow Bastion before the creation of the Organization had forced her and Ansem to leave.

Char shifted and leaned back against the wall, her eyes finding the dark entrance to the train tunnels that wound their way beneath Twilight Town and Sunset Terrace. For some reason, a shiver made its way up her spine at seeing the yawning maw of Tram Common's tunnel entrance. If the Organization was really trying to sneak in Nobodies, she reasoned in an attempt to return to rationality, the tunnels were most likely the best place to do so, since almost none of the townspeople used them in favor of the trains.

Then again, though, that still didn't explain why the Nobodies had shown up in the Sandlot – out in _broad daylight_ – today. The memory of how close they had come to defeat at the hands – claws, whatever – of those brown Nobodies made her shudder. And the arrival of that Organization member hadn't made matters any better. Char searched her recollections of what she had seen of Roxas' own memories, as she, Ansem, and Riku had had to bear witness to the Key of Destiny's past before said past could be erased, to try and remember if she had seen the mysterious blue-haired stranger anywhere. Somehow, she thought he wasn't exactly the kind of presence one could easily forget.

Consequently, her mental search yielded prompt results. His name was Saïx, Organization XIII's Number VII… Char's eyes widened as something dawned upon her: if she had gone along with her fellow apprentices' exploration of the darkness, her Nobody would currently be in Saïx's position. When she thought of it that way, she really couldn't wonder why he had seemed so intrigued by her choice to follow Sora in the first place.

She tried to brush that thought aside, though it remained in her mind nonetheless and struck a chord within her every time she dared touch upon it again, and refocused on her recollections of Saïx. Roxas and Anxclof had hated the guy, the redhead remembered with the slightest hint of a smirk. In fact, if she remembered correctly, Roxas had arrived at the entrance to the castle in the World That Never Was to find that Anxclof had already thoroughly beaten the tar out of Number VII, and, therefore, had had a relatively snag-free escape.

_Anxclof. _Char's eyes narrowed, the playful amusement she had felt earlier disappearing immediately at the thought of the Blade of Vengeance. Char knew that sooner or later, she would have to confront Anxclof and convince her to leave Sora alone permanently.

_Yeah. "Convincing" is what she needed. Convincing with my swords as my scribe and her defeat as her change of mind._

Shockingly, Char found a powerful sense of preparation within her at the thought of the inevitability of the battle with Anxclof. Beneath that preparation was something else, though, something she had to dig deeper to understand; when the underlying emotion became clear to her, though, the resulting shock that surged throughout her body pulled a small gasp out of her.

It was the notion that if and when the time came, she would die to keep Sora safe if she had to.

Abruptly, she got to her feet, ignoring the pain that flared in her leg as a result. She had drowned in her thoughts here for long enough. If she was gone any longer, well… The knowledge of her allies' suspicion of her went through her again, along with that infuriating guilt.

As she turned on her heel and made her way toward the Station Heights, she knew she couldn't take much more mistrust. She would have to tell them sometime soon about her true connection to the Organization, and the reason behind why she had made that seemingly-odd request to accompany them that day in the mansion.

_If they don't pull it out of me first._

* * *

Still no Char, Sora noted with a twinge of growing alarm as he and the others halted in front of the station doors. He stared through the glass to the colorful trains waiting within and tried to quell his rising anxiety. No Kairi, either, he realized. His fist clenched; this time, things had seemed so certain…

"No Kairi," he murmured aloud.

Donald and Goofy must have heard him, for the latter's voice sounded behind Sora and made him turn and glance up at his allies. "Well, Sora," the dog said hesitantly, putting down the Struggle trophy to reveal an expression of exhaustion from carrying the trophy so far, "Pence never said Kairi was here in Twilight Town…"

"But how else would he know who she was?" Sora sighed.

Donald glanced from one of his companions to the other, sympathy overcoming the irritation from earlier; he probably figured that the random disappearance of the girl who had become one of his best friends, combined with the demise of his hope of being able to see Kairi again, had to take its toll on their leader. "Sora…" he began, only to let out a sound of surprise as the sound of even footsteps became known to them.

As one, the trio turned to the source of the sound; relief washed over Sora and left him near breathless as the light caught off dark red hair and Char passed under the arch that signified the entrance to the station plaza. She came to a stop in front of them and cocked an eyebrow, looking for all the world like she'd just left to buy some Potions or something equally innocuous – _not _at all_ like she just up and ran off for no reason,_ Sora thought dryly.

"The hell's wrong with you guys?" she queried, putting one hand on her hip. "You look like you just saw an Organization member hug Sora."

Sora almost laughed, but restrained himself in time. He chose instead to give her an apprehensive look, one that didn't totally belie what he felt. Donald and Goofy's suspicious comments toward her echoed in his mind again, and a thrill of anxiety ran through his body as he realized they might just have a valid point.

"Where in the name of the worlds have you been?" Donald spoke up, glowering in her direction.

Char huffed and rolled her eyes; but Sora knew her well enough to detect the shadow that flitted across her face. "I had some thinking to do – something _you_ guys may or may not be familiar with," she answered tartly. "Anyway, so I thought… you said Kairi was supposed to be here?" Maybe it was his imagination, but her voice seemed to stumble a bit over Kairi's name.

With some effort, Sora pushed his apprehension aside. "I don't know what happened," he said, trying to smile. "Maybe –"

"He-ey!" Whatever attempt at a hypothesis had been percolating at the tip of his tongue vanished as Hayner's voice rang through the air. Sora looked over and spotted Hayner, Pence, and Olette running toward them; Pence looked a little winded – he'd probably run from here to the Usual Spot and back again – but Hayner and Olette had distinctively pensive expressions on their faces.

The three halted near Sora and his friends. "Long time no see," Sora greeted, lifting one hand in a wave. To his surprise, none of them returned the gesture, and he decided to drop it in favor of getting straight to the point. "So, um, how do you guys know Kairi?" he asked, speaking quickly to lessen the pain of her absence.

Hayner started a little, then exchanged a nervous – Sora had to do a double take; he barely knew the wild-haired boy, but he did know enough to realize that _nervousness _and _Hayner_ did not mix – glance with Olette. The brown-haired girl nodded, though she seemed to share his tentativeness; Hayner looked back at Sora briefly before staring at the ground.

"Well… a few days ago, Pence, Olette, and I were sitting at the Usual Spot, eating ice cream like always," he began. Sora heard a snort behind him and turned to give Char a hard stare; she muttered something that sounded distinctively like "too much damn ice cream around here," but otherwise heeded Sora's tacit command for silence on her part.

If Hayner noticed Char's unceremonious interruption, he chose to ignore it; he just continued, his green eyes wide, as though even the memory of what he was about to relate still bemused him. "And then this dark hole opened up in the wall and this red-haired girl and a dog tumbled out." A smirk twitched at the corner of his lips, and he jerked a thumb toward Pence. "Pence here almost wet his pants, he was so freaked out."

"Did not!" Pence protested.

Hayner simply grinned; however, when he turned back to Sora, his serious expression had returned. "Anyway, yeah, when she woke up, she told us her name was Kairi."

"No way," Sora gaped. He couldn't help but wonder if this was the first new world she had been to since he had last seen her during the collapse of the End of the World. He could still hear her voice affirming her faith in him, could still feel her hand slipping away as they drifted apart, and felt a tightening in his heart. "Kairi… Kairi was really here?" he murmured to himself.

Hayner nodded. "Yeah. And… she said she was looking for you."

Sora gave a start and jerked his head up to stare right at Hayner; he was aware of the other boy's growing discomfort, but if Kairi had been so close, he had to know what had changed that. "Tell me where she is!" he begged.

"Well…" Hayner stared at a fixed point somewhere near Char's shoes.

* * *

"_What a romantic story!" Olette sighed as Kairi finished her tale. The redhead gave a helpless smile in response._

_"I'm sure if you stick around, Sora's bound to show up," Pence added, trying to assure Kairi. _

_"Yeah, he said he's coming back," Hayner said. The yellow-furred dog sitting at Kairi's side gave a happy bark, as if to agree._

_"Thank goodness," Kairi murmured, looking down at her clasped hands in her lap. _

_"What took you so long, Kairi?" The sound of the voice – almost a purr, really – made them all start in surprise. A dark flash caught Hayner's eye, and he looked over just in time to see the familiar "hole in the wall" from earlier make its appearance. Out of the portal stepped a tall, slender man with spiky red hair and glittering green eyes. "Somehow, I just knew you'd be here," the man continued in the same silky tone; yet a snarl seemed to lurk within those dulcet tones._

_"Do you know this guy, Kairi?" Hayner demanded, glancing over to the girl. She only nodded, her violet eyes wide with fear as she stared at the man. _

_"I didn't think he'd come back for me," she gulped._

_"I tell you, Kairi," the man went on, his dark cloak – _who the heck wears a black coat when it's this hot out? _Hayner wondered fleetingly – sweeping over the ground as he stepped closer. Immediately, the dog leaped to his paws and bared his teeth, while Hayner and Pence stepped protectively in front of Kairi and Olette. "You've got a lot of guts – jumping straight into the darkness like that."_

_He moved forward. Hayner and Pence charged toward him, but with a few twists of his body, the stranger easily dodged the two boys; they tumbled into an undignified heap against the wall, and Hayner raised his head just in time to see the man latch his hand around Kairi's arm. He tried to leap to his feet, but pain flared throughout his entire body and he was forced to lie still where he was. He and Pence must have hit the wall harder than they'd thought, he realized with a surge of anger. _

_Olette reached out a hand to try and apprehend the strange man, but he ignored her in favor of pulling Kairi toward him. "Hate to interrupt you guys, but I need Kairi for a bit."_

_"Let me go!" Kairi demanded, struggling valiantly and glaring into those acid green eyes._

_The man's urbane façade seemed to falter for the briefest of moments as violet glowered defiantly into emerald; but it passed as abruptly as it had come, and instead the man threw back his head of crimson spikes and laughed. "Oh, Kairi," he chortled. "You remind me so much of her, you know that?"_

_And with that, he dragged her toward the portal and vanished into its swirling center of violet shadows. With a bark, the dog had followed after them, his tail disappearing into the darkness just before it closed._

* * *

By the time Hayner finished his tale, Pence and Olette had each picked spots on the ground to stare at in lieu of meeting Sora's eyes. "We didn't know what to do," Pence said with a sigh. "That guy just…"

"He was too strong," Hayner muttered, glaring at the ground.

Sora had listened to the account with a gradually sinking heart; now despair threatened to swallow him whole. Beneath that despair was the thought that whoever had kidnapped her would feel his Keyblade before long; however, the despondent feeling within him pulled him under. Coupled with what that blue-haired Nobody had said about "not wanting to end up like Riku," what happened to Kairi took hold of his emotions and wouldn't let go.

Instinctively, he fished around inside his pocket for the lucky charm Kairi had given him. He thought he felt something else inside his pocket, something whose tangibility resembled that of a Keychain; it should have alarmed him, since he kept his Keychains in his other pocket, but then his hand found the familiar star-shaped charm. He pulled it out into the open, and he stared helplessly at the crudely-drawn face on it, as though by feeling its shape in his hand, the sorrow within him would be vanquished by the hope that the sight and feel of the charm had always given him – the hope that his friends were indeed waiting for him, that this shadowed path would eventually end.

That hope didn't come.

"Kairi…" he breathed out.

Behind him, Char watched the Keybearer and felt her breath catch. The desire from earlier – to grab him and embrace him the way he had done to her so many times already – returned with more force than before and threatened to push her muscles into heeding that desire. Yet something else held her back: the ever-present knowledge that he didn't need her twisting his moral compass in a different direction, and she didn't need him quelling her need for revenge on the Organization.

Trying to stave off that irrational impulse, she thought back to what Hayner had said. Her eyes narrowed. Spiky red hair, cat-green eyes… it had to have been Axel. She wondered why exactly he would go to the trouble of kidnapping Kairi.

_Isn't it obvious?_ a voice in her head snorted derisively. _He's trying to lure Sora to him, so he can get Roxas back. It's like what Anxclof did at Beast's Castle, only… not quite so direct._

Char pushed her bangs out of her eyes, catching a glimpse of Sora pocketing the charm and hearing the sound of Goofy's voice whispering something to Donald. However, the latter went all but unnoticed due to her state of contemplation.

Axel's comment to Kairi about _"her"_ was all too transparent – to Char, at least. She knew he had to be talking about Anxclof, which had a bitter taste of irony to it, because Anxclof and Kairi had next to nothing in common.

Fast on the heels of the thought of Anxclof came the epiphany Char had had while sitting in the Tram Common, though. So she didn't dare dwell on the female Nobody for much longer.

"Sorry," Hayner said with a contrite shrug.

"Hey, no, it's okay," Sora hastily tried to amend. When the other boy continued to hang his head, the brunette held out his hands in a placating gesture. "C'mon, it's not your fault. Cheer up!" He dropped his hands back down to his pants with an audible sound and sighed. "Like I can even say _that…"_

Goofy craned his neck around the trophy he had picked up during Hayner's story to look at Sora properly and opened his mouth to try and reassure him, only to leap up and almost fall backward when Sora jerked his head up, new determination in his voice. "I gotta help Kairi!" he cried.

The trophy fell to the ground, causing the orbs that had previously taken up residence at the tips of its branches to lose their grips and roll in different directions. Hayner, Pence, and Olette managed to halt the paths of the red, green, and gold orbs. "That was close," Pence panted, looking up from his kneeling position.

Char looked down at her feet, feeling a sense of nostalgia wash over her, along with a sense that something – _Roxas_ – was missing from this scene. Sure enough, she saw the light glint off the pale blue orb that remained.

She bent down and picked up the orb, staring at it for a few moments, thinking on what its virtual counterpart represented. In her mind's eye, she could see herself and Riku in the basement, watching the virtual Hayner, Pence, and Olette at the top of the clock tower, a stick of that infernal ice cream in one hand and a respectively-colored orb in the other, all raising up said orbs so they caught the light of the sun. And at the end of the line of friends sat Roxas, a reflective look in his eyes as cerulean stared at a paler blue.

A flicker of movement caught her eye, and she glanced up to see Sora looking around the plaza. Belatedly, she realized he was searching for the orb she currently held in her hand. "Sora," she called, and when he looked down at her, she tossed the blue orb up to him, without much more warning than his name.

To his credit, Sora caught it fairly deftly in one hand. As Char got to her feet, Sora brought up the orb, straightening his arm, so it caught the light of the sun. Goofy fished around in his pocket briefly before finding the counterpart from the virtual Twilight Town and copying Sora's gesture; Char looked on, her stomach knotting, as, probably without entirely knowing why, the group of friends from Twilight Town did the same with their respective orbs.

As she stood there, she could have sworn she saw Roxas' form replace Sora's.

Sora stood entranced by the light on the orb; the reason why escaped him entirely, but something in the back of his mind nagged at him. He thought he heard a voice whispering something to him, and in his mind's eye he saw Roxas' honey-colored spikes being gently pulled by the wind. Alarm and anticipation shot through Sora's entire body, and he reached for that image, wanting to know Roxas' true relation to him –

"Sora! Sora, are you okay?"

"Huh?" Sora jolted and lowered his hand, looking around at his comrades. Donald folded his arms and tapped his foot, staring impatiently at the brunette, while Goofy, who had spoken, eyed him with obvious concern. Only Char seemed to have shared the trance that had overtaken Sora, and the sound of Goofy's voice had broken her out of it as well; she shook her head and tore her eyes away from the Keybearer.

_Wait… why was she…?_

The thought cut itself off when light flashed at the edges of his periphery. Sora looked down and saw the light originated from the orb. It lifted high up into the air, and he summoned the Circle of Life into his hand to open the gate to more worlds.

_More worlds… _He lowered the Keyblade as the light faded and the orb dropped back into his free hand; staring at it, he wondered how many more worlds he would have to explore before his journey ended.

"Uh… what just happened?" Pence's voice made Sora turn to the dark-haired boy, whose brown eyes were wide with bemusement.

Sora looked around at the three friends and was struck by their similarity to his own trinity: two boys and a girl. For some reason, his heart clenched in a way that thoroughly resembled what he had felt just before those tears had escaped him, the last time he'd had to leave Twilight Town. Frustratingly, just like before, he still couldn't understand why.

"A new road has opened," he answered, clenching his fist around the orb and bringing it closer to his side. "And Riku and Kairi are waiting somewhere along it."

Hayner, Pence, and Olette exchanged a glance before returning their gazes to the Keybearer. "You'd better hurry, then," Olette said.

"You coming back?" Hayner asked.

Char folded her arms. "Of course," she replied with a hint of a sigh embedded in her voice. Sora's whims were independent of the capricious nature of her nostalgia, after all. She held back an irritated growl at the thought. _The instant I get over being weepy over Hollow Bastion, Twilight Town makes me feel the same way. Fantastic._

"Yeah," Sora added. "It's a promise."

Donald and Goofy seconded it with their own nods.

Hayner grinned and came closer. "Good to know," he said. "When you find Kairi, give that guy who took her a good punch in the gut for me."

Sora laughed, amused despite himself. "Okay, got it." He turned to his allies. "We should get back to the ship."

"Duly noted." Without waiting for a response, Char set off at a brisk pace toward the exit to the station.

"Hey, wait for us!" Donald squawked indignantly, dashing after her.

Goofy shot the Twilight Town natives an apologetic glance. "Uh, well, see ya later, guys!" he called as he followed his comrades at a steady pace, catching up easily to Donald due to his longer legs.

Sora watched them with both fading amusement and waxing melancholia: amusement because of their typical behavior, and melancholia because the memory of the distrust between them – a distrust whose reason they seemed content to keep a secret from him – had returned at the sight of their interaction.

"Sora, are you okay?" Olette asked, tilting her head to get a better look at his face.

With a start, Sora looked over at her and saw obvious concern on her face. "Uh, yeah," he stammered hastily. "Just…" He hesitated, feeling the sudden urge to remain there a bit longer washing over him. "Just look after yourselves, all right?"

"Hey, who d'you think you're talking to?" Hayner queried, a note of teasing belligerence in his tone.

Sora grinned. "Just saying." He looked out at the sunset that permanently covered the sky. The way the blue orb had glittered as the sun's rays had made contact with it came into his mind, and he found himself reaching back into his pocket and raising it back up to the sun. The half-formed hope that the feeling of nostalgia – of _Roxas_ – from before would return faded when said nostalgia failed to make itself known.

Pence spoke then, his voice so soft that Sora could barely hear it. "Feels familiar, doesn't it?" he murmured, and Sora looked over to see that the dark-haired boy had gotten out his own, green orb and was staring at it.

Hayner and Olette nodded, expressions of dawning realizations – and the frustration of not knowing the reason behind that feeling – appearing on their countenances.

"Sora, get over here or we're leaving you!" Char shouted from halfway down the slope.

With a start, Sora spotted her standing under the arch with folded arms and an annoyed expression, Donald and Goofy behind her. "Sorry," he called back, "I'm coming." He pocketed the orb and ran toward the group, not daring to pause to think on what else he could say to Hayner and the others.

The brunette came to a stumbling stop next to his comrades and leaned down to place his hands on his knees as he caught his breath, unexpectedly exhausted from the short run. "Sorry," he repeated breathlessly. "I-I just… I felt like I should talk to them for a little longer."

_More like _Roxas_ felt like it. _Char left that thought unspoken and simply rolled her eyes. "It's fine. We couldn't leave you behind anyway."

Sora lifted his head and eyed her for a few moments, his eyebrows slowly rising into his hairline at the way she had included herself. The redhead seemed to realize the possible misinterpretation of her statement and hastened to amend any possible error. "W-well, you _are_ the Keybearer, after all, and I said I'd follow you, and – would you wipe that stupid grin off your face?" she suddenly hissed at Donald, who was smirking at the flustered tone to her voice.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the duck said loftily, turning away. "Don't we have a Gummi ship to get back to?"

Char knew he was right, but expressed that agreement only with a grudging snort. "Whatever," she muttered, hating the way heat rushed to her face at feeling Sora's eyes still on her.

Sora couldn't help but roll his eyes; all the same, he got to his feet. "Donald's right. Riku and Kairi could be waiting for us right now."

"And the King, too," Goofy reminded them.

* * *

They ascended the ramp and stepped into the interior of the ship. As the ramp closed to become part of the Gummi ship again with a hiss, Sora allowed his eyes to adjust to the sudden change in brightness before crossing the room and slumping into the pilot's chair. "First the King, then Riku, and now I've lost Kairi again, too," he sighed.

"Don't be sad," Donald encouraged, hopping into the chair next to Sora.

"Donald's right, y'know. Why, you're the key that connects everything!" Goofy quipped as he moved into the chair on Sora's other side. Looking on, Char couldn't help but think that they were trying just a bit too hard; it showed on their faces: their strained expressions revealed their own doubts.

She narrowed her eyes as Donald's head swiveled around to face her, his dark eyes glaring at hers almost incriminatingly. He probably expected her to add in a few reassurances of her own, she realized with a mixture of both annoyance and desolation: annoyance due to the futility of trying to give Sora a pep talk at the moment, and desolation due to knowing the full extent of how despondent he felt.

"So that means it's _my_ fault," Sora groaned, dropping his face into his hands.

Char raised an eyebrow. "Don't be stupid," she growled, causing Goofy and Sora to glance in her direction and Donald to replace his previous irritated expression with a surprised one. "All he means is that everything goes back to you, so odds are they'll show up eventually, right?"

Sora stared at her for a few moments, during which she evenly maintained eye contact with him, much to her own amazement. Then her words seemed to sink in and he gave a smile, albeit a somewhat-weak one. "Yeah, you're right."

Char folded her arms and returned his smile with her own smirk. "I do try," she answered loftily. From next to Sora, Donald snorted and muttered something under his breath, earning a fresh glower from the redhead.

"Char's right, too," Goofy said. "Just do what comes natural to ya and we're sure to find 'em." Over the brunette's spiky head, the dog gave Char a grateful nod; she merely shrugged in response, knowing she hadn't even meant to try to encourage Sora in the first place.

"Yeah, you said it," Donald grumbled after a moment, a moment that he'd clearly spent debating the merits of agreeing with Char, however indirectly. Char nearly snorted aloud at that; the heaviness of the distrust he felt toward her at the moment could have choked a whale. At the same time, though, a quiver of unease went through her at wondering whether or not Sora would notice Donald's obvious newfound rancor toward her.

Thankfully, Sora either didn't notice or didn't care. He chose instead to nod, the feeble smile from earlier strengthening. "Thanks, guys," he murmured. Abruptly, he stood and stretched, moving his arms high above his head and intertwining his fingers where they met in the middle. "I'm going to go sit in my room for a little bit."

"Do you want me to cast a healing spell for your headache?" Donald asked, already lifting his staff to accomplish that.

Sora shook his head as he lowered his arms, only to wince visibly at the tangible twinge that went through his skull almost in defiance of his refusal. "On second thought, that might be a good idea," he laughed, a little sheepishly.

Donald rolled his eyes, but nevertheless, he summoned forth the telltale glow of the Cura spell. Watching, Char couldn't help but feel a bittersweet pang at the irony: the very weapon that had caused Sora this pain was now serving to palliate it. She supposed it all depended on the will of the user.

Almost the instant the emerald light surrounding the crimson staff's tip vanished, Sora turned away and started down the hallway. The sound of his shoes echoing against the tile echoed rather loudly against the silence that had overtaken his three companions; as a result, the sound of the door closing behind him, however gentle it had been, coaxed a cringe out of even Char.

She turned to Donald and Goofy and opened her mouth to speak, but the latter beat her to it. "D'you think he's gonna be okay?" the knight asked, looking worriedly in the direction of Sora's room.

Char raised and lowered one shoulder. "His headache should pass," she remarked, though knowing full well that that wasn't what Goofy was referring to. For some reason, it seemed like if she chose to fully confront the reason why Sora felt so much ineffable sorrow over getting so close to Kairi, only to lose her again, it would hurt even more than it already did.

"Not that," Donald growled. "Kairi and Riku." The redhead looked on, slight surprise overtaking her self-deprecation, as the duck's face actually _softened. _"Riku was his best friend. And Kairi…"

Oddly, he trailed off at that, only giving Char a glance before staring down at the floor.

Under any other circumstances, Char would have taken advantage of Donald's rare moment of vulnerability to deliver some relentless teasing. But these weren't any other circumstances: when even _Sora_ felt some degree of despair, something had to be wrong. She snorted mentally at that thought, but kept it to herself. Instead, she remained silent.

"So… should we go ahead and depart?" she asked awkwardly, trying to change the subject. Only with the verbal utterance of her question did she realize the validity of it: they had spent the past few minutes just sitting in the back alley of Twilight Town, letting the Gummi ship's eye-burning glory be revealed to everyone around. Lack of citizens or not, odds were that Hayner and the others had to reach the Usual Spot through here and, therefore, had to spot the vessel. Under Donald's standards, this had to be qualified as at least _some _kind of "meddling."

The mage clearly had the same thoughts, for realization crossed his face before fading in favor of contemplation. "Yeah, I think so," he agreed at last, and Char had to do a double take at the fact that he was willingly agreeing with her. "Go tell Sora we're going to be leaving Twilight Town soon."

_That_ made Char's eyes widen; she hesitated for a few moments, thinking, _hoping_ that Donald was addressing Goofy and not her, but no, the knight was staring expectantly at her as well. The thought of how idiotic she must seem right now dawned upon her, and she blinked a couple of times before replying. "H-he's not driving the ship, is he?" she stammered, hating the heat that had taken up residence – as it tended to do so infuriatingly often nowadays – on her face and the flustered way her heart was frantically beating. It was an idiotic question, but the first thing she could think of to say _other_ than the incredibly-bratty-sounding _why _me?

Donald shook his head. "Not the way he's feeling right now. I'll do it."

Char narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. "Do you have any idea how far up you're gonna have to scoot up the seat in order to –"

An indignant squawk cut her off. "I'm still a better driver than you," Donald began to rant, "and furthermore, at least I can land us on the right stupid world and –"

_And that's about as much as I can take. _Char turned on her heel and set off down the hallway to the door at the end, the duck's angry shouting fading to a dull buzz behind her in the wake of her thoughts.

* * *

You know what I find really funny? About ninety percent of this fandom hates OCs with the passion of a thousand suns, and yet Kingdom Hearts is, essentially, a Disney/Final Fantasy crossover with OCs as the main characters.

What do you guys think?


	52. Chapter LII

I was planning on waiting until FFN stopped screwing up to post this, but I figured I may as well do it now. I'm getting my wisdom teeth out next week, so I won't have much time for writing for a little while.

Okay, I'm just gonna warn you all right now: This chapter is LONG, and excessive portions of it take place in the past. So, to avoid burning all of your eyes with excessive italics, I'm putting most of it in normal text. Hopefully you can tell by this point what parts take place in the past or not, because despite my tendency to swap to present tense during flashbacks it's still obvious it is, in fact, in the past. If that makes any sense at all. -sweatdrop-

Moving right along... Despite this chapter seeming like a filler (which it sort of is, ehehe), I manage to cram a bunch of stuff into it. The FalCopper storyline finally finishes up, and we get some SoraChar pseudo-fluff. Oh, and they get to Hollow Bastion at the very end. Told you it was a filler.

_**Disclaimer-**_ I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

Almost the instant the door closed behind him, Sora crossed the room and sat down on the bed, resisting the urge to flop down on it and give in to his despair. Strangely, it felt like to even do that much would be acknowledging how hopeless the situation had become; even though he understood that hopelessness all too well at this point, something within him – the perseverance that had gotten him this far already – was prodding him to keep going despite the setback, to not give up.

He sighed and found himself staring at the limited view of Twilight Town offered by the window in his room. The sight of the orange brick of the buildings that made up the back alley's perimeter should have reassured him, but any hope of that reassurance died off instantly when he remembered he didn't know _why_ this world brought him so much comfort.

A soft murmuring noise came to his attention, and he turned toward the door, dully noting the conversation that was going on just beyond. He could hear Donald's telltale hoarse squawk, along with the feminine timbre he had come to know as Char's own voice, although the latter differed drastically from its ordinary tone in that it had become softer, filled with uncertainty. Unconsciously, Sora's shoulders tensed at hearing the lack of confidence in her voice; when even Char was faltering, something had to be off.

The soft, albeit half-hearted smile that had come on the heels of that thought faded slightly as Sora recalled the way she had acted all day: strangely absent-minded, staring at the twilit sky but not really absorbing the beauty of the dying sun tinting the clouds red and gold… The way she had just gone off by herself without consulting any of them alarmed him most of all. Somehow, he couldn't just chalk it up to her feeling a bit nostalgic for the place she had obviously been living in up until she met him: it must have gone deeper than that, otherwise she would never have left in the first place, her promise to follow him notwithstanding.

He surfaced from his thoughts just in time to catch the sound of a sharp rapping against the door; the sound sent a chill of unexpected dread throughout his body. Guilt followed that up – after all, why should he feel dread at hearing one of his friends at the door?

_Maybe because none of them trust each other? And it's obvious they're keeping secrets from you?_

With some effort, he pushed those suspicion-filled thoughts aside and opened his mouth to give whoever was at the door permission to enter, only to close it with a soft murmur of surprise when a distinctly female voice sounded through the door's barrier.

"Hey, Key-boy, it's me. Can I come in?"

_Char._ Sora let out a breath – why had he been holding it, anyway? – and nodded before remembering belatedly that she couldn't see the gesture. "Uh, yeah, sure," he called hastily. "Door's open."

A moment passed, during which he could have sworn he heard a soft sigh; then the knob turned and the door swung open with an audible squeak. Char stood there with one hand still on the doorknob, frowned at the offending noise of the door opening, muttered something about needing to oil the hinges, and swept into the room.

"Dunno if you heard it already," she said briskly, "but we're leaving Twilight Town in a few minutes. So… yeah, get ready, I guess." She finished her sentence a little more quietly than the rest of her words and stared down at the floor. Sora blinked as he realized she didn't quite know what to say.

Knowing she was waiting for a response, he gave a single nod of acquiescence. "Okay, that's fine. The sooner we get going to find Riku and Kairi, the better," he added for good measure. Unfortunately, however, the attempt to encourage himself and remind himself of what hopefully awaited him at his journey's end only served to remind him of everything he had lost since that fateful storm had stricken Destiny Island. He lowered his head to copy Char's gesture of focusing on the ground, suddenly at a loss for words.

Char raised her head, causing the brunette to look up upon detecting her shift of movement. She looked as if she were about to say something else, but ended up only giving her head a slight shake and pushing a strand of hair out of her face. "Yeah, you're right. I'll go tell Donald we're ready so he can take off."

Despite himself, Sora tilted his head to the side in confusion. Donald hadn't driven the Gummi ship since the early days of his last quest. "Donald's driving?" he couldn't help asking.

Char snorted aloud, folding her arms across her chest. "Yeah, seriously. I had the exact same reaction. Like, can he even reach the steering wheel from where you've set the pilot seat?"

"He could do it on our last journey," Sora pointed out, fighting the urge to laugh in lieu of standing up for his friend.

A small smile appeared on Char's countenance. "Yeah, I'm guessing the idea of having a fourteen-year-old boy driving their King's prized vessel around didn't sit too well with duck boy." Without warning, she stepped closer and situated herself on the bed next to Sora; the Keybearer barely held back a start of surprise at how abruptly close she was. If he wanted, he probably could have reached out and…

And he was _not_ going to finish that thought.

"How _were_ the good old days, anyway?" she asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.

Sora told himself she wasn't trying to pry; however, at the same time, a very small part of him was dubbing Char a hypocrite for her tendency to keep secrets from the group and then promptly want to know more about them. He shrugged. "Not much different from now, to be honest." Hesitation filled him for the briefest of moments as he wondered whether or not to divulge what he wanted to say next, but the inquiring expression on Char's face seemed to gently nudge him into doing so. "I was way more homesick then, though," he admitted, his gaze finding the floor again. How had the pumpkin mask gotten down there, anyway?

He could feel her own eyes on him and didn't dare look up to see what emotion his words had pulled from her. Contempt? Annoyance?

Char didn't realize it, but her features softened in sympathy at Sora's confession. The memory of the way she had acted at the beginning of this journey – hell, still _was,_ if she wanted to be perfectly honest with herself – came back into her mind: constantly thinking about and coveting Riku and the days she had spent with him; remembering Hollow Bastion and her life there, before her fellow apprentices' betrayal of her and Ansem to darkness had sent her world spiraling in a large-scale caricature of someone throwing a die. She would have to be stupid not to think that the same feelings had plagued Sora at waking up in Traverse Town and realizing that yes, this was indeed _not_ his island, and he was probably going to have to go through hell and back before he returned safe and sound.

Sora continued staring at the mask on the floor as he went on, suddenly feeling the urge to tell Char more despite his previous disinclination. "I missed sparring with Riku every day and coming home to my mom's cooking," he confessed. "Every once in a while I'd stay up late at night thinking about Tidus and Selphie and Wakka and everyone else, and whether or not they were still okay after…" His voice caught at remembering that night: the fearful way his heart had pounded at leaving his house and finding the storm that was plaguing Destiny Island was entirely a different kind of hurricane; then finding Kairi in the secret place only to have her literally slip through his fingers.

He was speaking so softly that Char had to strain to hear him, but when she caught his words, she felt the flame of sympathy growing within her intensify into a steady rush of heat. "After the darkness came?" she quipped before she could stop herself, and then immediately wanted to clap a hand over her mouth for giving _more_ evidence that she knew things she shouldn't have about Sora. If Donald and Goofy were in the room – which, she found herself thanking the gods for, they weren't – their suspicions would have flared up instantly.

To her intense relief, however, Sora didn't seem to have noticed her slip-up. "Yeah," he murmured. He steeled himself and raised his head to meet her eyes; to his surprise, he saw not the caustic contempt he had expected her to express at hearing what should have seemed, to her, like a maudlin, pathetic stream of whining, but… _empathy._ Almost as though she could relate to the homesickness he had felt a year ago, and, if he wanted to be honest with himself, still shadowed him even now.

Abruptly, trying to change the subject, he asked, "Do you ever miss Hollow Bastion?"

_Well, _that_ was a stupid question,_ he thought with a cringe. _It's not like she never sees it anymore or anything._

His words had about the reaction he had expected: she drew back very slightly, blinking a couple of times, an expression of bemusement covering her face before being replaced by a mildly wary one. "Sometimes, yeah, I do," she answered, not taking that guarded look off her face. Even Sora could tell what was going on: the walls had gone up again, and he wanted to smack himself for facilitating that process, the process whose inevitability he had known practically from the moment she had walked in and let him ramble on about his home.

To his frustration, she gave no response other than those four terse words. "Um, well, what was life as a researcher like?" he tried, feeling his spine prickle at the way he was obviously pushing his way into matters that didn't concern him.

Char shrugged, but a smile had made its tenacious way past her defenses onto her face. "Hard, mostly. We had assignments almost every single day, but thankfully they were almost all partner projects, so it wasn't like An –" She halted abruptly, and Sora tilted his head to the side at the way she hesitated before correcting herself. "– _Master_ was just throwing assignments at us and then expecting us to do them alone."

She directed her eyes at the floor – why the hell hadn't Key-boy bothered putting up the mask that comprised part of his Halloween Town outfit? – and felt her heartbeat spike with the force of her fervent hope that he wouldn't ask about how she'd almost uttered Ansem's name. Sora and the others still thought the real Ansem took the form of that gray-haired bastard Xehanort's Heartless, after all.

_But what's wrong with telling Sora even that much?_ a traitorous, completely and utterly random voice in the back of her mind asked, very seriously. _He's just about figured out that Roxas is his Nobody already, hasn't he? He deserves to know the rest of the truth._

Char furrowed her brow, trying to tell the voice to mind its own damn business and leave her alone already – but then Sora's voice cut into her thoughts and effectively tore her out of her attempt to quell her own annoying doubts.

"And that was why Yuffie and the others had never seen you before when we first got to Hollow Bastion?" he inquired.

Char breathed a quick sigh of relief through her nose. The question seemed harmless enough, thank the gods. "It'd probably explain it, yes," she confirmed, pushing her bangs out of her eyes as she glanced back up to Sora's face, feeling safe to make eye contact at this point.

However, she was _not_ prepared for the look of innocent curiosity on his countenance and in his wide sapphire eyes. For some reason, the breath caught in her throat at the deceptive naïveté she found in his gaze; and the heat that oozed into her cheeks completed the reaction at the way he'd taken her off guard. As she stared unashamedly at him, for once completely at a loss for words, it occurred to her vaguely that the look on his face was almost tender.

She had to stop thinking these thoughts. _Now._ She couldn't afford to give him any room to dwell on his desire to know more about her past when he still had yet to fulfill the purpose she and Ansem had wanted to use him for in the first place: destroying the Organization.

_Not to mention that Kairi's still waiting for him. _At that thought, the mental image of Sora's best friend – standing at Destiny Island's shores, smiling breathlessly and waving as the brunette rushed to meet her embrace – played out through Char's mind; and suddenly, she had to fight the heat of the tears that were building at the back of her eyes, especially when the scenario of the end of Sora's journey completed itself with Kairi throwing herself into Sora's arms. The fact that Riku was smirking in the background of Char's vision didn't help matters, as it only served to remind her that Riku was also a victim of the idiotic, illogical notion known as unrequited feelings.

Stupid hormones, she thought irritably.

Sora appraised her cautiously; he contemplated asking an obligatory question as to whether or not she was okay – that expression of nervousness hadn't appeared on her face for a while, after all, though he couldn't fathom why she should feel nervous in front of him – but then thought better of it. The way she tore her eyes away after a scant few moments of eye contact and the silence that permeated the air told him that further prying was the last thing she wanted.

He tamped down the frustration – and pain – rising within him at her stubborn determination to keep her secrets and chose, in an attempt at optimism, to dwell on what he _did_ know about her. _Well, _he mused, _she used to do research in Hollow Bastion with six other apprentices under a master – _whose name he still didn't know –_ they went to other worlds _– he still couldn't understand how they'd done it without a Gummi ship – _no one in Hollow Bastion knew they existed because they were either cooped up all the time or were at other worlds too much _– the previous thought rang throughout his head again –_ she used to have a pet Heartless… _Upon reaching that final fact, he instinctively cringed. Thinking of the slightest insinuation of that last idea still made Sora feel as though someone were ruffling his hair the wrong way; _pet _and _Heartless_ shouldn't even go into the same dictionary, as far as he was concerned. Then again, though, he may have been just a tiny bit biased, due to the complication that Heartless were chasing him and trying to kill him at every turn. And Char had managed to tame one, however in the worlds she had done it.

Having gotten that mental tangent out of the way, he resumed counting off what else he knew about her past. _The six other apprentices are gone now…_

A frown creased his brow, and he unconsciously tilted his head to the side as he thought. Now that he was taking the time to properly think about it, it hit him that he still didn't know how the other six who had lived and worked alongside Char in the past had disappeared – or how she had ended up in Twilight Town, for that matter. The cautious curiosity that had nudged him into bringing up her past in the first place now took a much more forceful presence in the back of his mind, threatening to push its way past its boundaries – past what Char had deemed appropriate. He tried to shove it aside, telling it that she had set her boundaries for a reason – and then felt an irrational surge of defiance toward his own hesitation. _Char's kept these things in the dark for long enough. I can't reach her if I let her keep her entire life a secret._

He opened his mouth to make his inquiry as to her friends' fates, and Char lifted her head to reestablish eye contact at catching his movement. Though the smallest shadow of her previous nervousness remained, it had been replaced for the most part by the same defiance that he had felt upon deciding to forsake his tentativeness and keep prying. Inwardly, Sora smiled; clearly, she had decided to push her own anxiety aside in favor of her typical pride.

"Char," he got out, and then the door swung open.

Goofy stood in the doorway, one gloved paw still on the knob, his gaze shifting from one teenager to the other and back again. Char could see the discomfort wreathing its way onto his face as he saw that clearly, he had interrupted a conversation. But he spoke nonetheless, in spite of the mild annoyance that, she was sure, cloaked her own countenance right now. "Um, Donald just wanted me t'come and ask you guys if you were ready to go," he mumbled.

Sora blinked, an odd emotion tracing throughout his body and making him feel as though he had just surfaced from dark waters. Within that feeling of being pulled away from something, though, came the thought that if he'd remained in those waters, he would have found what he was searching for. He risked a sidelong glance at Char and, with a brief prick of surprise, saw that she seemed to feel the same way, if the way her eyes were ever so slightly narrowed into ice-colored slits was any indication. However, when those eyes flicked in Sora's direction, she relented and turned her attention back to Goofy, who, the Keybearer realized belatedly, was still waiting for a response.

He opened his mouth to respond, but Char beat him to it. "Yeah, I think we're ready," she said, and looked over at Sora. "Right?"

With a start, Sora recognized the insistent look on her face, an expression that told him the conversation they'd been having was over. He fought back a sigh as that fact registered itself in his mind and couldn't help thinking that, had they had enough time, Char would have yielded to his curiosity and divulged what she had been hiding. An odd mixture of irritation, frustration, and regret swirled its way into his consciousness at the thought: irritation that Goofy had interrupted; frustration that Char felt she had to hold some parts of her identity close to herself; and regret that the opportunity to learn those secrets had gotten so teasingly close, only to be yanked away. The latter's potency nearly pulled tears out of his eyes, but he pushed it away.

"Yeah," he replied instead, steeling himself and locking his gaze with Char's. Maybe it was because he was sitting right next to her, but he could have sworn he saw her eyes widen almost imperceptibly.

Goofy didn't catch it, though, and simply nodded, relaxing visibly as the awkwardness of his entry faded. "Well, I've got some noodles cookin' if you want some."

Char rolled her eyes as Sora immediately perked up at the mention of food. _Way to be bipolar, Key-boy,_ she thought, and then immediately had to chide herself for being a hypocrite in that regard. Outwardly, at least. "Really?" the brunette asked, grinning. "That'd be awesome!"

On cue, the sound of an empty stomach demanding sustenance rang throughout the room. Goofy had the look of someone trying very hard not to laugh, while Char simply allowed just the smallest hint of a smirk to appear on her face. "Your stomach seems to agree," she commented.

Sora pouted indignantly. "Give me a break," he protested. "I haven't eaten since before we got to Twilight Town."

Char's initial amusement petered off when she realized the truth of his words. She glanced over at the clock on the wall and saw that Goofy's decision to cook lunch hadn't entirely come about just on a whim: the clock gave its verdict for the time as being half past noon. She inwardly thanked the gods that almost all the worlds had the same time zone; otherwise the time Cid programmed into the clock as part of the Gummi ship's renovations back in Hollow Bastion would be totally wrong. Of course, the notable anomalies of Port Royal, where night had reigned despite the group having just awoken before arriving there, and the World That Never Was, where the skies were almost always shrouded in rainy clouds and darkness, remained as exceptions_._

And, now that she was really dwelling on it… She winced as she felt, rather than heard, her own hunger voicing its existence. Sora came to attention immediately at the sound and eyed her with an uncontrollable grin; in contrast, Char narrowed her eyes in mild discomfort and embarrassment. "You _are_ hungry," he said triumphantly, folding his arms across his chest.

Char chose not to dignify his overtly obvious statement with a response and turned to Goofy. "How long before those noodles are ready?" she asked briskly.

Goofy straightened in an attempt to quell his amusement. "Gawrsh, 'bout ten minutes, I think."

Char gave a brief nod of acknowledgment. Ten minutes, she told her traitorous body firmly; she could survive until then.

Sora smiled at his animal comrade. "Thanks, Goofy. We'll be out there in a bit."

The knight nodded, tentatively returning the gesture, before turning on his heel and closing the door behind him. He must have remembered the tension that had prevailed between Char and Sora earlier, even before he had entered, because the door barely made a noise as it made contact with its frame.

Char listened to the sound of the dog's footsteps clopping away down the hall and managed to look at Sora. The slightest trace of a faint smile lingered on his face as he returned the eye contact, and she had to blink; if he felt any vestige of frustration at her constant evasion of his attempts to find out more about her past, he clearly was choosing not to dwell on it. "Goofy makes the best pasta," he told her. It was obviously an attempt to fill the silence, but oddly, it didn't really come across as such to Char.

Nonetheless, she recognized his attempt to try and get back to whatever they'd had before – for some reason she fought the catch in her throat at the thought; what _was_ it anyway; some kind of weird friendship that he kept shaking the foundation of every time he chose to hug her or do something that clearly didn't define her as a friend, when he so obviously still needed Kairi? – and, with a herculean burst of mental effort, cast off the doubts about said relationship. "I know," she answered, smiling despite herself. The genuineness of the gesture surprised her, but not enough to remove it from her countenance entirely. "I've had it before, remember?" As she spoke, memories of that day came rushing back into her mind: of Barbossa, of Port Royal, and of that damned hangover that had resulted from her rash caprice and random desire to sample the rum on the _Interceptor_… Good gods. If she didn't drink again, it would be too soon.

Sora opened his mouth to respond, only to close it as the reality of her words dawned on him. "Oh yeah," he muttered.

A thick blanket of silence descended upon them again. Char self-consciously pushed her bangs out of her eyes, only for them to fall back again when she lowered her head to stare back at the floor. She contemplated trying to resurrect some semblance of conversation, only to relent when she found that this silence didn't have the choking effect she had anticipated. If anything, it was almost _comfortable. _Ironic, considering what he had trying to talk to her about moments before. Briefly, she wondered what he had been about to say to her before Goofy had walked in – clearly, something that she had set as a "taboo" topic by her unspoken boundaries, which involved her past.

When she thought about it that way… The redhead abruptly wanted to sigh again as it hit her. He more than likely wanted to ask her more about her previous life. Suddenly, she was almost grateful to Goofy for his interruption; her faltering resolve couldn't have taken much more of Sora's questions without just giving in and telling him everything. And that was the worst part of all, the part that made her want to scream and cry and ask Ansem for forgiveness for and throw an undignified tantrum all at once: that she had allowed Sora to corrode her walls and make her feel even this much and make her all but forget about trying to destroy the Organization for her own sake instead of his.

At the thought of that, the doubts of her mission – of what _his_ was supposed to be, according to her and Ansem – pushed themselves out of the abyss in which she had shoved them earlier in order to rage in the back of her mind. _Tell him everything, _they repeated. _He deserves to know after everything you've been together – after you fell for him. After he _made _you fall for him._

Char didn't realize it, and Sora didn't note it due to his own eyes having landed on the pumpkin mask once again, but her eyes widened a little at the new turn her doubts had taken. Like it was Sora's fault her stupid hormones had decided to make the needle of her heart's compass swing from Riku to Sora as its respective "north" in the span of about three weeks.

_Riku. _Gods, she didn't even _want_ to think about how she was going to face Riku when all of this was over. Again, she felt a pang of bitter irony somewhere in her chest: when she had first joined Sora, she would have given anything just to get away from these dorks and finish out the remainder of her plans with the silver-haired emissary of darkness at her side. Now, though, she couldn't exactly claim to feel the same way, especially because she could safely call said dorks three of the best friends she'd ever had without feeling like she was lying. Even Donald seemed to nurse a grudging respect for her, and that was saying something, considering the stubbornness that had marked him even in Sora's memories of his last journey.

If she really wanted to be honest with herself – and her mind actually seemed to give a preparatory deep breath at trying to actually face her emotions, something one couldn't exactly laud her proficiency at – what she really missed about the year with Riku was the deceptive simplicity of those days. If she wanted to distract herself from thoughts of her apprentices' fates, she would go talk to Riku or Namine or watch Sora's memories for a bit; seeing the boy who held the fate of the worlds on his skinny little shoulders try to make sense of everything tended to put things into perspective, after all. If she wanted to distract herself from thoughts of how similar she was to that kid – they had both been torn away from everything they had known and thrown into relatively undesirable circumstances – she went out and bought some sea-salt ice cream. If she wanted to distract herself from her budding feelings for Riku – although, as long as she was being honest with herself, she knew she had been performing a complicated little dance to stay away from directly realizing that practically since Riku's first failure to capture Roxas – she hovered over Namine's shoulder while the blond drew out Sora's memories. The ease with which Char had succeeded in pushing her problems to the back of her mind surprised her now, to the point where she felt an undercurrent of ruefulness at the way that little talent seemed to have ebbed.

Unconsciously, one of the redhead's half-gloved hands came to rest against her shin, one finger beginning to tap a staccato beat against her leg, and the other reached up to cup her chin, as she thought. A dry little smile nearly crossed her face with the force of her desire to forget everything that had happened. _What I wouldn't give to go back to the days when the object of my feelings actually made sense to me…_

Then again, she reflected, in those days, she never would have pictured herself three weeks into the second – and hopefully final – part of the Keybearer's journey, sitting next to him on his bed wondering why exactly she felt she could dub her feelings about Sora _love_ and only slightly feel like a hormonal teenage moron.

In fact, back then, she'd felt only a degree of almost-maybe-admiration for the Keybearer, an admiration that was fed by visions of his memories and seeing everything he had done for people he really didn't have to give an honest damn about. An admiration that she had disguised with the moniker "mildly impressed." Riku seemed to have known about it – he had teased her with it time and again – but had humored her due to not wanting to be on the receiving end of her old pair of swords. Admiration or no, however, she never would have imagined seeing Sora the way she did now.

Unbidden, a memory of those days rushed back into her mind. The ironic part was that it had occurred not long before Riku's ill-fated first attempt to kidnap Roxas; Char figured that, given her previous train of thought of nostalgia for the "good old days," anything she might remember would have taken place near the beginning of that year in Twilight Town. As a result, she was slightly surprised at the capricious turn her mind's eye had taken. Although, she reasoned dryly, the memory still had the distinctive flavor of bittersweet nostalgia that patented her thoughts of that time.

* * *

"_Riku, have you seen DiZ anywhere?" Char called, her voice echoing loudly throughout the basement as she descended the steps into the computer-lit room. "I need to borrow some munny from him for some stuff…" Her voice trailed off when neither a red-wrapped man nor a cloak-clad, silver-haired boy greeted her eyes. A loud, huffing sigh escaped her, issuing out into the pleasantly-conditioned air to mingle with the beeping of the computer screens, and her fists planted themselves firmly on her hips in ire. "Dammit, he never leaves this bloody room and he chooses _now_ to?" she grumbled, crossing the room and moving toward the exit. _

_The door to the next room slid open, and Char surveyed one end of the spacious area to another with slitted blue orbs before her eyes widened in defeat. "Where the hell _are_ those idiots?" she spat under her breath. As she swept across the green-and-blue area, her arms folded across her chest, as though she were annoyed; however, she couldn't hide the way her fingers twitched slightly as they came to rest on the opposite arm. Char hated admitting it, but she loathed going into the pod room where Donald and Goofy slept; it didn't send quite the same shudder of icy cold eeriness down her spine as Sora's room did, yet the fact remained that watching the two animals float unconscious in their respective ivory prisons wasn't exactly on her list of favorite things to do._

_Nevertheless, she steeled herself and stepped into the now-blinding hallway where the pods were kept. She had to blink a couple of times to get used to the change in lighting and décor color, but didn't slow her stride in the slightest. Looking around at the pods that lined the perimeter of the winding corridor, she couldn't hold back a shiver and wondered why exactly so many pods were in here. The maximum number she thought they had needed was four, the last one being on the off-chance that Riku had decided to join his best friend in sleep. As it was, though, Riku had refused Namine's offer, which Char found herself thanking the gods for. _I don't know what I'd do if I were stuck here for ten months with just DiZ and Namine for company,_ the redhead thought sardonically._

_With a start, she abruptly realized she was directly in front of the entrance to Sora's pod room. She halted in her tracks, stared at the blinding white door for a few moments, took in the off-white light being cast off the walls of the adjacent room filtering in through the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor, before shaking her head, telling herself she was being stupid, and sweeping into the room without knocking._

_"Hey, Key-boy," she greeted, her eyes finding the floor in lieu of looking at the sleeping brunette who was the room's sole inhabitant. "Don't suppose you'd know where your best friend since childhood is…?"_

_At the last part of her words, she had raised her head, only to trail off when a different sight from the norm greeted her: a cloak-clad, silver-haired boy kneeling in front of Sora's pod, partially obscuring her view of Sora's body. Next to Riku, Namine stood, her slender, white-clad frame all but blending into the background of the creamy walls, barely taller than the half-bent Riku. Char stopped automatically at the sight, her previous annoyance becoming eclipsed by curiosity. "Uh… Riku? Namine?" she asked, tentatively stepping closer._

_At the sound of her voice, both blond Nobody and silver-haired boy alike turned to face her. "Char," Riku greeted, sounding a little startled as he got to his feet. "Why… why are you down here?"_

_Char narrowed her eyes very slightly at the wary tone to his voice. "I was looking for DiZ," she answered in the same mildly-bemused manner. "Why are _you_ here? Y'know," she added dryly, "besides the whole 'he's your best friend since childhood' thing."_

_A tiny smirk tugged at Riku's mouth at that last part, but failed to take over his countenance. He chose instead to turn back to Sora. Char couldn't see his face, but she swore she heard a small sigh come from his direction, which caused her eyebrows to raise._

_Namine spoke for Riku. "It's Sora's birthday today," she explained quietly._

That_ made Char's eyebrows go up. "Key-boy's birthday?" she queried carefully, slowly, testing the weight of the words on her tongue, and couldn't resist the barb, "What's that make him now, twelve?"_

_"Fifteen," Riku corrected tersely, not turning to look at her. "I thought I'd come down here to see him. Namine just wanted to come along."_

_The blond averted her ocean-colored eyes and gave a very small downward tilt of her head to acknowledge the truth of Riku's words. "We figured it was the least we could do, since…" She gestured helplessly at the white-encased Keybearer behind her, still not meeting Char's eyes._

_The redhead allowed her eyes to return to their normal state from their previously-widened form, if only just. Now that she thought about it, Riku _had_ woken disturbingly early this morning – she would know, she thought with a surge of embarrassment; due to having a nightmare and coming to his room out of instinct, she had been trying to get the blanket back from him for the better part of ten minutes before he left – and woken her up. And she'd thought she'd heard Namine's soft voice mingling with Riku's masculine one a little down the hall from Riku's room. _I really need to start noticing what my friends do more,_ the redhead thought, a little guiltily. _

_And so, out of guilt – not much else, she told herself firmly – Char stepped forward. Namine watched, her head angling to the side, as the older girl came to stand right next to Riku. At seeing the predominantly red-and-black shape in his periphery, Riku turned his head to look at her. Their eyes met, and for some reason, Char's breath caught at the raw emotion on his face and in his gaze. Only now did she realize that Riku's voice had been taut and gruff, even as he had brusquely told her why he was down here._

_Something tugged at her heart, but before she could try to get the name of that emotion, a swish of gold at the corner of her eye made her turn to the source. Namine had stepped up on Char's other side and was quietly eyeing Sora. To Char's shock, an expression much like Riku's – wistfulness and nostalgia and sorrow and agony – had crept over Namine's face. Char wanted to tell herself that was impossible due to Namine having no heart, but the fact that the blond was her friend held her back. _

_She chose not to dwell on that feeling of discomfort and refocused on Sora, who slumbered on, not knowing that two of the people who cared the most about him were here right now praying for him. For no particular reason at all, that discomfort resurfaced, along with the feeling that her being here with Riku and Namine was somehow violating the intimacy that both of them had shared with Sora._

_Trying to lighten the mood a little, Char spoke, her voice cutting into the silence. "Happy birthday, Key-boy," she murmured. "Here's hoping next year you're actually awake."_

_It was the wrong thing to say – even she knew that much, she thought with an involuntary cringe – and yet a moment later she felt a gloved hand slide into her own. Startled, she glanced toward Namine before remembering that the blond's hands were always bare – that, and the contact had come from the other side – and looking back to Riku. The silver-haired young man hadn't taken his eyes off his sleeping friend, but his jaw was tight, and his hand squeezed hers almost imperceptibly. Char's first impulse was to shake him off, but then it hit her that that might not be the best thing for him at the moment._

_So she just let him draw even that slight amount of comfort from their combined warmth – not returning the tightness of his own grip, but instead choosing to let him do what he was doing without slapping his hand away. She figured that would be enough._

* * *

"Char!"

Jolted back to the present by the sound of Sora's voice, Char shook herself out of her remembrance-induced trance and looked to the brunette. "Goofy just said the pasta's ready," Sora explained, appraising her with a look of bemusement on his face. "Are you still hungry, or not?"

Char's eyebrows lifted just a bit; ten minutes had gone by rather quickly. She hesitated before realizing that the tantalizing scent of cooking food hung in the air like water vapor; at that perception, her stomach gave an encouraging, rather loud growl. Sora laughed as she ducked her head in embarrassment. "Guess that answers that question," he grinned. He rose from the bed and departed, stumbling slightly over the mask on the floor and casting a sheepish smile in her direction before his form vanished through the doorway. Char rolled her eyes and thought about calling out a barbed, subtle request for him to clean up so _she_ didn't make that same mistake, but relented. Besides, food was looking a lot more attractive than lecturing right now.

She got up as well, keeping her eye on the half-covered floor to avoid tripping like he almost had; all the same, she still ended up catching her foot against the edge of something. A small snarl escaped her as she glared down, indignation rushing through her despite herself at the object that had impeded her path to lunch, but then she saw what it was. It pulled a small gasp out of her; the light caught off the star-shaped charm at the end of the chain, a charm that disturbingly resembled the talisman that Kairi had given Sora during his last journey.

Char bent down and picked up the Keychain, turning it over in her hand and examining it. Damn it all, but the charm even had that idiotic smiley face on it. Fighting to breathe against the sudden lump in her throat, Char pushed the Keychain into her jacket pocket, trying to push the thought of it out of her mind; however, she only belatedly remembered thinking about how her knack for that had made its exit over the last few weeks _after_ thoughts of Sora's dedication to Kairi – not Char – failed to leave.

"Char, you'd better get out here right now!" Goofy suddenly called, urgency clear in his voice. The redhead started, her nerves still shaky due to her self-deprecation of moments before, and bolted for the door, damn near ripping it off its hinges in her haste.

She skidded to a clumsy stop in the middle of the kitchen, keeping one hand on the Keychain-shaped lump in her jacket pocket, and stared, wide-eyed, at the trio sitting at the table: Goofy at one end, his pair of chopsticks halfway to his mouth, a couple of long noodles dangling between said chopsticks and his mouth; Donald at the other, his own pair of chopsticks half-extended toward the untouched bowl between him and Sora; and Sora himself, slurping up his own food as though nothing had happened. The three of them looked up from their respective positions to look at Char.

"Uh… guys…?" Char raised one eyebrow, her nerves beginning to calm themselves down in favor of embarrassment that swept its way over her back in hot waves.

"Gawrsh, Char," Goofy said in bemusement, "I was just gonna tell ya Donald was fixin' to eat your share if you didn't come out here."

"I was not," the duck in question huffed indignantly, leaning back so his back was pressed against his own chair and folding his arms.

Char relaxed and went to sit in her own chair. "Never mind that that _was_ what you were doing," she muttered. Amid Donald's annoyed yelps of rebuttal, she turned to Sora, only to lean away as the full extent of just how exaggeratedly he was eating became known. "Dammit, Key-boy, it's not going to jump out of your bowl."

"You don't know that!" Sora retorted through a mouthful of noodles.

Donald and Goofy snickered as they resumed their own meals. Even Char herself felt a smile appear on her face despite herself. Again, she restrained the urge to correct his actions and tamped down the remark of _chewing your food never made your food make a faster escape, either _that had been percolating on her tongue. Instead, she picked up her chopsticks and started on her own bowl. The seasoning that flared against her taste buds upon contact with them made her close her eyes in pleasure and made her grip on the all-but-forgotten Keychain in her pocket just a little more slack.

"Good?" Goofy asked, hopefully. Char remembered that he had cooked this.

She nodded, opening her eyes from where they had closed due to the intensity of the flavor and swallowing her mouthful of noodles before speaking. "Yeah. Wish I could cook this well," she murmured, dipping her chopsticks down to get more.

Donald made a sound of triumph. "Aha!" he crowed. "Another thing you can't do. Let's add it to the list: doing magic, driving, cooking…"

Char rolled her eyes and elbowed the duck gently in the ribs, not wanting to jar him so badly he scattered his noodles everywhere; as she was sitting next to him, it was easy to do, and the mage reared back with a flinch. "I never said I _couldn't_ cook, duck boy," she pointed out. "Just that I can't cook as well as this." With that being said, she pushed more noodles into her mouth, chewing and swallowing before continuing. "In fact, back in the day, I sometimes had to fix meals for me and the other researchers." She couldn't help but cast a sidelong glance toward Sora as she spoke; to his credit, he wasn't exactly leaning right in her face in silent demand for more, but as far as she could see, she did have his undivided attention now.

Donald rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he grumbled.

Sora continued to watch her; even without looking right at him, Char could feel the anticipation in his gaze burning into the side of her face, and felt annoyance flare within her. _Seriously, Sora – you have your secrets, and I'll have mine. _"Anyway, we should eat this before it gets cold. And don't we have to leave soon?" she added pointedly. _Hopefully _before_ Hayner and the others notice a huge eye-burning vessel in the alleyway?_

"Yup," Goofy agreed, and resumed eating his own pasta. With a final glower and incriminating mutter toward Char under his breath, Donald followed suit.

Char gave Sora one last sidelong glance before returning to her meal, praying to every god there was that he would let the matter lie. She thought she saw the brunette's eyes narrow very slightly, but being that his mouth was full of noodles and he didn't want to annoy her, he said nothing. Eventually, he, too, went back to thoroughly demolishing his meal.

The redhead returned her full attention to eating, relishing the newfound silence but for the brunette's slurping up his own pasta. At the same time, though, she felt guilt tracing its way throughout her body at everything she wasn't telling him. The hand that wasn't clutching the chopsticks went to the Keychain in her pocket again, the one that reminded her so much of Kairi's good-luck charm and everything Sora had been fighting for up till now.

_You care for Kairi, right?_ she thought, and couldn't repress a soft sigh at the next thought. _Then show me how much. Please, just show me, before I lose it and do something I regret._

* * *

Falcon arrives at school the day after Dyme's funeral with a heavy burden in her chest, half welcoming the return to normalcy and yet half forsaking the fact that life can go on after the death of one of her best friends. That normalcy is tainted almost beyond repair, however, when she fails to see Copperhead at school. It's strange; normally she's the last one out of the locker room after fencing practice in the afternoon – not due to her own vanity, or lack thereof, but because she's always loved the sound and feel of the quiet hallways in her high school, devoid of the hustle and bustle that marks it during the day. She's always adored the way she can only hear the sound of her and Copperhead's voices, as well as their shoes tapping against the tile as they head for the gates. Now, though, his voice's absence marks the silence with a distinctively eerie aura, with the knowledge that something is definitely off.

She lingers just outside the doorway, almost holding her breath in anticipation, her gaze searching the empty hallways, only for her shoulders to slump visibly with the aftermath of hope denied. _I should have expected this,_ she tells herself. _His brother and only family just died; I should have expected that he'd take a day off._

It doesn't explain the inexplicable, nagging concern at the back of her mind, though – something that's telling her Copperhead's absence has an underlying motive behind the obvious.

In the end, though, she shakes it off and sets off down the hallway for home, painfully aware of the sound of her footsteps against the tile in the silence. The fact that she now has to take on the Heartless on her own doesn't help matters.

* * *

A week later, Falcon only has to take a step outside the locker room before her eyes, trained by four days worth of exhaustion and diminishing optimism, find that familiar masculine shape. To his credit, he moves his entire head to look over at her, and he straightens from where he's leaning against the wall with a faint attempt at a smile. "Hey," he says. She nearly winces, because the quality of his voice – almost as though he hasn't used it in a while, or maybe used it too much – is a mocking echo of the boy who used to bounce up to her and loudly announce the details of his day every afternoon.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that her best friend is here, after a week of worry and growing despair on her part, and so she can't help but let that little detail slide. "Copperhead," she greets, a little breathless in her relief. She adjusts her book bag's strap on her shoulder and smiles in what she hopes is an encouraging manner at him. "Where… where have you been?" She's careful to speak carefully, not wanting to sound accusing but at the same time trying to convey her sense of urgency. "You kind of just up and vanished off the face of the planet for a week."

Copperhead eyes her for a moment. Then her words seem to sink in and he sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, Dyme's job was our main source of income. Y'know, for the house and everything." He hesitates, and Falcon's eyes widen as she takes in just how weary he looks. "I've… kinda been discussing my options with the landlord. Unless I get a job myself, I'm getting evicted." He meets her eyes at last and attempts a grin. What results is so pathetic that Falcon feels a pang of sympathy. "And unless one of the twenty thousand places I've applied to gets back to me in, like, three hours, then I'm gonna have to find a new place to live."

Watching her best friend, Falcon can't help but think of everything he has done for her in the past year or so. He has kept her Keyblade a secret; helped her with the Heartless infestation; gently coaxed her into joining the fencing club to keep her skills sharp; and the most obvious, the one that still makes her blush to think about. And before she can stop herself, the words tumble out.

"Why don't you come live with me, then?"

Copperhead blinks. Oddly, he looks like he had caught her words loud and clear right then and there. "I, uh… Seriously?" he says, a grin spreading across his face and his eyes brightening considerably. Falcon barely restrains a smile herself; his voice had cracked on the last word, but he was beginning to look like the man she knew again.

"Yeah," she confirms. Certainty begins to move throughout her body in a warm flood, and she finds herself thinking aloud in her response to him. "I can ask my parents tonight; I'm sure they'll be okay with it as long as we promise to sleep in separate bedrooms."

"Aw, but I don't really like that condition." Copperhead mock-pouts. When she laughs, unable to hold it back, his grin dies down to become a more sedate smile. "Thanks, Fal," he murmurs, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around her.

Her lips quirk upward against his shoulder. "You're welcome," she mumbles in reply.

* * *

"Is all your stuff ready?"

The blond boy rolls his eyes playfully as he hoists his single bag up onto his shoulder. "Geez Fal, what're you, my mom?" he teases. "Of course."

Falcon narrows her eyes at the other, more conspicuous burden strapped across his back, a burden that extends to either side beyond his backpack and one end of which ends in a curved blade. "And the big-ass scythe you're carrying into our house?" she prompts, only slightly playful. "I'm sure my parents won't ask about that."

"Oh, that." Copperhead's pupils shift conspiratorially from left to right. "Uh, well, if all else fails, we'll just tell them it's for a project or something. On, uh… weapons."

A smile tugs at Falcon's lips at the flustered look on his face. "Weapons," she drawls, folding her arms. "Right. While we're at it, why don't we explain what their daughter's been doing that she comes home limping almost every night?" Despite herself, an icy edge creeps into her words, accompanied by a slight ache in her heart. She hates secrets now, and the fact that she is keeping such a huge one from her parents still hurts.

Copperhead sighs, his amusement fading. He reaches forward and lightly strokes her hair with one hand. "Hey, come on now. We'll be fine. _You'll_ be fine," he adds for emphasis, though even he doesn't sound like he believes it. He lowers his hand and turns away. "C'mon. Let's start for your house."

"Right." Falcon forces herself to begin moving forward; the sound of footsteps against dirt behind her signifies that he is following. She tries not to look back at the now-empty house behind her, tries not to register the soft sigh from behind her, afraid that if she recognizes the crumbling of even Copperhead's blithe mask she too will fall apart. Instead, she tries to lighten the mood, even as light begins filtering down from green leaves overhead and his house vanishes into the foliage behind them. "This'll be fun, won't it?" she asks, not daring to look back but still smiling. Even though he can't see it, she feels sure he can hear it in her voice and might feel better. "Us, living together?"

Abruptly, the sound of shoes crunching through dead leaves halts. Falcon stops as well and turns on her heel, her head tilting to the side. "What's wrong?" she asks obligatorily, even as the gravity of what she has just said hits her. Not surprisingly, the desire to toss her Keychain aside and throw herself in front of the nearest Heartless follows that revelation.

Copperhead appraises her with dark fury on his face. "Oh yeah, sure," he responds, his voice growing tight with suppressed emotion. _"'Fun.'_ Hey, Fal, remember why I have to move in with you in the first place?"

The anger in his voice slices through her with the force of a blade, and Falcon recoils instinctively. "S-sorry," she tries lamely. "I guess I just…"

"You just what?" the other snaps. For a moment of tense silence, it seems as though he will reach behind him and unsheathe his scythe, and Falcon's hand inches toward the Azure Ice Keychain in her pocket. Distrust and vitriol flares in the air between them, and suddenly she can't breathe with the force of it.

Then he huffs and strides past her. "C'mon, let's go," he mutters without slowing down in the slightest. After a moment, Falcon realizes she should follow, and hurriedly does so, still shaking very slightly from what she'd felt from him.

* * *

The next few days pass in a blur. She can't figure out why the incident is still bothering him, because the Copperhead from before would have just waved it off in his typical manner and let it become part of the endlessly-flowing past. But the Copperhead of now brushes her off when she tries to talk to him; walks back to their normal training spot by himself; disposes of the Heartless in their path with icy cold efficiency, as though remembering that these creatures had killed his brother; eats meals at the table with Falcon's family and gives only monosyllabic quips when prompted; immediately heads for his room after dinner at night. Falcon's parents have noticed something is wrong with him, and they have tried asking her about it, but she's as lost as they are as to the reason why.

Unfortunately, the possibility that maybe his brother's death has affected him more than she had anticipated does not occur to her until it is too late.

She comes home from fencing practice one day to find that no one greets her announcement of having arrived. Confusion roils through her as she steps over the threshold and into the empty house, scanning the kitchen for even the slightest sign of life. Her search turns out to be futile in the end, though.

"That's weird," she mutters aloud at last, moving to place her book bag on the table. "I thought my parents said they had today off…"

She doesn't know what tide of theories would have come on the heels of that remark, but it halts instantly when she sees the note on the table.

* * *

The town is all but empty tonight, but if anyone were present, they would most likely stop in their respective actions and eye the dark-haired girl sprinting through the streets with more than a hint of bemusement. The half-light catches off the iridescent cerulean of her Keyblade as she leaves the city behind and vanishes into the forest, her heart pounding to the point where it should impede her stride. In the end, though, the thought of what the note had said spurs her on.

_"Come to the top of the citadel tonight, alone. Also, don't forget to look at the moon. If it's heart-shaped, then you might want to hurry._

_"I'm sorry."_

It hadn't had a signature, but Falcon would recognize that chicken scratch anywhere. Her heart clenches just thinking about the identity of the writer.

On a whim, she glances up at the sky, not once slowing in her stride. The sight that her seemingly-innocent action yields to her makes the breath catch in her throat and the impending tears tremble in her eyes. Suddenly, she knows the reason why the moonlight cast has not a silver pallor, but a pink-and-gold color.

Her feet begin to pound a little more consistently on the ground now.

* * *

What she finds when she arrives at the apex of the citadel is not unexpected, but it still hurts to see. She comes to a stop at the top of the stairs, panting in a way that becomes more pronounced as the way her sprint had carried her the entire way here – through the forest, into the broken doorway, through the ruined foyer, and up the spiraling flight of stairs – finally seems to crash down upon her. In front of her, a broad, blond-haired shape stands with its back to her, and she finds herself choking on a sob as she recognizes it.

She would know her best friend anywhere.

Then her head tilts to the side as she takes in the dark-clad man standing next to Copperhead. The taller of the two has his hood up, so she can't even tell if she would have recognized him from town; this is a small world, after all.

Abruptly, she shakes it off, bringing her gaze down to the floor. What she sees – a reflection of herself, wind-blown and half-sweating with exhaustion and the run here and already about to cry – nearly pushes her over the edge, and she has to look back up at the men in front of her to avoid looking at her own reflection in the glass.

"Copperhead," she says. Her voice comes out surprisingly strong, and the smaller man turns, his eyes widening even as she steps forward. The look on his face would be almost comical under any other circumstances, but she forces herself to stop thinking about those other circumstances. This is happening here and now.

"Fal," he begins, and then she cuts him off.

"Where the hell are my parents?" she grits out.

Silence permeates the air between them, during which Falcon finds herself holding her breath, hoping so fervently that her vision of the boy staring at her becomes blurry that her intuition is wrong, that he'll just laugh and say something along the lines of _they went out a while ago, they had some stuff they needed to do in town._

And then his shoulders slump and her eyes widen and her heart plummets and he steps aside.

Under any other circumstances, the sight of two shadow Heartless like the ones in front of her would cause her instinct to kick in and take them out with a couple of swings of her Keyblade. But – and nausea suddenly rises within her at the thought – these Heartless are…

Are…

Her Keyblade falls with a clatter and she drops to her knees on the floor. Being forced to face her reflection doesn't help, and she screws her eyes shut. _This is all just a dream,_ she tells herself, completely contradicting her previous assurance of her own resolve. _This is all just a stupid nightmare, and when I open my eyes, I'll be in my own bed. Mom will be waiting downstairs with a plate of pancakes, and I'll tell them about this idiotic dream I had last night, and Dad will smile and Mom will laugh and say nothing's wrong and tell me Copperhead's waiting outside to take me to school, and on the way there Copperhead will tell me about something stupid Dyme did last night –_

She opens her eyes. Her doppelganger's still there, on its elbows and knees, staring back at her with growing horror on its countenance and its emerald eyes obtaining a telltale glisten.

"A pity, isn't it?" a deep voice, unmistakably _not_ that of Copperhead, sounds. Falcon dares to look up and sees the dark-bedizened shape next to Copperhead reach up to the hood covering his face. The hood is flicked aside with a deft wave of the hand, revealing a dark-skinned face, long hair the color of the storm clouds gathering overhead, and smug amber eyes. Standing beside the other man, Copperhead stares at the ground.

"You told me this Keybearer's parents would make excellent recruits for our cause," the gray-haired man in the cloak goes on in a slow drawl, "and yet using the dark Keyblade on them failed to produce even Dusks." His eyebrows draw down over his eyes and a dark smirk contorts his face, as though in eager anticipation of Falcon's reaction to what he will say next. "I suppose their hearts just weren't strong enough."

At his words, something within Falcon snaps.

She bolts to her feet, ignoring the dizziness that assails her at such an abrupt shift of movement, and summons her Keyblade back into her hand. The dark-clad man turns at the sound of her snarl with a look of distinctively amused indifference as she charges toward him.

"Bastard!" she shrieks, driving the Azure Ice as hard as she can toward his smug face. In an instant, however, she's blinking in the sudden light cast by the dual blades the man just summoned, seemingly out of nowhere, to block her attack. The surprise does not last long in the wake of her anger, however, and soon she is back on the offensive, trying to break the man's guard even as he smirks and dances backward across the floor, parrying her attacks effortlessly. She chokes on the lump in her throat and blinks the furious tears out of her eyes. "What gave you the right to – why –"

"If you truly desire an answer to that," the man answers calmly, "perhaps you should ask your friend." The moment he finishes speaking, he suddenly drives one lightsaber toward her. She tries to draw back, but she still catches the brunt of the blow along her belly, just beneath her ribs. As she falls, just managing to catch herself by propping her Keyblade against the floor, the agony of the sword's impact sears along her abdomen and creates a feeling of heat there. She doesn't have to look down to see that there is blood.

Panting, she looks up and sees Copperhead, still standing next to the two Heartless that were once her parents. His eyes remain on the ground, staring at his own reflection, probably finding condemnation there just as she had.

"You're… you're kidding, right, Copperhead?" Falcon asks, her voice breaking. He doesn't respond, and her jaw tightens with both the wound's pain as well as her growing sorrow. "Answer me!" she snarls.

He just shakes his head and mutters something under his breath. She barely catches a single phrase, but that phrase, three seemingly innocent words, shatters the dam behind her eyes anyway.

"Jealous of me?" she repeats incredulously. Her breathing intensifies as, using her Keyblade as a crutch, she gets to her feet and withdraws it from the ground. "You mean you kidnapped and killed my parents because you were _jealous of me?_ Are you freaking serious?" By the end of her words, her voice's volume nearly matches that of the thunder sounding just outside the room.

Copperhead raises his head then, meets her eyes with some effort. The fact that tears roll down his own cheeks fails to produce any response from her except for fury, and suddenly the urge to cry is reborn within her again at knowing that before now, she would have given anything to make his pain stop. "Xemnas told me he could bring Dyme back," he says in a rush, gesturing to the gray-haired man behind him. The blond hesitates before continuing, sounding as though every word catches against the inside of his throat. "He said he could bring my brother back if… if I brought him new recruits for his Organization."

"Which involves turning them into Heartless, I'm assuming." Falcon stares at him incredulously before shaking her head. For some incredibly stupid reason, laughter bubbles up within her, and issues out into the air before she can stop it. "You are such an idiot, Copperhead," she chuckles. "So you're basically saying you kidnapped and murdered your best friend's parents because you were jealous of my happy fun family and you wanted your brother back." It is not a question so much as an indictment.

Copperhead winces and looks away. "It made a lot more sense in my head," he says, strained playfulness in his voice.

Falcon cackles suddenly, causing the boy to give a start and whip his head back around to stare at her. "Well, isn't that great for you?" she snarls. "Now we've got a dead brother and two dead parents here and nothing came of it. Isn't that great? Don't you feel better now that you've dragged me down with you?"

Xemnas has remained silent up till now, but now he speaks, and his words make Falcon turn with an acrimonious remark on the tip of her tongue.

"There is a way to bring them back."

"Really?" Falcon drawls. She sways on her feet as she takes a challenging step closer and the still-fresh injury on her belly flares up. Oh, but that hurts. "Do tell, do tell."

Xemnas narrows his eyes almost imperceptibly, but he reaches within his pocket and tosses something to her. Falcon reaches up and catches it in her free hand, clenching a fist around it. When she opens that fist to see its new burden, her brow crinkles in confusion.

It's a Keychain.

Xemnas continues. "Sacrificing your own heart may be enough of a jarring force."

That, more than anything, seems to jar Copperhead. He turns toward Xemnas, and though Falcon cannot see him due to her eyes being on the black-and-red Keychain in her hand, she can hear the shock and horror and dread in his voice and almost see his wide violet eyes. "Xemnas, you don't mean –"

* * *

"You know what?" Falcon says, a resigned smile appearing on her face. "I don't care anymore. If this will bring them back…" She brings the dark Keyblade to point at her own chest and eyes Copperhead with a sort of bitter acceptance. "Then I'll do it."

"Fal, wait, it won't –" Copperhead begins, already running toward her; but it's too late.

* * *

Just before darkness oozes over her vision and overtakes it entirely, Falcon just catches a blur of red light through the air and the sound of Copperhead's voice. _Is that mine?_ she has time to wonder as she stares at the heart weaving its way up, up, up. It sails through the ceiling, into the storm clouds, free from everything.

And then darkness pulls her away from this world and she knows no more.

* * *

When she wakes from the trance that seemed to have taken over her after driving the Keyblade into her chest, the first thing she knows is warmth, and the scent of coffee wafting its way into her nostrils. She dares to look up and finds herself looking into violet eyes.

"Fal," Copperhead says breathlessly, a smile growing on his face. "Thank the gods you didn't… _he_ didn't…" He trails off. For the first time Falcon notices his arms have made their way securely around her torso and her own hands are placed against his biceps.

The reality of what has just transpired – that Keyblade had released her heart, but somehow Copperhead brought her back – has yet to sink in, and so Falcon's intrinsic reaction of delivering a well-deserved punch to Copperhead's jaw does not activate right away. Instead, she tightens her grip on his arms. "My parents," she says, rasping out the words. Losing her heart clearly took a toll on her ability to speak. "Are… are they…"

Copperhead hesitates, looks away. She doesn't need to hear any more. Instead, she pushes him away as hard as she can, and, while he's lying there staring wide-eyed at her, moves her hand back and slaps him as hard as she can across the face.

* * *

With a gasp, Anxclof jolted up, panting hard from the force of the emotion Falcon had felt. She brought up one hand to massage her forehead, pushing her fingertips against her temples in an attempt to soothe her sudden migraine. Naturally, it didn't help.

Groaning, the Nobody closed her eyes, allowing the chain of memories to replay themselves against the backdrop of the inside of her eyelids. Despite her lack of heart, she felt a distinctive pain in the place where it should have been, an echo of what Falcon had experienced that night at the top of the Shadowed Desert's citadel. Having witnessed the scene that had resulted in her birth, Anxclof couldn't help but feel more sickened than enlightened, especially now that she knew the reason why she had hated Xemnas so much during her Organization days. She found herself praying to whatever gods existed out there that this sequence of flashbacks to her Other's life would be the last. _I'm not sure how much more of this I can take._

Seeing as how it had ended with Falcon losing her heart, though, Anxclof doubted that the other female Keybearer would appear in her dreams anymore. The thought should have filled her with some sense of comfort, however hollow, but strangely, it brought tears to Anxclof's still-closed eyes. Just thinking of how Falcon's best friend had betrayed her caused the part of her that still harbored parts of her Other to summon forth that main sign of sadness to her eyes.

It didn't help that, thanks to the way Falcon's past had come more disjointedly to her in the past, Anxclof knew how this ended: Falcon running off crying into the rain, and Copperhead staring after her. The former Number XIV chuckled sardonically at the thought. Nobodies like her couldn't summon forth happy endings even in their dreams, it seemed.

She opened her eyes, only to bark in surprise and scoot backward against the gray brick wall when a pair of large green orbs appeared suddenly in her vision.

"The hell?" she managed, staring at the owner of those eyes.

The small, blond-haired pixie tilted her head to the side, a distinctive look of fascination on her tiny features. Then she turned around and called to someone out of Anxclof's vision, "Yuna, Paine! I think she's awake!"

"You think?" the Nobody growled, recovering from her start enough to glower at the orange-clad fairy. "I'm only here snarling obscenities at you."

A flash of light made her put one arm over her eyes; when it faded, she lowered her arm just in time to see a black-bedizened fairy turn to her blue-wearing companion. _Oh, joy, _more_ pixies,_ she mentally grumbled.

"You think she's with the Restoration Committee?" the dark fairy was saying, doubt clear in her voice. The blue-clad pixie looked at Anxclof, but said nothing.

The blond one was still eyeing Anxclof curiously. Suddenly, she flew in closer, putting one hand under her chin thoughtfully and letting out an exaggerated "Hmmmm…"

Anxclof raised one eyebrow. "What?" she asked warily.

The blue fairy exchanged a glance with her dark companion; then she nodded and took the aerial equivalent of a few steps closer to Anxclof, though not nearly violating the Nobody's personal space as much as the lighter pixie was. Now that she was closer, however, Anxclof could see round, curious blue eyes and brown hair that was tugged gently by the wind in the Postern. "Do you know Squall Leonhart?" the fairy asked politely.

"Huh?" Anxclof asked intelligently.

The dark pixie sighed. "I told you she wouldn't know who he was," she grumbled to her companions.

The light fairy sat back in midair and let out a melodramatic groan of disappointment. "I was so sure we had the right person this time… Maleficent is gonna be sooooo mad…"

Anxclof frowned, her curiosity piqued. "Maleficent?"

Immediately, the black fairy swooped forward and shoved her hand against the blond's mouth. "Don't mind Rikku," she said, giving the aforementioned pixie a hard stare. "She's just running her mouth off."

"We need to go report this," the brunette pixie pointed out, putting her hands on her blue-clad hips.

Rikku nodded mutely; after a moment, the dark pixie sighed again and dropped her hand. "Guess so."

"Wait," Anxclof growled, getting ready to summon her Keyblade. "What's –"

But then the same light that had flashed earlier, albeit accompanied by a violet flash, appeared again, forcing Anxclof to shut her eyes against the brightness. When she opened her eyes again, the pixies were gone.

"Dammit," she mumbled under her breath, and pushed herself up into a sitting position. She looked around the Postern, her fist clenching when she remembered that Char used to live and work here. _If only she was still here now; I'd take her out, and then Sora would be more vulnerable. And then I'd have Roxas back…_

Her thoughts cut themselves off when a burst of light from the sky caught her eye and sent confusion surging through her. She knew the Heartless were here in full force – most likely due to Xemnas' influence, a thought that made her lip curl distastefully in the aftermath of discovering what he had done to her Other – but she didn't think the Organization was sending any more in anytime soon…

When she saw the source of the light, though, her confusion was immediately eclipsed by a sense of triumph. A smirk curled her lips now, and a few chuckles oozed up from deep within her as she watched the multicolored vessel descend a few miles away. The golden Keyblade she carried appeared in her grasp in a flash of light, and her fist clenched around it as she imagined tearing into Char's flesh with it.

She was so close… the least she could do was take the bitch who had kidnapped Roxas down.

* * *

Yeah... Anxclof kind of hates Char, in case it wasn't obvious.

Also, the Keyblade Fal uses to release her heart is, incidentally, the Soul Eater (I think that's its name in canon? I'm a bit fuzzy on that) Keyblade that Riku uses in KH1, and that Sora used to release Kairi's heart. How did Mansex get ahold of it? Uh... he went by after all the shit in HB in KH1 went down and picked it up? XD;

I have a question for you readers out there. Do you think the thing with Falcon and Copperhead's pasts crosses over into Mary Sue territory? I feel like it does, but the problem is that I can't really edit it out of the fic. It kind of becomes important later.


	53. Chapter LIII

After three months of waiting, Chapter 53 is here! :) Sorry it took so long; senior year is proving to be more of a bitch than I thought. Plus I originally wanted to make this chapter longer, but I'd figured you'd all been waiting long enough, lol.

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** Don't own Kingdom Hearts. I do, however, own Char, Anxclof, Copperhead, Falcon, and the Shadowed Desert world.

* * *

This was not good. This was not good at all.

Char tightened her grip on the armrests, not daring to take her eyes off what lay ahead of the Gummi ship. She could hear Chip and Dale chattering urgently about what the screen revealed to them, but at the moment, all she could really absorb was the sight of the violet tendrils oozing from the enclosed castle in front of them – the globe that represented Hollow Bastion.

"Hollow Bastion! It's all covered in darkness!" one of the chipmunks cried, and a shifting flash of brown out of the corner of Char's eye revealed that said chipmunk was jumping up and down in his franticness.

"You're right," Sora said from beside Char, alarm audible in his voice. "I wonder what's going on…" He trailed off, as though not wanting to consider the options. Char shared his reluctance to consider it. _I _know_ what the problem is, and I don't even want to think about it._

"Sora, we better go down there and check it out," Goofy urged.

"Yeah," Donald agreed fervently.

"Yeah, you guys are right; Leon and the others could be…" Sora cut himself off then; Char had just enough time to wonder why before a tentative tapping against her shoulder made her jolt in her seat. With some effort, she tore her eyes away from what was visible through the green clouds and met Sora's eyes.

"What?" she asked a little roughly.

"Are you okay?" Sora inquired, tilting his head to the side. Char fought back the immediate increase to her heart rate at the genuine concern on his face; the fact that she could vaguely see Donald folding his arms and rolling his eyes behind Sora dampened that feeling considerably, however, and so she found herself responding relatively quickly.

"Of course," she answered. Only now did she realize Sora had never taken his finger off her shoulder, and she moved her shoulder away in what she hoped was a gentle manner. The look on Sora's face as he lowered his hand suggested that that had been a futile effort. "I'm just… worried about Hollow Bastion, is all."

Oddly enough, her strained words held a core of truth to them. However, contrary to what the others were undoubtedly thinking, the desperate worry that had riveted her attention to the darkness seeping out of Hollow Bastion – so powerful in its intensity that it was visible even without the Gummi ship's convenient map – hadn't arisen due to any lingering attachment for her old home.

If the darkness was this strong around Hollow Bastion, then the Heartless were coming more forcefully than ever to the half-ruined world. And if the Organization was utilizing the old Heartless factory near Ansem's study like Char had assumed, then that could only mean Xemnas had decided to make his presence more known to the worlds and tighten the grip of darkness over them – a grip he had already basically established, if the way the Heartless had kept mercilessly coming at Sora and the others in every world was any indication.

Just reflecting on the reason behind her worry made her fingers flex against the armrests of her chair again, as though the familiarity of the leather under her bare fingers would soothe her. Predictably, though, it didn't work, and Char was left cursing her own pathetic need to physically vent her feelings on something.

Thankfully, Sora didn't seem to notice her gesture of agitation; a look of understanding appeared on his face, however, and he turned back to Donald and Goofy. "Let's go," he told the duck, who nodded before flicking a few switches. Accordingly, the Gummi ship began to descend, right into the atmosphere of Hollow Bastion.

As the bright green sky petered off into a haze of bright white cloud, Donald suddenly yelped aloud and very nearly jerked the steering wheel in another direction in his shock. Char followed his gaze and couldn't hold back a tiny shudder as wisps of darkness whipped around them along with the cloudy mist. Unconsciously, she began to breathe a little more quickly, anxiety taking over her composure for a few moments, and she found herself straining for even the slightest glimpse of the bright blue sky beyond the mixture of white and black. Even on the days when storms had rent the air of Hollow Bastion, the cloak of clouds above the gray brick walls had never seemed so thick to her. She knew her own nervousness was giving her that illusion, but it didn't assuage her inner turmoil in the slightest.

As a result of her pounding heart and unease, the feeling of something sliding over her hand nearly startled her out of her seat again. Thankfully, though, like just a few minutes before, she managed to stay where she was, albeit breathing just a little more shakily this time around due to the source of the pressure on her hand.

She didn't dare look up at Sora's face, but she knew he had to be feeling just as nervous as she was if he felt the need to hold her hand as they descended.

_Oh, dear gods._ Char couldn't help but cringe a bit as it hit her.

He was _holding her hand. _Very gingerly, but he was still doing it. If her own damned nerves didn't kill her on this trip, the amount of blood rushing to her head would.

Sora's grip tightened very slightly as, all at once, the clouds thinned out and gray-shaded buildings loomed in front of them. Char realized belatedly that, for some reason, she had expected Heartless to be swarming the town and causing it to reflect the black-coated state of the atmosphere. But – an oddity given that the Gummi ship was hovering over the most bustling marketplace in this world, and, therefore, the best Heartless feeding ground – only people were moving about the area.

"We're going to land in the same spot we did last time," Donald announced. As annoying as his voice could be sometimes, the familiar hoarse squawk was a welcome interruption of the tense silence. "Just behind one of these buildings should do." He kept his eyes on the surroundings ahead, which Char felt a surge of gratefulness for. Although he was probably only avoiding eye contact due to not wanting his comrades to see the unease that was audible in his voice, she knew that had he glanced in Sora's direction, the duck would have seen the way the Keybearer's hand was still firmly twined with the redhead's own. And the last thing Char wanted was either a reaction of smugness or suspicion-laden annoyance out of the mage.

"How do you remember back that far?" Sora groaned.

"Because not all of us have the memory capacity of a goldfish?" Char muttered under her breath.

"Hey! I heard that!" the brunette protested. Interestingly enough, not even the force of his indignation was enough to make him take his hand away; Char found that odd, considering that he had immediately backed off when she had rejected his _finger_ against her _shoulder. _

She also found that she did not know whether or not to object to his newfound boldness.

Donald scoffed, clearly about to say something else; but then he squawked aloud and slammed his foot down on something.

And all at once, the Gummi ship was making landfall in the Hollow Bastion marketplace, and suddenly, the fact that the Organization was using the abandoned factory to churn out Heartless didn't seem as important as the fact that the vessel was moving at an alarming speed toward the building they had planned to land behind.

"Brake! Brake!" Sora yelped, to which Donald shouted back an obligatory reaffirmation as to his knowledge of the validity of Sora's concern. Char didn't know Key-boy could get such a tight grip on something, but her hand was experiencing that all too well right now, much to her chagrin. The sound of Goofy screaming in a high-pitched voice that didn't befit his usual timbre wasn't helping, either.

Fortunately, a couple of the gods must have decided to have mercy on the Keybearer's group, and in the next moment, the Gummi ship skidded to a bumpy stop. Letting out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, Char opened her eyes – when had she squeezed them shut, she wondered, before realizing it probably did not matter – and saw that the brightly-colored ship had gotten about a foot and a half away from making close and personal contact with the wall. "Oh… my… gods," she managed.

Even Sora was breathing hard, his face having gone completely white. Considering he had faced down rampaging Heartless, the end of his world, and the despair of having to fight his closest friend in serious combat, his ebbing fear wasn't something to take lightly. "Is everyone okay?" he panted.

"Yeah, I think so," Char murmured, trying to get her breath back. "Just… you're practically crushing my hand, but other than that and about twenty years taken off my life, I'll be okay."

Sora blinked; then his gaze moved to his gloved hand over hers and he recoiled with a start, as though he had kept his hand close to an open flame for too long and almost gotten burned. "Sorry," he muttered, averting his eyes. Char thought she saw his cheeks redden, but then his hair was covering half his face and she couldn't be sure.

"Gawrsh, Donald, y'almost didn't land us right," Goofy remarked breathlessly to his longtime comrade.

"Shut up!" the mage shouted, sounding just as flustered as the rest of them. "I just haven't driven in a while and was rusty, that's all!"

"Sure," Char huffed, folding her arms. "'Rusty,' yeah, that's it."

"At least _I_ landed us on the right world," Donald retorted. "You couldn't even do that much."

Char cringed. _Crap, he's right. _She recovered just in time to reply. "Yeah, but I didn't almost crash us into a wall," she pointed out. Now that the adrenaline of the moment had made its rounds through her system, she was beginning to remember the reason behind her prior anxiety at coming here in the first place. With the remembrance of that unease came the return of her death grip on the armrest, and she added testily before Donald could muster a response, "Can we get a move on already? We need to figure out what's going on here before darkness eats Hollow Bastion."

"Oh yeah." Donald blinked before narrowing his eyes. "Right. Everybody got healing items?"

"Right here." Goofy withdrew a couple of Hi-Potions from the pocket of his jacket. Char raised one eyebrow, but chose not to comment on Goofy's sense of preparation; instead, she reached into the pocket of her own brown jacket, only to all but freeze as her fingers brushed against something distinctively metallic. In her frantic desire to get here as soon as possible, she had completely forgotten about the Keychain she had put there. Now that she was thinking about it, Char realized how idiotic it had been to just pick up something she couldn't even use. _I should probably give it back._

Her fingers clenched around it, but before she could take it out, something took hold of her better judgment and refused to let go. Unbidden, the memory of the shape of the Keychain's charm came back into her mind – Kairi's good-luck charm. And at that moment, she realized the identity of the emotion that had hindered her from just giving the Keychain back to Sora and being done with it: _jealousy._

Before she could push that stupidly irrational emotion aside – the fact that Sora's newest Keyblade happened to symbolize the Keybearer's dedication to his friends shouldn't matter to her, after all, and she had no idea why it did – the sound of the aforementioned brunette's voice tugged her out of her thoughts. Hastily, before she could fully absorb what he was saying, she moved her hand away from the Keychain in her pocket and forced herself to search for healing items. Thankfully, she could feel the plastic vial shapes of a couple of extra Potions she had totally forgotten about. "I'm good," she said aloud, not expecting a response. She didn't get one.

The sound of the voice that had distracted her from her own emotions continued, and, glancing over to Sora, she saw he was rummaging through his own pockets in search of healing items. She realized he was naming everything his search yielded aloud, not asking her about her status: a fact that made her relax slightly.

As much as her straining nerves would let her, anyway.

As Sora spoke, he found himself placing everything he found on the dashboard in front of him. "Let's see… Potions, an Ether for Donald, Keychains…" He thought he saw Char tense in the corner of his eye at that last part, but pushed that thought away in favor of counting his Keychains. Something nudged at the back of his mind, something he thought he should remember, and the thought of the oddity of a Keychain being in the same pocket as Kairi's charm came into his mind. Sora shook it aside, figuring that he must have put the Circle of Life in there by mistake.

_And yet you found it in the same pocket you keep your other Keychains in. _That_ makes sense,_ a voice in the back of his mind, sounding disturbingly like Riku and Char combined into one, pointed out. He forced himself to not think about that and stuffed everything back into their previous pockets.

"I think I'm ready to go." He raised his voice above the previous murmur he had been using so his companions could hear him.

Donald nodded, at the same time storing the healing items he himself had found; Sora caught a glimpse of bright blue among them and realized the mage must have entrusted himself with the magic-restoring items remaining among the four comrades. It made sense, considering Donald was the only one who used so much magic – a fact that had always impressed Sora, seeing as how the only magic that the focus required for battle allowed the Keybearer to use was the Curaga chain.

The brunette took a deep breath, suddenly aware of the danger that landing in this world entailed. If, of course, the darkness they had had to navigate through was any indication, then the Heartless had to be swarming around Hollow Bastion in full force even at this moment. The thought sent a flame of newfound urgency roiling through his veins, and for perhaps the thousandth time today he hoped Leon and the others were still all right.

"Let's go, then," he heard himself say.

* * *

As the group descended the ramp, Char found herself glancing around with narrowed eyes. A mixture of relief and suspicion began to seep into her veins when no Heartless greeted her eyes: relief that her home wasn't as infested as it had seemed from outside this world, and suspicion that they had not been attacked yet.

She looked up at the flash of movement that appeared in her periphery, only to gasp in shock as a small group of knight-like Heartless came bounding up the stairwell just beyond, their armor clattering all the way. The sounds of her companions echoing her surprise with murmurs of their own went all but ignored to her ears, and she was already beginning to concentrate to summon her dual blades before the Heartless had disappeared at the top of the stairs, announcing their departure only in bursts of purple-swirled black light. Reluctantly, she allowed herself to relax, if only slightly. _There's our Heartless, _she thought dryly, not knowing whether to feel justified in her previous assumption of the amount of enemies here or even more agitated that she was right.

Not surprisingly, the latter prevailed and made her shift uneasily from one foot to another.

"Do you think…?" Sora began tentatively.

"Looks like there's more Heartless now," Goofy confirmed the brunette's unspoken question.

Char couldn't hold back a muttered "lovely" under her breath, to which Sora cast her a worried look. "You okay, Char?" he asked.

At the audible worry in his voice, the redhead cringed slightly. Nothing she said or did escaped Key-boy anymore, it seemed. She couldn't hold back the small, self-deprecating thought that if she had only stuck to her original mission – revenge – like she had planned, he wouldn't know her so well after only a few weeks. "Yeah, I'll be fine," she murmured in response, the weight of what she was leaving unsaid thick in the back of her throat. _Considering that the Organization is kicking their Heartless patrol into overtime just to spite me, I think I'm doing pretty okay._

Sora gave her a doubtful look – the anxiety that surrounded her was obvious even to him, after all – but chose to say nothing about it. "Well –" he began again, only to let out a cry as a set of white blurs undulated across the stairs in front of them.

As quickly as they had arrived, though, the Dusk Nobodies had vanished over the side of the precipice.

"Um…" Donald hesitated, clearly at a loss for words. For once, Char shared his sentiment; the sight of the Nobodies had caught her off guard as well.

"Let's… go check in with everyone," Sora suggested helplessly, saying the only thing that made sense to him right now. If the Heartless and Nobodies were both in this world at the same time, well… He let himself travel back to the last time they had visited Hollow Bastion, when Char had gotten her injury, and those powerful Nobodies with the pink cubes around them had attacked the Keybearer and Leon. The memory of how the Nobodies had almost killed him still made the brunette flinch, but what sent a more powerful surge of concern throughout his body was the possibility that even with Leon's power and Aerith's healing skills, the dual onslaught of Heartless and Nobodies alike might prove to be too much for Sora's friends here.

"I think they're at Merlin's," Goofy quipped.

As Sora nodded and moved toward the steps leading into the next part of the marketplace at a steady trot, Char absent-mindedly followed, at the same time never ceasing in her survey of the area. Her mind remained tense, ever focused on the task at hand in case any enemies took them by surprise and she had to summon her dual swords at that instant. She earned a few odd looks from passersby in the marketplace below due to the expression of concentration on her countenance, but she found herself unable to care very much; Char doubted that they would continue to look at her that way if she saved them from a horde of Heartless.

_Or Nobodies,_ she reminded herself. Her fists clenched as she remembered the Dusks that had escaped deeper into town; hopefully they would be tasting the ends of her blades before long. Thinking of the satisfaction that taking out Nobodies would likely bring conjured up the question as to what she would do if a member of the Organization chose to show himself here.

Or if Anxclof showed up. She nearly tripped over the bottom step of the stairwell that led up to the next floor of the marketplace at the thought of the former Number XIV. Gods, she hadn't even thought about Anxclof; Char had been so preoccupied with thoughts of what kind of havoc the Organization's Heartless could be wreaking on Hollow Bastion, that any thought of the Blade of Vengeance had entirely escaped her.

The redhead unconsciously clenched her fist as the revelation she had had back in Twilight Town came back to her. This reminiscence differed now, though, in that she took a firm hold of her mind and halted it in its action of dodging around the issue. If Anxclof showed up, Char would make it the last battle that the two of them would have, and was prepared to die if that was what it took to take her adversary down and make her stop plaguing Sora for good.

Thinking of that should have boosted her resolve. However, not so surprisingly, thinking of what she would do to protect Sora had an entirely different effect on her. Contemplating her future actions sent a surge of icy fear lancing through her entire body, a fear that, she was ashamed to find out, she understood entirely.

This level of dedication, the dedication she never would have anticipated at the start of this journey, terrified the living crap out of her. And despite knowing that, the feeling of readiness – to do whatever it took to save the stupid Keybearer, even if she sacrificed herself in the process – remained.

Char was so caught up in her rumination that she didn't notice Sora had halted in his tracks until she nearly crashed into his back; thankfully, though, she managed to stop herself in time. Narrowing her eyes, she saw that the rest of her group was looking at something.

She shoved her way to the front of the group, eventually coming to stand at Goofy's other side. When she caught sight of the reason behind the group stopping, the redhead's eyes widened. Although she had only seen the blond-haired young man leaning against the gray-bricked wall before them a few times – one of which she had only been half-awake during, a memory that still sent a surge of hot embarrassment throughout her body – she still recognized the dark trench coat and fox-like badge on his chest.

"Cloud!" Sora greeted, obvious joy in his voice. "You came back to Hollow Bastion!"

"Did you ever find what you were looking for?" Donald added, tilting his head to the side.

Cloud had all but ignored Sora's welcome, but at the mage's words he raised his head, allowing his pale golden fringe to slip away from his eyes. Char almost started at the haunted look in those blue depths. _What _was_ he looking for last time he was here, anyway?_ she couldn't help wondering, and knew that what he sought must be more important than he was letting on if it made him look like this. Cloud looked like he had gone through hell and back since she had last seen him.

Donald's question finally seemed to pierce the fog that clearly surrounded the young man's mind, and Cloud spoke, his voice carrying the hoarse timbre of one who has not used one's voice in a while. "No. But I'll get him."

"Him?" Char thought aloud, folding her arms across her chest. Cloud's gaze slid to her, as did Sora's; this was the first time she had spoken since they had departed from the Gummi ship, after all.

"The one who embodies the darkness in me," Cloud explained after a moment, a moment that was obviously spent in reluctance. As he continued, though, his voice grew steadily stronger. "This time, we're going to settle it."

"Darkness?" Donald asked. "I thought you looked kinda different last time, Cloud."

Cloud snorted. "If I do, it's his fault."

Char raised one eyebrow. "You must be pretty desperate for help. Last time, you wouldn't even tell us why you were staying here."

Cloud simply averted his gaze, as though knowing the truth of her words but too stubborn to voice his agreement aloud.

"So," Sora tried after a moment of awkward silence, "who's the one who embodies your darkness, anyway?" As he finished his query, the thought that maybe Cloud had a Nobody he was trying to track down crossed his mind. The possibility coaxed a shiver out of Sora; he had had a difficult enough time fighting Cloud during his very first trip to the Coliseum. He didn't want to have to take down a doppelganger of his friend, especially with the Heartless infestation in this world to worry about.

"His name is Sephiroth," Cloud muttered, spitting out the name as though just the implication of the word flitting across his mind incited disgust within him. "Tell me if you see him."

Seeing Cloud's newfound desire to spill everything about what he was looking for, Char felt something odd within her. It took her a moment to place its name: sympathy, and the feeling of identifying with the dark-clad blond.

_If I had told Sora and the others everything about _my _past, and what I was searching for,_ she thought, _then where would I be now? Where would _we_ be now?_

She risked a glance at the brunette, who was eyeing Cloud with a mixture of determination and curiosity and concern rolled into one on his countenance. The way Sora could manage to fit that much emotion in one facial expression surprised her, considering that before this journey had even begun she had thought of him only as a brave, but somewhat vapid defender of the worlds. For some reason, thinking of the way things had changed between then and now caused something to burn at the back of her eyes.

"Yeah, we'll keep an eye out for him," Sora was saying. "What does he look like?"

Cloud shrugged one shoulder. "Silver hair. Carries a long sword."

Sora nodded. "Sure. Well, we'll be seeing you, Cloud."

As he turned away, Cloud suddenly said, "Wait," effectively catching all four of them off guard. Looking vaguely uncomfortable at having the entire group's attention on him, Cloud went on. "Be careful. He gets inside your head – makes you think darkness is the only way."

Char blinked, about to say that she doubted they would have a problem in that regard, when a gentle voice sounded.

"Is something wrong?"

She glanced over and spotted Aerith walking toward them from the direction of the marketplace. "Aerith," Char said, the sight of someone she knew assuaging some of the anxiety in her gut. The female brunette cast the redhead a small smile of greeting before looking back at Cloud expectantly.

"Uh…" Sora began, but Cloud was already turning and walking away from them.

When the blond realized that Aerith was following him, though, he halted in his tracks and pivoted back around to face her. "Nothing," he murmured, to which Aerith raised one eyebrow and put her fists on her hips. Char knew that that would be about as close as the flower girl would get to a scornful remark as to the blatant lie behind Cloud's statement.

Seeing the skepticism in Aerith's eyes, Cloud quickly looked away, down at the ground. "I don't want you involved."

This time, Aerith leaned back, her arms dropping back down at her sides. "You mean you don't want me there when you go away again," she said at last, quietly accusing.

"I just –" Cloud hesitated then, actually _hesitated,_ much to Char's surprise. "Listen," he said, "even if I go far away, I'll come back."

"Do you mean it?" Aerith asked, and Char was shocked to hear an almost teasing undertone to her voice. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sora exchange a glance with his two animal comrades, and understood their bewilderment. Before now, Cloud had always seemed to keep the residents of Hollow Bastion at arm's length, kept them away from his best-kept secrets, had never seemed to want them to know anything about him.

"Yeah." Cloud's voice was barely audible now as he looked at the brick of the wall next to Aerith.

"But you don't look so sure," Aerith mused aloud, causing Cloud to glance back at her, his mouth open to say something else. Before he could, however, her finger had come up to his lips and effectively silenced him. "I understand – go get things settled."

"Hm?" was all Cloud could say behind the quieting barrier of her finger.

A smile twitched against Aerith's own lips. "No matter how far away you are… once you find your light, I'm sure it will lead you back here again." She lowered her hand, and Cloud's mouth immediately dropped slightly ajar. The sight would have amused Char, were she not feeling somewhat awkward for knowing this moment wasn't hers to see. Even in her periphery, she could see Sora felt the same; he was determinedly staring at the ground, clearly uncomfortable.

Or maybe he was thinking about himself and Kairi in the context of Aerith's statement. That irrational jealousy began to make its rounds through her heart again at the thought, and she found herself fingering the charm at the end of the Keychain that still lay in her pocket.

Goofy cast her a mildly suspicious look then, and Char realized that her feelings must have shown on her face. Quickly, she pulled her hand out of her jacket and put it on her hip instead, hoping he would turn around and forget about it, which he eventually did.

Cloud had remained silent during Char's lapse from reality, but now he spoke again. "I suppose."

This time, Aerith's smile took over her mien entirely. "Then I'll stay here… and I'll cheer for you. Okay, Cloud?"

"Okay," was all he said in response. But, looking at his face very closely, Char could have sworn she saw a light pink dust the bridge of his nose.

Then he walked down the stairs toward the borough and disappeared from view.

"Wonder if he'll be okay," Aerith murmured aloud as she watched him go, bringing up a hand to her chin.

"He'll be fine," Sora quipped, startling Char and the others; they had all but forgotten he was there. "He's got light in him somewhere."

Aerith looked at the Keybearer for a moment, then gave a subdued smile. "You're right."

She made as if to head toward the borough, and Char realized that she could glean some knowledge of her former home's status from the flower girl. "Hey, um, Aerith," she called hastily, and the female brunette turned to face them, eyebrows raised expectantly. "Is… is Hollow Bastion okay?"

Aerith tipped her head to the side, considering Char's question.

"It's just," Sora intervened, seeing the redhead's hesitation to reveal any more, "we were coming toward this world with the Gummi ship, and it was kind of…" He trailed off, staring at the ground.

"Covered in darkness," Donald finished. Goofy gave a helpless nod of agreement, for once not chiding the mage on his bluntness.

Aerith sighed. "It's been better, that's for sure. We're working the defense system into overtime." To Char, she asked, "Do you remember how I told you the more familiar the defense mechanism is with a type of enemy, the easier a time it has holding the enemy back?"

Char started a little, having not expected Aerith to address her. Now that she was forced to think about it, she could remember Aerith telling her as much; that day she had shouted at Sora and the female brunette had gently moved her to the conclusion that taking Sora to the field would suffice as an apology. The memory of how she had treated Sora still made Char cringe a bit, but thankfully she managed to keep her emotions in check. "Uh, yeah," she said. "That the mechanism has to read the enemy's signature in order to know how best to combat it."

Aerith nodded in confirmation of Char's understanding before looking back at Sora and the others. "We're trying to keep these new types of Heartless from overrunning the town, but it's hard."

"Good thing we came along when we did, then!" Goofy said, strained buoyancy in his tone. Donald gave a squawk of agreement, though even that seemed feigned.

Sora grinned and folded his arms. "Yeah, we'll help out."

Aerith gave the group a smile of relief. "Thank you, Sora."

"Where are Leon and the others?" Char asked, impatience working into her tone despite herself.

"At Merlin's house," Aerith explained.

Sora nodded. "Then let's go." Without another word, he began to make his way toward the borough and Merlin's house, in the wake of Cloud's footsteps.

Char started to follow after them, only to stop when she realized that no pink-bedizened shape was moving toward them. "Are you coming?" she asked, causing Aerith to halt in her own tracks and glance over her shoulder.

The flower girl shook her head, genuine regret on her face. "I would, but we're running out of healing items and…"

Char cut her off with a shake of her head. "Ah, no, I get it. I'll see you later, then."

She wasn't sure what possessed her then, but, almost against her own will, she found herself reaching into her pocket – the one that was currently filled with vials of blue liquid – and drawing out a single Potion. To her credit, Aerith only looked mildly confused as Char slapped the panacea into her hand.

"You need it more than I do," she muttered, feeling a strange need to justify her spontaneous generosity.

"Thanks." Aerith allowed her a small smile before turning on her heel and heading back into the marketplace.

Char watched the older girl fade into a brown-and-pink silhouette among the throngs of people before allowing the sigh that had percolated within her to escape.

"Char, hurry up!" Donald roared from further down the slope.

The redhead rolled her eyes. "I'm coming!" she shouted back, already shifting into a steady run.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy had waited for her at the edge of the marketplace. As she slowed to a stop in front of them, stumbling just slightly over the edge of a protruding piece of concrete, Sora wondered why she had stayed behind in the first place. Nostalgia hadn't made her do so, surely; any sort of wistfulness she could have felt toward her old home had been thoroughly eclipsed by her agitation at the thought of the Heartless permeating this world, after all. Thinking of that anxiety made Sora itch to heed the impulse that had taken over him back on the Gummi ship and grab her hand in his, but something told him now wasn't the time to act stupid. He knew the only reason she hadn't bothered to punish him for that heedless action on his part was _because_ she was clearly so antsy.

"Sorry," she panted. "I… needed to give Aerith something."

"Like what?" Goofy cocked his head to the side, making his long ears swing.

"Nothing you need to know about," she answered fairly smoothly, moving past them and further into town. After a few steps, she turned and gave them an impatient look. "Are you guys coming or not?"

"Of course we are!" Donald immediately stormed past her, staff already in hand. Goofy cast Sora a bemused look and a shrug, which the brunette returned, before following. Sora tried to hold back the sense of foreboding that was building in his belly at the openly suspicious look Donald gave her.

The Keybearer caught up with Char, who, as always, had taken up her position at the rear of the group. "Are you okay?" he asked her for the second time that day, keeping his voice low.

Char rolled her eyes, though he sensed that even that display of contempt contained a bit of hesitation. "I told you before, I'm fine."

_No, you're not,_ Sora thought, annoyed, but said nothing. "Well, then can I at least know what you gave to Aerith?"

Char's stride faltered as Sora spoke those words. At first he thought it was because of his question, but then he saw that the intermittent limp had taken over her gait. His heart twinged in guilt at the sight, the pang so poignant in its strength that he nearly gasped aloud then and there. He supposed thinking about the way she had nearly sacrificed her ability to walk to protect him would never stop making him feel guilty, but it was still an unwelcome emotion – that, and the thought that nothing he could do for her would make up for the debt he still owed her for that.

The sound of Char's voice, barely audible as it was, effectively pulled him out of any chance to drown in his thoughts. He frowned. "What?"

"I gave her a Potion! Okay?" Char barked, albeit in a low voice so as not to be overheard by their comrades. He didn't know whether to feel pleased that she wanted to confide in him, or suspicious that she felt she couldn't say something like this in Donald and Goofy's earshot.

Sora tilted his head to the side, a playful grin moving slowly across his face in spite of himself. Even though Char had ducked her head immediately after telling him, he could still see the light heating of her face, visible due to the paler shade of red that made it easy to distinguish it from the dark crimson bangs covering her eyes.

"Really?" he drawled.

"I know it was a stupid idea," Char grumbled, "but I figured just helping them out with that one item would be –" His remark seemed to hit her at that moment and she jerked her head up, bemusement in her gaze and on her face. "Wait, what?"

"Oh, nothing," Sora laughed, amusement overtaking him at Char's flustered expression. "I just didn't expect you to care so much about the people who live here, is all."

Char snorted, folding her arms and averting her gaze. "Oh, whatever. I knew if I didn't help Aerith out _somehow,_ I'd never hear the end of it from you."

"Sure," Sora chuckled, and was gratified to hear her let out a tiny grunt of surprise before she recovered herself and returned to glaring straight ahead.

He followed suit, although with a considerably gentler gaze than Char's. It hit him, for the first time, that they hadn't come across any Heartless on their way to Merlin's house. _No Nobodies, either. _

"Why are there so few Heartless around?" he murmured aloud.

Char glanced over, one eyebrow rising over an ice-blue eye. The mannerism behind her action made Sora think that he should know this already, a feeling that intensified when she responded. "Because the defense mechanism is killing the crap out of itself keeping the town safe?" she said. "Honestly, Key-boy, do you not know how to listen?"

_Then why was there so much darkness around Hollow Bastion when we looked? _Sora chose not to speak that question and instead laughed, a little self-deprecatingly. "Right, right…"

By this time they had arrived in front of Merlin's house. Donald stared at them, his arms crossed and one foot tapping impatiently. "It took you two long enough," he growled.

Char rolled her eyes and waved a hand in dismissal. "At least we got here at all."

"She's got a point there, Donald," Goofy shyly pointed out from where he stood on the duck's other side.

"Oh, shut it, you big palooka!" Donald muttered, glowering at nothing in particular. At the mildly shocked looks from his comrades, he looked back at them with actual contrition in his gaze. "Sorry," he said.

Sora shrugged. "It's okay. I think we're all a little… high-strung right now," he finished pathetically.

Listening to the brunette's futile attempt at reassurance, Char found herself agreeing with his words. Just the thought of the Organization – or Anxclof – showing themselves here and now made her fidget and think about summoning her dual blades just in case.

"Well, maybe Merlin'll know somethin'," Goofy suggested.

Sora nodded. "Yeah, you're right." As he began to make his way forward, Donald and Goofy wordlessly moved to take their places behind the Keybearer. Looking back at them, Sora shivered at the thought of losing any of his comrades now, at the thought of letting them down – even the sarcastic, bad-tempered redhead who had come to mean so much to him.

"Let's go," was all he said, and the others followed him through the doorway and into Merlin's house.

They were greeted by the sight of Cid in his customary position in front of the computer, typing something frantically while Yuffie looked on over the older man's shoulder. Hearing the door open, though, they turned in their respective tasks to see Sora and his companions approach. "Hey, everybody!" Yuffie chirped, grinning for some reason. Sora knew it was just the way she was – the self-proclaimed ninja was liable to find the silver lining in even these circumstances – but he still wondered why she looked so pleased.

"You're just in time," Cid added. "Got some good news for ya, so get yerselves over to Leon's."

Sora cocked his head to the side. "What kind of news?"

"We found the computer Ansem was using!" Yuffie grinned.

Sora heard Char draw in a sharp breath on his other side, and turned to look at her. "What's wrong?" he asked, ignoring the wide-eyed looks Donald and Goofy were exchanging on his other side. Even though he still did not know the source of the Disney residents' suspicion toward Char, Sora realized that now they might have a point. That she had had such a drastic reaction to hearing such news about the enemy Sora had fought so hard to defeat in the past… it was the impetus for a strange sinking feeling to coalesce deep within his gut. He wanted to believe Char had nothing to do with the Heartless or Nobodies, but now it seemed like his desperate trust of her – along with the other emotion he couldn't think of without feeling like he had betrayed Kairi – had been in vain.

The redhead started, as though she had forgotten her surroundings. "Uh, yeah," she managed. "Ansem, right? That guy you fought before?" Even as she spoke, though, a kind of tremor marked her voice, as though she didn't quite believe what she was saying.

"Yeah…" Sora trailed off.

Cid looked slightly confused, but continued anyway. "Well, you should be able to get all kinds of info on the Heartless and the Organization."

"And maybe something on the dark realm?" the Keybearer asked, his heart beginning to pound, Char's odd behavior all but forgotten. If Ansem's computer really held as much information as Cid was purporting it to, then maybe he could get some information on Riku's state.

_And Kairi…_ Just thinking of the way Kairi had been stolen away from Twilight Town – when he had been so close to getting her back – made Sora clench his fist.

At the curiosity on Cid and Yuffie's faces, Goofy explained, "Seems like that's where Riku and Kairi are." He shot a worried look in Sora's direction, at which the brunette forced himself to calm down and give the knight a reassuring smile.

"And the King," Donald cut in.

Cid shrugged. "Go see for yourselves."

"It can't hurt!" Yuffie added.

Char had remained silent up until now, so the sound of her voice startled everyone in the room, Sora especially. "We can get to it through the castle postern."

Donald narrowed one eye at her. "And you know this how?"

Sora half-expected her to fire back a scathing remark as to the duck's questionable intelligence. Instead, though, she lowered her head to stare at the ground, a shadow crossing her face.

Seeing Char like this – clearly anxious, to the point where any trace of her typical fire had all but diminished – concern took hold of the Keybearer's heart and refused to let go. Before he could say anything in the way of a gentle remark, though, Char looked back up at them. "I used to live around that area," she said, clearly having decided to reveal at least that much. "Me and the rest of the researchers."

Although hesitation veiled her words, as though she had her own reservations about divulging this, Sora's heartbeat kicked up nonetheless. At last – at long last she was revealing parts of her past that she had previously left to her companions to deduce on their own. While she had obviously chosen to confess that small amount of information under duress, the fact remained that she had at least succumbed that much. Sora found himself leaning closer to her, hoping with so much fervency that it pounded through his body and left him near breathless that she would say more.

But Cid was already speaking, effectively cutting off any chance she could have taken to do so. "Well then, Char," he growled, "lead yer friends there. Leon's waiting."

Char looked briefly startled at Cid's words, particularly the part about taking the lead in lieu of Sora. But just as quickly as the surprise had appeared, it had vanished, replaced by a mask of cold determination. "Gotcha," she said, and turned toward the door.

"Hey!" Donald shouted indignantly after her.

Char whirled around on her heel and glowered in a way that made even the grizzled Cid raise one eyebrow. _"What?"_ she spat.

Donald was used to her displays of anger, however, and merely narrowed his eyes in response. "What about Sora?" he asked icily, and though he said no more, even the brunette himself could hear the accusatory tone in the duck's words.

Sora winced, hating to have to get in the middle of the argument-in-waiting, especially when Char looked so close to summoning her blades right then and there. "Uh, if Char knows the way, then we should follow her, right?" he asked hastily, hoping the glance he cast in Char's direction conveyed all the urgency he felt to find Ansem's computer as soon as possible.

Fortunately, the redhead seemed to understand. Her proverbial hackles fell, and she simply let out a tiny huff before turning back around. Donald looked somewhat irritated and opened his mouth, as if to protest, but a swift, pleading stare from Sora rendered him silent but for a few annoyed grumbles.

"Oh, hey, before I forget," Char said abruptly, still not looking at any of the others, "Cid, Yuffie – go ahead and turn off the defense mechanism between here and the Postern."

Cid looked skeptical. "Sure you want to do that?"

"Oh, come on," Yuffie argued. "If anyone can handle the Heartless, these guys can." She winked at Sora, which caused him to let out a startled grunt. Though they couldn't see it, a tiny smirk tugged at one corner of Char's mouth at the sound.

"She's right, Sora," Goofy quipped, smiling encouragingly at the aforementioned boy. "You're the Keyblade wielder, after all."

Sora tried to return the smile, but any attempt to do so felt feigned. "Well, then, Char," he said, moving to stand at the redhead's side, trying to ignore the glance she shot him and how he could see her fingers trembling even from here. "Lead the way."

* * *

Sorry for the mild OOC for Char early in this chapter. I figure the Oathkeeper would serve as a reminder of everything she couldn't have with Sora, so she might get just an eense bit pissed off thinking about it.

Anyway, yeah, things are gonna get good after this... x3 Reviews will inspire me to update sooner!


	54. Chapter LIV

Chapter 54! Just in time for Thanksgiving. :) Happy Turkey Day to Americans, and for everyone else, well... Just happy new chapter day! XD It's one of my shorter ones, but I wanted to get it finished today.

Anyway, yeah, not much happens in the way of the KH2 storyline in this chapter. But read it anyway? Please? I promise things will get interesting after this.

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** I'm thankful KH exists. But I don't own it.

* * *

Anxclof had been sitting in the tunnels that led up to Ansem's study for what felt like hours, and still, no sign of that accursed redhead and her Keybearer made itself known to her.

The Nobody shifted impatiently from where she crouched in a hidden nook of one of the many hallways that wound their way around the building and tightened her grip on her Keyblade. In all honesty, the only thing that was keeping her from going out, finding Char and Sora, and tearing both of them apart was the thought of annihilating Char in the place she had grown up. Even now, just the mental image of Anxclof ripping Char to pieces while the other three idiots gaped made a smirk flicker across the female Nobody's countenance. She could almost see the look of shock and grief on Sora's face as well. While his face was a mirror image of Roxas', she knew the brunette boy would have let his guard down long enough for her to soon forget about that.

Of course, an instant after thinking that thought, her glee was tempered by the cold feeling of a hard rock's corner digging into her back.

Snarling, Anxclof whirled as best she could in the small space and in her cramped position and struck the protruding brick behind her as hard as she could with her Keyblade. It made a satisfying thud of protest and yielded just slightly under the pressure.

Feeling sufficiently mollified, the Blade of Vengeance returned her gaze to the hall before her, scanning it just in case some movement had occurred in the moment she had looked away. She knew she shouldn't be concerned about what might have happened in such a short length of time, but if her time in the Organization and killing Heartless had taught her anything, it was that every infinitesimal moment counted.

Her fingers twitched. Nothing greeted her eyes, except for the shadow of something far below her eye level vanishing into the darkness of the tunnels. Although every muscle in her body ached to take out her tension on something, she knew it would be a bit pointless to go after the mouse now.

_It might taste good fried with my powers, though,_ she thought. As if in response to her dry-humored mental comment, her stomach gave an insistent, almost pleading rumble. For the first time, it occurred to Anxclof that she had not eaten since before arriving at the Pride Lands yesterday.

"Yo, Anx!"

The aforementioned Nobody rolled her eyes, somehow unsurprised by the identity her mind attached to the voice. She huffed out a sigh, suddenly weary just due to the presence of the man she had expected to be here; as a result of the way that fatigue had suddenly come upon her, she didn't lash out with her Keyblade like she should have. Instead, not even bothering to locate him, she spoke. "Axel."

"Don't sound so irritated," Axel said in what might have been mild indignation. The sound of shoes tapping against the tile floor heralded his approach, and the next thing she knew she was face to face with the Flurry of Dancing Flames.

She narrowed her gaze as Axel stooped down, an odd look in his acid-green eyes. "The hell are you looking at?"

"Oh, nothing," Axel hummed, straightening and turning away. "I was just wondering why you were hiding in there."

Although his words were innocuous enough, Anxclof bristled at the inherent contempt she could hear in his voice. "When Char comes, I'll be ready," she spat, heat creeping up her back at the small part of her that was agreeing with his scorn. "Unlike you, I know how to be stealthy."

"Are you calling me obvious? I'm crushed." Axel put a hand over the place where his heart would be, then lowered it with a smirk. "Least I'm not the one hiding in the walls."

"Oh, please," Anxclof growled. "Like the way you've been sneaking around behind Xemnas' back is any less cowardly."

"See, that's different," Axel drawled, turning away and running one gloved finger along the wall behind him. Drawing the finger back, he grimaced at the layer of dust that was starkly visible against the black leather, then shook his hand off before looking back at her. "I'm smarter about it. _I _don't sneak up on Sora and then try to kill him the way you do."

Despite herself, Anxclof's eyes widened. The memories of when she had attacked Sora's group in the cave at the Land of Dragons and at the entrance to Beast's Castle flitted through her mind, and a frigid talon traced its imaginary way up her spine at the thought that Axel could have been watching. "How – who told you about…?"

"Uh, you did. Just now." Axel grinned wickedly at the pure fury that twisted Anxclof's countenance at that. "Really now, Anx, I know you better than you think I do. I figured that'd be your strategy."

At those patronizing words – almost as though he were implying she was too _stupid_ to think of another way to bring back Roxas – something seemed to snap within her. Almost unconsciously, she summoned her golden Keyblade. Upon the fading of the golden light caused by the weapon's arrival, her fingers tightened around the hilt such that her nails tore through the fabric of her fingerless gloves and broke the skin of her palm.

In spite of the fact that he had seen her this profoundly angry multiple times before, Axel actually took a step back, slight alarm replacing the former derision on his features. Strange as it was, the sight coaxed a smirk onto Anxclof's own countenance.

"And I know that _you_ would pick the sleaziest, most underhanded strategy possible," she purred, icily calm despite the fury that sizzled just below the surface of her emotions. "Putting the decoy to lure Sora to you in the Superior's old home? Really, now, Axel, I thought even you had more sensitivity than that."

As she went on, Axel's apprehension seemed to undergo a transformation. First bemusement replaced it, then an expression of realization and amusement overcame that. The female Nobody leaned forward, gripping the edge of the broken wall fiercely with her free hand. "What now?" she snarled.

"You thought I put Kairi _here?" _Number VIII's laughter ebbed, and he wiped imaginary tears away from his face. "Oh, Anxclof, you really don't think I'd be that stupid, did you?"

"Stupid?" Anxclof frowned, then decided it didn't matter.

"The point is that Sora's here anyway," she hissed, bringing her other hand against the edge of the wall in front of her. The contact of the brick against the raw cuts on her hand, tangible with the rips her nails had made in her glove's fabric, stung viciously, but she ignored it in favor of the newfound urgency she felt. "We can bring him back, Axel." Unbidden, the image of the aforementioned Nobody appeared in her mind. His blue eyes and smile shone the most vividly in her thoughts of him, and suddenly she wanted to leap out of this stupid hiding spot and charge through the corridors until she found Sora and Char and could make them pay.

"We can get Roxas back," she went on, almost trembling with the force of her suppressed desire. "And then Char will go down for putting him back in Sora, and then everything will be the way it was."

And she believed it: that even with Roxas' absence – even with the way his time in Twilight Town and experiencing what Sora had experienced had changed him – their friendship could be put back together again. She could do it, she _would_ do it. Even if Axel refused to take care of it the way she did. In some rational part of her mind, she understood that such a delusion could never happen again, but she found herself not really giving a damn at the moment.

Because she was so close, _so damn close_ and there was no way she was going to slow up now.

Axel was staring at her with his mouth slightly agape. She heard someone laughing, and realized it was her own voice making those amused little giggles. "Close your mouth, Number VIII, you'll catch flies," she sang, still laughing. It occurred to her, vaguely, that she had never seen him this flustered; the sight entertained her far more than it should have.

Finally, Axel spoke, so softly she had to strain to hear.

"I care for him as much as you do, Anx. But Roxas is all I want. Your little revenge kick, this obsession you've got going on – you can keep me out of it. I'm done trying to help you." (1)

Without another word, he opened a portal and vanished through it.

* * *

"This is it," Char said.

Behind her, Donald let out a "wow" of wonder as he surveyed the area; Goofy echoed that sentiment aloud, as did Sora, albeit only in an awed murmur. The sight of the half-ruined castle looming up before them reminded him vaguely of Maleficent's, but thankfully, aside from the spacious outer appearance, the resemblance ended there.

Almost against his will, he found himself glancing over at Char. Only when they had gotten halfway down the bailey's broken stairwell and she had led them toward the cluster of broken buildings to the right did he realize she was taking them the same way she had gone when she had shown him the meadow.

As they had passed the entrance to the odd white cavern, the pristine glow that emanated from the area had caught Sora's eye. He had been about to bring it up to Char when she turned slightly, not slowing in her now-smooth stride in the slightest, and gave him a look that suggested she did not want to discuss it. For some reason, her not wanting to bring up the place where they had first connected worried him more than anything else.

And now that they were standing in the postern, the place that not only led to what might finally give Sora some answers about his friends but was also apparently close to the place where she had lived – now that they were here, that concern was magnified more than ever. On the way here, she had seemed calm enough, disposing of the Heartless that appeared before them with the same precision she normally used; but now an expression of faint dread had drawn itself up over her features.

"Big place," he tried to start a conversation.

Char simply nodded, putting one hand on one of the pipes that surrounded the entrance to the area. He could have sworn he heard her murmur something that sounded like "home again," but then Donald was speaking. "We should find Leon," the duck suggested.

"Oh yeah – right." Sora ignored the mildly annoyed look he got from the mage in response and resumed glancing around the area. A glimpse of brown hair and that dark jacket had been the goal of Sora's search, but he stopped short when he saw the building next to the castle before them. Although small – it appeared to only have one story – the brick looked somewhat worn, almost to the extent of its much larger neighbor, and a series of scribbles that had been inscribed on the door told the brunette it was not just crumbling due to old age.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the building.

Char followed his gaze. The sight had a visible effect on her; she actually tensed for a moment, earning herself a suspicious glare from Donald and a worried look from Goofy. Then she deflated, almost as if deciding she had revealed enough already, and spoke. "That's the building where I used to live."

"Really?" Goofy moved his head to look around Sora, trying to get a look at the small structure.

Char nodded, staring at her former home. "Yeah."

"You and the other apprentices?" Sora asked, feeling a surge of impatience that he had to speak like this to her just to get this much out.

The redhead gave another nod, but said no more.

Seeing that she had divulged as much as her own boundaries would let her, Sora returned to his prior task. "Leon?" he called out.

"Sora!" The Keybearer turned and saw Aerith running up to them. For the most part, she looked no worse for the wear, despite the Heartless that Sora and the group had had to fight through. _Maybe she found those Potions she needed after all._

"You found Ansem's computer?" he asked.

Char immediately shoved him, giving him a pointed look. "Geez, Sora, don't say 'hi' or anything."

He didn't know whether to be grateful that she had recovered enough to make dry jokes, or wince at the pain that was building up at the back of his shoulder. Either way, he decided to just smile sheepishly. "Right, right…"

Aerith just looked amused, but then her expression turned serious. "Yes, we found the computer. The King is very interested in it."

Those words had an immediate effect on Donald and Goofy; they exchanged a wide-eyed glance before returning their attentions to the flower girl. "The King is here?" Donald cried.

Aerith nodded. "He's with Leon, at the end of the corridors."

"Oh, great," Char muttered on Sora's other side.

Her comment went all but unnoticed by said brunette. Even as his two longtime comrades began to chatter excitedly behind him, he could only draw his gaze down to the ground, feeling a bittersweet twinge deep inside him. He knew its identity, dual as it was: happiness, and envy at the same time. Donald and Goofy had found what they sought, but… Not for the first time, the words of the blue-haired Nobody in Twilight Town echoed in Sora's head. _Don't be reckless… do you want to end up like Riku?_

Raising his head, he dared to speak the question whose answer he dreaded. "Uh… is Riku with them?"

Aerith shook her head, much to his dismay. Sora sighed, trying to fight back the despair that now threatened to overwhelm him in its dark grasp. "Well, at least I can ask the King about him. Maybe that computer can tell us something, too."

Hearing Sora's pathetic attempt at optimism, Char could only avert her eyes. She found herself wanting to tell him about Riku – if not his whereabouts, then at least that the silver-haired boy was all right. But she had made a promise, and she didn't want to go back on her word. _No matter _how_ badly I've screwed it over at this point._

Besides… She allowed herself to look back over at the building she had spent her days, then at the castle that housed the corridors leading to Ansem's study. Char didn't know what kind of information Sora would find in her master's old computer – he and Even had been the only ones privy to all that, and she had hated being so near the Heartless factory besides – but she did know that by the end of this trip, she would have to tell the brunette and his friends everything about her past. The idea sent a shudder rippling through her entire body. Donald and Goofy were wary enough of her already; telling them she used to work with the people who had later founded the Organization, while hardly something that condemned her in particular, would likely push them over the edge of that suspicion.

And Sora. Gods, she didn't even want to think about how Sora would react. The thought drew – what was that, a _tear?_ – into the back of her eyes. Furiously, she pushed it away. Neither of them had time to worry about it right now, as far as she was concerned.

_And really, wouldn't finally giving all your secrets away be a relief?_

Char did not dare consider that question for fear of its answers.

"The King and Leon are through there." Aerith nodded toward the path that spiraled down further below, the walkway whose makeshift metal surface eventually yielded to the gray tile of the postern's corridors.

As Sora bid her farewell and began to lead his companions toward the declivity, Char took a deep breath. _Relax,_ she told herself. Honestly, they were barely in the castle and she was already letting her anxiety get the best of her.

Only after they had stepped inside did she realize that not once had nostalgia cut into that anxiety. Not for the first time, she realized she must be getting better in that regard.

She looked around to give herself something to do. A year or so away from these halls had not done wonders for its dust level, she noted dryly; even in this dim lighting, she could see that decay had set itself rather thickly upon the corridors she had taken to get to Ansem when he was deep in work. Some of the walls had corroded, leaving the pipes that wound themselves about the building starkly visible.

Donald uttered a noise that might have been one of bemusement. "This place _is_ kinda gross," Goofy agreed.

At that, Char had to take umbrage. "It just hasn't been touched in a while, is all," she argued. When the trio gave her odd looks, she huffed out a sigh. "I had to walk through here a lot when I lived in Hollow Bastion. Trust me, it doesn't normally look this…" She groped for the right word. "…decrepit."

Sora looked as if he accepted that answer. "Well, since you know your way around –" He cut himself off abruptly and whirled around.

"What? What?" Donald yelped, drawing his staff.

The brunette seemed to return to reality at that moment and relaxed. "Nothing," he said. "I just thought I heard something, is all."

"Probably it was just a mouse," Goofy pointed out.

Char snorted. "Right. Sure."

"Just tryin' to be helpful." The knight ducked his head, and Char immediately, stupidly felt guilty.

"Either way, we have to get to Ansem's computer," Sora quipped, reminding himself as much as everyone else. "So… Char, do you want to lead the way?"

Char started at that. "Um, that's probably not such a good idea," she demurred, feeling heat creep up her cheeks at the disbelieving look she got from Donald. "What?" she growled at the duck. "These tunnels are easy to get lost in, you know!"

"Right, right," Sora laughed. To Char's humiliation, transferring her glower to him only made him laugh harder. "Well, anyway, let's just keep away from the crumbling parts of the building. They don't look very safe."

He retook his place at the front of the group. Still grumbling to herself, Char followed. As much as she wanted to tell Sora the scarce amount of shortcuts she remembered, she knew he had a point about the eroding walls. Not only would any falling rubble seriously injure one of them – especially Donald, whose bone structure wasn't the strongest around – but the holes in the walls created by the parts that had already crumbled were the perfect spot for enemies to hide.

_Like Anxclof. _Char cringed at the thought of the Blade of Vengeance. Last time the two of them had crossed paths, Roxas' presence had mollified Anxclof, but she had only had the short time in the Pride Lands to be with him. And Roxas' comment about Anxclof wanting to take her revenge a step further still rang inside Char's head.

_But things are different this time,_ she told herself. Her fist clenched with the force of will behind those mental words. _Next time we cross blades, only one of us is going to emerge from the battle._ Oddly, like the revelation of her feelings for Sora, thinking about the realization she had come to in Twilight Town was getting easier the more she did it.

She didn't know whether to call that a good thing or not.

For the most part, the journey through the corridors went relatively smoothly. While Sora's stubborn avoidance of the less-than-stable walls meant they could only take one specific path, few Heartless chose to harass them. The enemies that did appear were mechanical in appearance; one type was bipedal and darted around the group, while the other resembled a small, laser-firing machine. Fortunately, the four of them disposed of the Heartless fairly easily. Then again, Char's taking out her agitation on them might have helped, as well as Sora's realization that aerial attacks were the robots' weakness.

Char felt torn between bemusement and relief at the lack of Heartless; while it meant the group was fresh for whatever fight might be ahead, it also gave her fewer targets to take her conflicting emotions out on.

Whatever time she might have had to dwell on it vanished immediately when she saw where they were. The pale white door that rose up before them struck the same familiar chord and stirred the same feelings she had always experienced when standing right outside it: slight nervousness, and the distinctive sensation of preparing herself for speaking to her master about whatever topic was troubling her.

_Troubling me?_ Now that she was reflecting on it, she realized she had never really talked to Ansem about anything other than help with an assignment, or maybe some munny to go out into the town when time permitted. They had never really discussed anything beyond the academic; that, she had reserved for her fellow apprentices. Even then, though, they never talked about everything.

_No wonder I have such terrible communication skills,_ she thought, but not even blaming her inability to deal with being so close to the heart of all her secrets could soothe her.

The flicker of movement caused by Char's fidgeting caught Sora's eye. Strangely, her tension had a contagion about it, and he soon found himself tapping his own fingers against his pant-clad thigh. Faintly, he remembered the last time he had seen her distressed enough to create that gesture, the urge to seize her hand and console her had nearly taken over him. That urge returned now, and it was all he could do to keep it at bay. If he wanted to keep all his fingers, anyway. Before the now-familiar sadness could tug at him at acknowledging her pride, he spoke. "Char, you okay?"

She looked at him, and the amount of misery that escaped her typical angry façade made the breath catch in his throat. _Leave her alone,_ he told himself, _she doesn't want your comfort. _"Yeah," she said. "The King is past here, right? We should go in."

Nodding, Sora turned to Donald and Goofy. "You guys ready?" he asked.

"Yup," Goofy said, grinning as best he could.

"Of course!" Donald acquiesced, looking more eager than ever at the prospect of Mickey being behind the doors.

Sora grinned in response and turned the knob.

Char had braced herself for the sight of disarray in Ansem's study in correlation with the corridors' ruination, but the degree of disorganization in the room pulled a small sound from her nonetheless. The diagrams that she and the other apprentices had helped create hung haphazardly from the walls, and the papers that Ansem had kept together so well had strewn themselves about the area. Books lay in random places on the floor, corresponding to empty spaces in the shelves. Almost on instinct, she searched for the entrance to the blue-surrounded computer room – which, she realized, looked rather similar to the computer room they had used in Twilight Town; she supposed even Ansem had to have his nostalgic moments – but found only a solid, creamy wall in place of that entrance.

Slightly bemused, she strode across the room and bent over to pick up a book. Staring at the cover – it was worn almost to the point of indecipherable, but she could see the word _Hearts_ at the top – she suddenly wanted to find its shelf and put it back in its place. She could almost hear Ansem scolding her for just leaving it there, and almost replied aloud by saying it was the Heartless' fault, but caught herself just in time.

_Guess I'm home after all._

"Alright, now if I were a computer, where would I…?" Sora trailed off in his hypothetical query.

Char looked over, putting the book down on Ansem's desk before following his gaze. "What are you…?" Then she saw what he was looking at. "Oh," she said, feeling ineffable fury rise up deep within her. It was just like Xemnas, that egomaniacal bastard, to put a portrait of his former self on the wall where Ansem's father had once watched over the room. Stern and collected as the previous memory in the spot had looked, staring right at Xehanort – the man who had started not just Char's trials, but Sora's as well, albeit only in his other forms – was the less preferable of the two.

"Ansem," Donald acknowledged, clenching his fist. Char glanced over, wanting to correct the duck, but knew it would be useless to correct his assumption. _Besides, technically, for all intents and purposes, the Heartless they took down_ was _Ansem._

"Gawrsh, I guess this must be his room," Goofy mused aloud.

Char nodded, folding her arms across her chest. That, at least, they had gotten right.

Sora stepped up closer to the portrait, clearly intrigued by the picture of his old enemy. The sight of Ansem – his gray hair and arrogant eyes – stirred familiar emotions he had felt around the Heartless: anger, fear, and defiance. Those sentiments rose so strongly within Sora that he had to remind himself that Ansem was dead and gone, defeated by the light of Kingdom Hearts.

"Where's the King?" Donald asked.

Torn out of his reverie, Sora turned away from the picture and looked at his friends. Donald looked impatient as ever, while Goofy was picking up a few of the papers scattered about the area and squinting to read them.

Almost in dread, Sora looked at Char. He had saved his scrutiny of her for last, and now he understood why he had done so: out of fear of what he would see there. The fact that she had led them so close to the heart of their former enemy's stronghold left a bitter taste in the back of Sora's mouth and a desperate feeling around his heart. It didn't help that Char was looking around the room with a look of nostalgia on her face.

Shaking it off, he called out instead. "Hello? Is anybody here?"

"Hey, you!" The voice came from just outside the room, in the corridors. Sora looked over at the doorway – _oops, forgot to close the door,_ he thought in embarrassment – just in time to see a dark-clad woman with long, chocolate-colored hair step into his line of sight.

The rest of his group moved to Sora's side to see the newcomer better. Donald tilted his head to the side, looking a bit disgruntled that she wasn't King Mickey, but curious nonetheless; Goofy put down the sheet he was looking at and ambled over; and Char merely eyed the woman in a detachedly interested manner. Sora himself just waited to hear what she had to say.

The mysterious woman glanced around the room before looking back at Sora. "I'm looking for somebody. Have any of you seen a guy with spiky hair?" she asked, miming said 'spiky hair' by pointing a finger above her head.

Sora blinked, and tugged at his own, gravity-defying locks. Char sniggered behind him. "We've got your man right here," she joked.

The woman laughed and shook her head. "Spikier," she amended.

Sora lowered his hand and shrugged. "Sorry," he apologized.

"Spikier hair than Key-boy? Didn't think that was possible," Char said, and he could hear the smirk in her words.

He whirled around and stared at her indignantly. "Hey!"

His pout only served to pull a small chuckle out of her. "Don't get offended. I'm just pointing out facts."

He was about to give her another retort, but stopped dead when he realized she had a point. Somewhat annoyed, he turned away and folded his arms, much to the amusement of Donald and Goofy.

"So, what's your name?" the latter queried, once his snickers at Sora's expense had faded.

The woman blinked reddish-brown eyes, clearly having not expected any of the others to address her again. "Tifa," she said, still scanning the room. Even though he was stubbornly looking at one of the odd diagrams on the wall in lieu of his comrades, Sora could hear the hastiness in her voice, as though she had only introduced herself out of formality and just wanted to find what she was looking for. Just like Cloud.

The brunette blinked and glanced back over at her. He opened his mouth, wanting to ask if she knew Cloud, but she beat him to it. "I'll just take a look around," she decided aloud, and without another word had swept off to another part of the circular area.

"Right, right," Char said, narrowing her eyes. "Just don't touch –"

Ignoring the redhead, Tifa had chosen to stalk right over to the wall that covered the entrance to the computer room and searched it. An instant later, she delivered a sound kick to the wall that reverberated throughout the entire room and nearly made Donald lose his balance.

"– anything," Char finished with a resigned, yet irritated sigh.

Tifa looked back up from where she had swerved to look under Ansem's desk. "Sorry," she said, genuinely contrite. "I just thought he might be back there."

"He…?" Sora cocked his head to the side.

But Tifa did not answer the Keybearer's unspoken question. "Sorry to bother you," she called as she left the study.

"No bother at all, ma'am," Sora called after her. Donald and Goofy echoed his sentiment just as the door closed behind her.

"Geez," Char grumbled, as the others returned their attention to the room. "Tearing up my master's room like that…"

"Your… master?" Donald gave her a squinty-eyed glare.

"Gee, but if this is Ansem's room, that means…" Goofy cut himself off abruptly.

Char's eyes widened, and she immediately began defending herself. "Look, just because one gray-haired guy decided to stick his picture up on the wall doesn't mean it's _his_ study," she growled, hating the way her heart began to pound at the looks in her companions' eyes. Donald looked almost triumphant that his suspicions were true, Goofy had the expression of one who began to put two and two together, and Sora…

Char did not dare glance at Sora for fear of the disapproval she would find there.

"The guy you fought…" Hesitation made her pause.

"Yeah?" Donald demanded, already wielding his staff threateningly. "What _about _him?"

Despite her slowly-growing horror, Char scoffed. "Put the weapon away, duck boy. I'm not a part of what he had planned and you know it."

_Then why did you pretend you didn't know about him when we first met you? _With some effort, Sora pushed that question to a seldom-visited part of his mind. "Then why are you saying this room belonged to your master?" he asked softly.

For the first time, the redhead's icy gaze slid over to him; and for an instant, he almost wished he hadn't met her eye contact. He almost flinched away at the depth of desperate anger there, yet he managed to stand his ground and stare right back at her. It couldn't be more obvious that she hated divulging this much of her past, but as far as he was concerned, her little confessions were long overdue.

"Because it does," she answered just as quietly. Donald let out a squawk of confusion and made as if to speak, but Goofy put out a hand to silence the duck. "The guy you all fought is – used to be, I guess – he _was_ one of the researchers who worked alongside me."  
Silence reigned in the room, as Disney residents and Keybearer alike took in the news. Sora in particular felt a rush of odd fascination; when he and his friends had defeated Ansem, they had not especially dwelled on their foe's identity prior to becoming a Heartless. But really, it made sense that Ansem's picture would appear here, of all places, if he had lived here.

"So…" Goofy put his free hand under his chin in thought.

Whatever the knight had to say was immediately drowned out by Char's next words. "And when he was alive, his name wasn't Ansem," she went on. "We called him Xehanort."

Her tone – sounding as though she had been holding this information close to herself for a while, and that she felt freer at expressing it – strengthened Sora's feeling of interest toward her story. "So the guy we fought was Xehanort's Heartless," he said, sounding as though he were asking a question.

"Yeah." Char nodded, relief overtaking her countenance. Sora couldn't fathom why she would feel relieved at confiding the truth behind Ansem's identity to them. Then again, though, he still did not understand why she felt she had to keep this all a secret in the first place.

"But if his real name was Xehanort –" the brunette began, only to be cut off by a familiar voice.

"So, you made it."

As one, the group jumped slightly, then spotted the speaker. Due to the dark hue of his jacket against the creamy-beige wall, Sora immediately spotted him. "Leon!" he greeted the older brunette. Then he smiled, a little abashed. "Uh… how long have you been standing there?"

Leon rolled his eyes, but a tiny smirk of his own covered his countenance. "I just walked in."

"But, uh, how didja get all the way over there so fast?" Goofy asked, looking confused.

"I'll show you in a sec," was all the man said.

Sora blinked, then decided it could wait. Clearly, Leon had not heard much of what Char had said, otherwise he would already have asked about it. For some reason, the Keybearer felt a little comforted by that fact. Despite the fact that Char had trusted Leon enough during their last visit here to tell him about her insecurities – a fact that still rankled Sora for a reason he now knew all too well – it was obvious even to Sora that Leon still distrusted her a little.

"Hey, isn't the King supposed to be with you?" the girl in question asked.

Sora took a closer look and realized she was right; no small, round-eared shape stood beside Leon.

"Yeah, where's His Majesty?" Donald added, albeit with a much softer degree of brusque inquiry than he had used toward Char. Ironic, considering the subject of his current query had been what he and Goofy had searched for for ages.

Leon simply brought up one glove-clad finger for silence. As the mage jerked his eyes away, grumbling under his breath, the older man went on. "You'll see him soon enough." When that failed to palliate Donald's annoyance, Leon's smirk grew a bit wider. "Here, this ought to tide you over."

He turned and placed his hand on a specific part of the wall behind him. The square surrounding his hand shone, and a bright light filled the group's vision, causing them all to bring one arm over their eyes. When the light cleared, that particular section of the wall was gone, replaced by a doorway to a pale gray-blue, almost metallic-looking room.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy let out noises of awe at that, but Char simply looked away. She already knew that would be there, had realized it the moment Leon had placed his hand on the wall. Of course – of _course_ Ansem would have sealed away the room that held his most valuable secrets just before escaping to Twilight Town with her.

_He could have picked a less obvious way to find it, though,_ she reflected. _Everybody knows the hand-on-the-wall trick is the biggest cliché in the book._

"Ansem's computer room is just beyond here," Leon said, before turning away and moving deeper within.

"All right!" Sora cheered, following the Gunblade wielder at a steady pace, and Donald and Goofy raced after him. Char herself went more sedately. That idiotic agitation rose up within her again; the brief interlude between her telling her companions more about Xehanort and Leon's appearance had been a welcome break, but now her pounding heart and shaking hands had returned.

"Slow down," Leon called irritably after the Keybearer, but Sora ignored him. He moved over the threshold and did not even balk at the all-but-transparent floor beneath him as he skidded to a halt at the front of the adjoining room.

Panting slightly, he surveyed the area. Mechanical beeping sounded in his ears, as well as a low hum that announced the computer was still running. His gaze roved about the room, glossing over the doorway opposite him and the odd-looking, almost portal-like wall in his haste to see the computer itself. For the most part, Ansem's computer did not look particularly impressive. A smaller square on the monitor showed a bird's-eye view of Hollow Bastion, with the castle they were currently standing in the most prevalent feature.

Practically trembling with excitement, Sora forced himself to cross the room slowly and halted in front of the massive keyboard. "This is it," he murmured breathlessly, placing his wrists at the edges of the desk.

As the rest of the group stopped at his side, with Donald breathing the hardest, Sora began frantically typing on the keyboard. "Where's Kairi? Where's Riku?" he pleaded, forgetting the computer's inability to respond verbally in his desperation. When it failed to do anything at all, however, Sora let out a growl of frustration and slammed the palms of his hands as hard as he could down on the buttons. Donald and Goofy glanced at each other nervously, as though wondering what to do, but Char beat them to it.

"Easy!" she hissed, grabbing Sora's wrists in midair and forcing them against the desk. She could feel more than hear him gulping in air, half asphyxiated in his blind vexation, and tried not to inhale too deeply herself for fear that how close they were would become clear to her in that action. When he whipped his head toward her, however, the force and brightness of those clouded sapphires boring into her own gaze sent reality crashing down on her.

Abruptly, she went on, mentally scolding herself for acting so impulsively and at the same time trying to ignore how her chin now practically rested on his shoulder. "Calm the hell down," she spat, concern briefly overriding her hormones. "Do you want to break the stupid thing? You wouldn't find anything on your friends then, now would you?"

_Of course, you _do_ know where one of them is, so it wouldn't be that much of a problem._

For a few, agonizing moments, Sora glared at her, his breathing beginning to slow in spite of the sudden increase in his heartbeat. Of all the ways to calm him down, she had to pick this one…

He forced himself to shake off the debilitating effect that his inhalation of her cinnamon scent seemed to be having on his legs. At least now he knew where that fragrance in the air of Twilight Town's mansion came from, he thought dryly. "Sorry," he murmured, forcing himself to pull out of her grasp. "Guess I got a little carried away."

"Damn right you did," Char said, folding her arms. Oddly, their closeness had no visible effect on her, much to Sora's dismay. "If you break my master's computer, I'll have to kill you."

Pathetic as the justification was, it made Sora smile nonetheless. "Sorry," he repeated.

Suddenly, Goofy let out a cry of shock and pointed up. As one, the others – including Leon, who had just stepped into the room to see the cause of the commotion – looked up and saw what had startled the dog. A small blue creature was scuttling across the ceiling, but, upon seeing the witnesses below, let out a sound of confusion. It – he? Sora decided it was male and left it at that – _he_ drew his forepaws off the surface of the metal part of the ceiling to get a better look at what odd beings stood below. An instant later, however, he let out a howl and plummeted, landing on the keyboard on his hind paws.

"What the…" Char eyed the newcomer with growing bemusement. He did not respond, but instead drew himself up and looked around.

"Get offa there!" Donald ordered, and leaped onto the desk. He scrambled to grab the blue-furred creature, but the latter easily squirmed out of the duck's grasp, and laughed as he darted off down the corridor. Looking humiliated, Donald drew himself up and put his fists on his hips, pivoting toward where the unknown animal had disappeared; they could hear his webbed feet clacking against the keys as he did so.

Suddenly, an alarm blared throughout the area, startling the others badly. Donald glanced around in panic, trying to find the source of the noise; copying the gesture, Sora realized it was coming from the computer itself.

"Attention, current user," a voice reverberated, causing a distinctive ripple in the air. "This is a warning. Further misuse of this terminal will result in immediate defensive action."

"Who are you?" Char demanded, nervous now for an entirely different reason than before. She couldn't recall a defense system like _this_ dwelling in Ansem's most prized device; then again, she had left all that nonsense to Ansem himself and Even. Not for the first time, she cursed her own lack of attention span from back then.

"I am the Master Control Program," the voice boomed. "I oversee this system."

_The hell you do,_ Char thought, but said nothing.

_"Where_ are you?" Sora added, in search of confirmation for his suspicions. However, he received no reply.

Hesitantly, Donald lifted one foot and dropped it back down on the keyboard. Immediately, the sirens flared up anew and with more force, to the point where Goofy had to push his hands over his ears. "Donald!" everyone hollered at him.

"I'm sorry!" he shouted back in protest. Releasing one hand from his ear, Goofy dragged the mage off the keyboard, but it did nothing in regards to the room's loudness.

"Decision gate reached," the voice suddenly announced. "You are all under arrest."

"Arrest?" Sora cried incredulously.

Up until now, Leon had been watching with growing trepidation on his face. Now, though, his gaze roved over to the wall opposite Ansem's computer. The crimson sphere within the portal-like structure suddenly began to glow with a bright white light.

"Run!" he shouted to the others, but it was too late. Just as the four of them turned toward the accumulating light – with Goofy still grasping Donald – the light shot toward them in a thin beam. Sora immediately brought one hand over his eyes, while Char stepped back, alarm on her features. As the light landed on them, it seemed to separate and spread out into cubes that settled over the group. Leon could only watch as the immobilized bodies of the four seemed to become transparent squares. A tiny gasp escaped him as the beams of light swept across the bodies they had consumed and seemed to suck them into the portal.

Silence. Leon brought one hand over his eyes and groaned. "Now what?"

* * *

Indeed, Leon, indeed.

(1) You can get AkuRoku out of this little statement if you want to. I personally see them only as BFFLs and intended that to only be friendshippy, but again, YMMV on it.

Next chapter will start off the Space Paranoids! Before you all start groaning at the thought of the montage of boredom that that world is, don't worry, it won't be boring when I write it. Hopefully. -sweatdrop- Knowing Char, it'll get screwed up _some_how.

We're almost at 200 reviews, guys! Get me there and I'll love you all forever! :3


	55. Chapter LV

Quick updates ftw~! :D I'm trying to get to 200 reviews and I'm kinda hoping this is the best way. However, keep in mind that since I was a retard and tried to cram Space Paranoids all into one chapter (which didn't work, btw), this chapter is 21 pages long. Yay?

Also - you all are complaining about how Sora and Char haven't "done" anything yet, and how the romance needs to "move along." PEOPLE. SERIOUSLY. The romance is going on as we speak! Just because the worst they've done is hug doesn't mean they're not getting closer to one another. You seem to be forgetting the most important part of a relationship is garnering love and respect for the other. And THEN you get to the kissy-kissy. Lol. /relationship preaching lolwut

Plus, lest we forget - in TSA-time, it's only been about 3 weeks since they met. Sora's not going to forget about Kairi that easily, though in this chapter it may seem like he is. He knows he hasn't seen her in over a year, and that this new girl in his life might be coming to be on just as high a pedestal as Kairi was, but beyond that he's not letting himself think about. Char is just too shy romantically, and kind of socially retarded to boot. So there ya go. XD

OKAY. Now that my horrible analysis is over, I hope you can find it in yourself to enjoy the chap.

**_Disclaimer-_** I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

"_Sora?"_

He was running alongside the surf with Riku at his side. As he struggled to keep up with the silver-haired boy next to him, the brunette heard soft chuckles from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw shimmering maroon hair and violet eyes. Grinning, he turned to look back in front of him and strengthened his speed, with the sound of Kairi's laughter ringing in his ears.

_"Wake up, you stupid Keybearer…"_

"Looks like I win again, Sora," Riku smirked, already standing underneath the bridge that led to the fallen paopu tree island.

"Aw, man, that makes six to nothing," Sora groaned, his voice punctuated by heavy panting.

_"Come on, you idiot, wake up."_

Sora frowned at the intrusion of the new voice: female, yes, but abrasive and strained, nothing like he had ever heard before. Nothing like Kairi's. The sound of footfalls against the sand drew his gaze over his shoulder again, but the white-clad girl with the short, red hair and indigo eyes had vanished. In her place stood a young woman in a dark brown jacket with longer, dark crimson hair and icy-colored eyes. Though she stood half a head taller than Sora himself – bound by his fourteen-year-old height as he was – the way she surveyed him was only gently condescending.

_"You're still alive, I know it,"_ she said, though her lips failed to move. _"Now show me."_ And she smiled.

That was how Sora _knew_ it was a dream.

He opened his eyes to a considerably different sight than the bright sand and blue skies of his island. To be more precise, when he tried to inhale, he got a face full of bluish surface; somehow, his cheek had ended up pressed against the cold ground. Steeling himself, he pushed himself onto his hands and knees, shaking his head to try and stave off the migraine that had taken hold of him. Predictably, it didn't work.

"Thank the gods you're finally up," a familiar voice sighed in an annoyed timbre he knew well. "Now I won't have to drag an unconscious Keybearer back to Donald and Goofy when we find them."

"Char?" he groaned, not daring to look up.

"Well, at least you still know my name; that's progress. You must not have landed too hard, then."

At those words, he did look up, eyes widening in slight indignation. "What's that supposed to…"

He trailed off as he took in the area around him. On one side, the pathway ended in a sheer drop, and on the other, a doorway opened up into a larger room. Beyond that, however, he couldn't ascertain much else about where they had ended up. All around them was the same gray-blue that had permeated the room behind Ansem's study; a few lines of paler cyan light ran up the side of the wall nearest Sora, but other than that, his surroundings remained the same blue, blue, blue.

Then his gaze landed on Char, who was kneeling beside him. In accordance to their shift to this new world – a world that, apparently, saw to it by itself that its visitors did no "meddling" – her outfit had changed substantially as well. Now a cyan-lined, darker blue helmet covered most of her head, and the red hair she normally kept free now cascaded down her back in a long, low ponytail. The rest of her outfit kept up with the theme of light-against-dark blue as well, albeit in a flowing skirt that came to mid-thigh and darker blue tights covering her legs instead of pants. Her fingerless gloves had been replaced by cerulean ones as well.

Immediately, he realized he was staring, and jerked his gaze away. "What?" Char asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Oh, uh, nothing," he blustered. _The legs and the… _"You just… look different, is all."

"Yeah," she huffed, seeming to not notice his attempt to cover up his wonder at her new clothing. But a light flush that deeply contrasted the rest of the area briefly swept across her features, and he got the feeling that his staring hadn't gone entirely unnoticed. "I hate this damned skirt," she continued. "And the tights? What kind of messed-up pervert sucked us into this thing, anyway?" She shook herself angrily before looking back at him. "Well, anyway, you got an outfit change too."

Sora cocked his head to the side, his embarrassment momentarily eclipsed by curiosity. "Really?" He brought up his hands and saw that she spoke the truth; his own fingerless gloves had become that same blue. Putting his hands to the top of his head, he figured out that a helmet covered his spiky locks as well, leaving a few tufts of hair to flare out on either side of his head.

Seeing Sora try to get a better look at himself, Char barely held back an eye-roll. She herself had preferred him without the helmet, but she would take what she could get. As long as it didn't impede his fighting skills, she would go with it.

_And now I'm thinking like a moronic schoolgirl whose crush's hairstyle has just changed. Lovely. _

"Where are we?" he asked, effectively cutting off any chance she could get to justify her thoughts.

Char opened her mouth, then closed it. For once, she had no straight answer for him. Looking around the place that the portal in her master's study had warped them to, she took in the dark sky and occasional bright blue light that permeated the uniform cerulean of the area and winced. She knew it wasn't exactly a choice one could have made, but she would rather the entire place wasn't entirely one persistent color.

_Whose fault_ is_ it, though?_ At that moment, she remembered the words of that odd, disembodied voice from earlier: the program that, allegedly, oversaw the protection of Ansem's secrets. While Char could not blame her master for choosing such a way to guard the fruits of his research, the extreme measure that the system had gone to in assuring Sora and the others stayed away from those secrets was a little ridiculous.

Yet although Char herself had memorized most of Ansem's teachings to her and the other apprentices, she had not known anything about an entire world being inside his computer. Inwardly, she seethed at the thought of the secret he had kept from her; outwardly, though, she kept up a persistent expression of confusion, one that didn't totally belie what she felt.

"I don't know," she answered Sora honestly. "I didn't know anything like this was inside…" She groped for a way to describe the device that had put them here, without blatantly saying _my master's computer;_ with Sora's false assumption that Ansem equated to Xehanort's Heartless, that would drive his suspicions of her further in the negative direction. "…that computer we used," she finished at last.

Sora tipped his head to one side, clearly having noticed her pause and sensing the inflection behind it. However, he said nothing about it, only looked around. "Where are Donald and Goofy?" he asked, getting to his feet.

Char shrugged. "Don't know that, either." Sora suddenly stumbled a little, and she immediately sprang up, ignoring the dizziness that the movement brought. However, he steadied himself just in time and gave her a reassuring smile.

"But if we look around, we'll probably find them," she went on, fighting back the warmth that threatened to overtake her at Sora's expression.

As she spoke, a bemused look came over him. One eyebrow gradually rose over an ice-blue eye, especially when he let out a small "hm" and widened his eyes. "What?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing," Sora grinned, putting his arms behind his head and turning away. "Just that it's weird to see _you_ being the optimistic one, for once."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Char demanded, but not without a joking edge to her voice. "I can completely be optimistic!"

"Could've fooled me," the brunette chuckled, glancing over his shoulder at her. The mildly startled look he earned from her in response made his lips quirk further upward, and the comfortable feeling of one talking to a close and meaningful friend. While 'friend' was not exactly the extent of what Sora wanted from her, it was still much the same warmth. Amazingly, he found guilt about Kairi flickered across his mind only briefly before vanishing in favor of the redhead before him.

"Okay, so I'm not exactly Little Miss Sunshine. So what?" she grumbled, directing her glare at the ground.

Sora opened his mouth to retort, but then a flash of golden light came in his periphery and he glanced over. The sight that greeted him – a collection of robotic Heartless leading a defeated-looking Donald and Goofy down the slight decline toward them – made his eyes widen. "Donald! Goofy!"

Hearing his voice, Char looked up, her annoyed expression transforming to one of horror when she saw what had drawn the Keybearer's eye. "Found 'em," she remarked weakly.

Donald and Goofy raised their heads from where they had been staring determinedly at the ground. Upon seeing their comrades, both pairs of dark eyes widened. "Sora!" Donald cried.

"Come on, show 'em who's boss!" Sora shouted to them.

Goofy shook his head in defeat. "We tried stoppin' 'em, Sora, but…"

"But what?" Sora asked, only the slightest trace of belligerence toward the dog in his words. He made as if to take a step toward them, only to be stopped by the white light that appeared nearby. Turning, Sora found himself face to face with a man who was clad in the same kind of outfit as himself and Char – and, now that he was looking, Donald and Goofy as well. This resident's clothing shone distinctively crimson, though; the brighter parts of his top reminded Sora of Char's hair.

He stopped thinking about the odd fashion sense of this world immediately, however, when impassive dark eyes landed on him. The condescending look he received from the slightly-taller man rankled the Keybearer – much in the same way that the Organization member at Twilight Town had. This time, though, definitely was not because of Roxas.

Trying not to think about the blond-haired boy, Sora chose instead to interrogate the newcomer. He opened his mouth to speak, but Char, who had stepped up beside him, uttered that question instead, albeit more vulgarly than he would have. "And just who the hell are you supposed to be?" she asked, folding her arms and appraising the man with a bold glare.

The man transferred his contemptuous gaze to Char, which she met with gusto, for no more than an instant, before looking back to Sora. "I am Commander Sark," he said in a coldly disinterested tone. Abruptly, he flicked one wrist; Char and Sora pivoted in the direction he had done so just in time to see one of the Heartless push a now-squawking Donald back into his place next to Goofy. Sora realized that, for some odd reason, the Heartless were obeying this Sark's commands. It reminded him all too well of how Riku had commanded the Heartless back on Captain Hook's ship, and he barely repressed a shiver.

"A Heartless _commander?"_ Char snorted.

Sark merely let out a "hmph". "Observe," he drawled, and snapped his fingers in the general direction of the Heartless. This time, though, a red-orange orb of light coalesced on his fingers. In correlation with that sphere's appearance on their commander's hand, the robots immediately jammed their own appendages against Donald and Goofy's sides, shocking them with high voltage. The lights cast due to the resulting shocks flickered against the high-walled clearing nearby in a caricature of a blazing fire, and Sora cringed at the sound of his companions' pained screams.

"Would you stop?" Char yelled, but Sark seemed to not hear her, choosing to watch the light show in front of him in an almost sadistic manner.

"Okay, okay, you're the boss!" Sora shouted hastily to Sark. "We get it." At the last part, he hung his head resignedly, knowing he could do nothing so long as the Heartless could do that to his friends. The reason why they could not have fought back before became clear to him at that moment; obviously, they had already tried, only to be electrocuted in the same manner as now.

Sark smirked a little and snapped his fingers again. With that, the light on his fingers faded, and the Heartless drew back, leaving Donald and Goofy to slump against each other on the ground. "Don't, Sora," the former rasped. "We… we'll be fine… go on without us…"

"Don't be stupid," Sora chided. "All for one and one for all, right?"

"You would be wise to listen to your fellow Users," Sark pointed out.

The odd expression he used to refer to the two animals made Char frown, but she immediately pushed that bemusement aside in favor of glaring at the commander. "Like we'd leave our friends here!" she growled. At the same time, she thought, _Geez, Ansem… you could have made your defense system a little less asshole-ish._

And then it hit her that she had actually called the dorks she had so professed to despise at the start of this journey her _friends._ Aloud, even, and not just in her thoughts, which carried a grudging sort of acknowledgement anyway.

_There's another thing that beats my promise with Riku into the ground. First I fall for their idiot leader, and then I say I care about him and his friends. _And yet she found herself not giving a damn.

Sora clearly noticed the change, and cast her a thankful smile. Hearing her express her regard for his two longtime companions sent a rush of defiance back into his veins, and he resumed glowering at Sark. "Yeah, she's right."

Sark almost rolled his eyes. "Then you can all stay in the same cell together. The Master Control Program has arrested all four of you for terminal misuse and defiance of the law." To the Heartless, he added, "Subdue them."

"Sora!" Donald and Goofy called urgently, even as four of the Heartless around them moved away and toward the two humans. Sora let out a cry of frustration as one of them seized his arm; he could hear Char do the same on his other side, and at that moment, something snapped within him.

With a determined grunt, he summoned his Keyblade and swung it at the Heartless that had latched itself onto him. It wheeled back, making a satisfying, albeit digital sound of pain as it did so, and he took advantage of its shock to finish it off.

Then several things seemed to happen at once: Char snarled something from beside him; Sark shouted something; the Heartless in front of Sora vanished and the glowing pink prize it held floated up to the sky; and Donald and Goofy cheered for their friend's temerity. An instant later, though, their triumphant cries turned horrified, and Sora turned just in time to see the three Heartless that had remained out of view only moments prior converge on him.

And an instant after that, all of them were pushing their unwieldy hands into his sides at once, and electricity rattled throughout his entire body, pulling screams of agony out of him.

Then the world went black.

* * *

"_Hey."_

_The dark-clad female turns at the sound of his voice, and Roxas nearly flinches back at the inherent wariness in those dark green eyes. He pushes that aside in favor of acting on his curiosity and continues. "You're the newest member, right?"_

_Silence. He wonders briefly if she's this reticent only due to having recently come into existence – Xemnas refused to let them call it "being born" – because that would be similar to his own situation. "It's a little scary at first," he went on, trying to sound friendly, "but you get used to it, trust me. Once everybody gets back from Castle Oblivion, you'll see the entire Organization here, and now will seem like nothing."_

_Blank staring. Roxas knows instinctively that the last part was the wrong thing to say. "Well, anyway, I'm Roxas," he mutters. _Maybe she'll feel more like talking tomorrow,_ he thinks, and feels bitterly disappointed that his fascination had come to naught._

_But before he can turn and go to his room, he hears her voice._

_"Anxclof."_

_He risks a glance back at her and sees her eyeing him somewhat nervously. It's a steep contrast from her prior silence, but he'll take it. "Is that your name?" he asks, and is rewarded with a nod._

_"Well, Anxclof," he says, smiling despite himself, "we'll talk more tomorrow."_

_"Yeah." Anxclof nods._

_Roxas can't stop smiling as he walks away._

* * *

_When he first sees her summon her Keyblade, that sense of kinship with her only grows. Now he understands why Xemnas went to the trouble of recruiting her in the first place, despite their moniker correctly implying that they only had thirteen members prior to now. They needed another Keybearer to gather hearts, another piece of meat to carry out their dirty work, and they got it._

_Then he sees her slice apart the Dusks they gave her to train with in a golden blur. Squelching sounds rend the air as the lesser Nobodies bend beneath her relentless assault. Roxas finds himself leaning closer, watching her fight more intently. He can't really place it, but the way she whirls around the Dusks' attempts at attacks and drives every bit of strength into her strikes just before dancing back reminds him of a different kind of fighter – a fighter wielding a much thinner sword. _

_"You're really good with that," he comments afterward. "With your Keyblade, I mean."_

_Anxclof blinks, not quite knowing how to take the compliment. Eventually, she settles on explanation. "I was on my own for a while after I got… created," she admits. "I had a bit of time to learn how to use this thing." On the last part, she shakes the Keychain that she dangles from one finger. Roxas sees that a lightning bolt serves as the charm attached to the end of the chain._

_"You're lucky," he says. "I had to figure this out on my own."_

* * *

"_You can have this, if you want," Roxas mumbles, a little nervous as he offers the necklace to Anxclof._

_Her eyes widen as she appraises him, trying to see if he's serious or not. When she sees that the former is the case, she tentatively grabs it by the emerald jewel on its end. "Uh, sure. Thanks, Roxas."_

_"You're welcome," he answers, smiling a little. "Um, do you need help putting it on, or…?"_

_"No, I'm fine." And she demonstrates it by reaching around the tattered clothing she wears atop her Organization uniform and attaching it by herself._

_Axel cackles from behind them. "Oh, Roxas," he grins, clapping the blond on the back and making him wince. "You're such a sap it makes me sad sometimes."_

_"Hey!" Roxas yelps indignantly, which only makes Axel laugh harder._

* * *

_The three of them sit atop the clock tower, nibbling on their respective sticks of sea-salt ice cream. "Sky's pretty," Anxclof comments, taking a bite of her pale blue treat._

_"No kidding, Anx," Axel says, raising his eyebrows at her. "You're just now noticing Twilight Town always has a _twilight_ sky?"_

_"Shut up," Anxclof grumbles, her awe crumbling in the face of her annoyance. "I can't enjoy my ice cream when you're making fun of me."_

_"You've seemed to manage just fine in the past," Axel points out, to a series of grumbles from her._

_Roxas watches them with a sense of amusement and content. Returning his gaze to the collection of orange-clad clouds and twilit sun before him, he allows his eyes to slip closed and the wind to caress his hair, just for a few moments. He thinks that these days – these lazy afternoons spent eating ice cream with his two best friends – are what he lives for nowadays. Amidst the constant missions piled on him by the Organization, amidst the contemptuous glances from the Superior and disappointed looks from Saïx and the others, these days are the only way Roxas can stay sane._

_"You okay?" he hears Anxclof ask. Opening his eyes, he meets her own gaze and sees genuine concern there. _

_"Yeah," he replies. "Just… wondering if these days can last forever."_

_"Forever?" Axel echoes, settling back against the wall. A smirk curled his lips. "Don'tcha think that's shooting a little high there, Rox?"_

_"You know what I mean," Roxas sighs, rolling his eyes. "I just want to know everything's gonna be okay, is all."_

_To his surprise, Anxclof only gives him a sympathetic look – that and so much more, so many emotions for someone who allegedly has no heart. He had expected her and Axel to not let this rest until he could laugh it off with them. "We'll be fine," she says. A flicker of movement draws his eye, and he just manages to catch her pulling back her hand a bit. He has just enough time to feel disappointed at that before she seems to gather her courage and twines their fingers together. "I promise," she says softly._

* * *

"Sora! Sora!"

Déjà vu filled him as the sound of a voice lifted him back to consciousness. That feeling intensified when he tried to lift his head, only to find himself brought up short by a violent twinge near the back of his skull. Somehow, he got the feeling that in his lapse in consciousness, he had had some sort of odd dream; but another pang went through his head again and incapacitated his memory long enough for him to not care.

"What happened?" he groaned.

"Well…" Goofy hesitated. "You attacked one of them Heartless, and then the rest of them shocked ya."

"And then that Sark guy took us to this prison cell," Donald finished, sounding annoyed that he had let that happen.

Sora let out a murmur of understanding. "My head's killing me," he muttered, rubbing the afflicted area with a wince. The helmet that covered his skull didn't really help matters, either. Come to think of it, he ached everywhere else too, which made sense, considering what Goofy had said about the Heartless shocking him.

Immediately, Donald raised his staff; the red-and-black weapon's tip was engulfed briefly in green light that then transferred to Sora and wove around his entire body. The brunette sighed in relief as the healing spell's gentle touch soothed most of the pain in his limbs and cranium. "Thanks," he said.

Pushing himself to his feet, he realized a window to the outside world sat on the wall nearest him. He immediately approached it, placing his arms on the sill, but, perhaps in accordance to the oppressive environment of this place, the view was fairly unimpressive. Only the sight of a few multicolored blocks lining a walkway far below the cell was visible outside.

He looked back inside and took a better examination of the cell itself in the process. It too seemed rather bleak, but for a yellow monitor that sat nearby. An unfamiliar man – who, by his attire, had to be another native of this world – was sitting with his back against it and appraising the group. "Who's that?" Sora murmured to his companions.

Donald shrugged. "Dunno. He hasn't spoken a word since we got here."

"Oh."

And then Sora realized what was so off about the area: the lack of telltale crimson hair. "Where's Char?" he asked.

The reaction was almost instantaneous: his two friends flinched visibly, exchanged glances, swiveled back to him. They made dual, tentative noises, and then Goofy murmured, "Don'tcha think you should tell him, Donald?"

"Nah, you should. You were closer," the mage argued.

"Would you guys just tell me where she is?" Sora cried.

They recoiled at the impatient anger in his voice, and he sighed, running a hand through the spikes that stuck out on either side of his helmet-bedizened head. "Sorry," he said guiltily. "I just… I wanna know what happened to her."

As he spoke, he realized more truth lurked behind his statement than what he had previously assumed; every sore muscle in his body strained to know what had happened to the stubborn, fiery girl he had come to care so much about. It didn't help that the man in front of the monitor was now eyeing Sora with more interest than before.

"Well…" Goofy slumped a little.

Seeing his partner's reluctance, Donald took it upon himself to explain. "When the Heartless grabbed you guys, two of them got her. She said something about how she couldn't take it anymore and pushed them off her."

"And then she ran for this white circle portal thingy, and it took her where we couldn't see her anymore," Goofy added, having decided to continue the story.

Now that Sora thought about it, he could dimly remember Char taking flight; although the murk of all-but-buried memory blocked out most of it, he did recall the Heartless commander saying something after she had run off. "And Sark sent some Heartless after her, right?" he asked, feeling his stomach twist at the thought of Char running around all alone. That feeling increased at Donald and Goofy's nods. He knew she could take care of herself, but at the same time, he didn't want to take any chances, especially with that Sark guy after her. In his mind, he re-experienced the shocks that the Heartless had pumped into his system, and winced at the thought.

"Do you need more healing?" Donald instantly asked, misinterpreting Sora's expression.

Sora shook his head to politely turn the duck down. "I just hope Char's all right," he murmured, clenching his fist.

"Me too," Goofy agreed sadly. Donald let out a noncommittal grunt.

"But man…" the brunette sighed, looking out the window again. The barren landscape loomed up before him, and he found himself speaking his thoughts aloud. "What kind of messed-up world is this, anyway?"

"You're inside a mainframe computer system." The man in front of the monitor broke his silence with that statement, causing all three of the others to glance over to him.

"A… what system?" Sora spoke slowly, although from the way Ansem's computer had seemed to speak to them just before he had woken up here, that made sense. Char's words – about how she hadn't known a world like this was inside her former friend's computer – echoed in his mind to reinforce that.

_Char…_

"A computer system for processing data," the anonymous man repeated patiently. "This system is a copy of one created by a corporation called ENCOM. The original program was destroyed," he elaborated at the deepening looks of confusion on the trio's faces. He got to his feet before continuing. "But this copy was acquired by another User."

_Again with the word "user"… What does that mean, anyway?_ This entire situation was facilitating the return of Sora's headache. He knew Char would have had an explanation for this, however wrong it may later be, and felt concern for her wash over him again.

"The new User updated and customized the programs," the man went on, moving closer to the group, "and renamed the system 'Hollow Bastion OS.' He used the system for town maintenance, as well as to advance his private research."

Sora tilted his head to the side, trying to make sense of all this information. _Town maintenance… private research…_

_But _Ansem's_ computer was what brought us here.. so…_

"Who are you?" Donald asked, looking as confounded as Sora felt.

"My name is Tron," Tron introduced, in a considerably friendlier manner than Sark had. "I'm a security program here. But now I'm under arrest, the same as you."

"Security…?" Sora blinked.

"You know, maybe we should just introduce ourselves," Goofy suggested.

"Good idea." The Keybearer faced Tron. "I'm Sora."

"Donald," the duck added.

"And I'm Goofy. Nice to meetcha," the aforementioned dog finished.

Tron nodded to each of them in turn, before raising his eyebrows. "Hm… with that configuration, you must be Users."

"Users?" Sora queried.

"Yes." Tron looked somewhat bemused. "Programs from the outside world."

"Huh?" Donald said bluntly.

"Gawrsh, Donald, I'm thinkin' he means people," Goofy commented.

"Hey, yeah, you're right," the brunette said, feeling that new knowledge dawn upon him. An instant later, he felt a dark shadow come over the light of his realization. If Users were those from the outside world, then the "User" Tron had spoken of earlier _had_ to be Ansem. _So this really is the inside of his computer… _Sora had seen a lot on his last journey, but an entire world made up of a mainframe computer system had been one of the things he hadn't encountered.

Suddenly, a new thought came to him. "Uh, Tron…" He arranged his next query carefully in his head, so as not to appear rude. "Have you seen a girl – uh, a female User, with red hair anywhere around?"

"Was that the User you were referring to earlier?" At Sora's nod, Tron went on, genuine contrition in his voice. "I was arrested before you three, so I don't know where she could be. Even if she managed to escape the MCP's clutches, there's no telling what Commander Sark will do to her when he finds her."

"All right, then…" Sora sighed. If Tron had yet to see Char around here, when she was undoubtedly so close by – even she didn't know how to leave this place, after all – he knew his next query would be fruitless, but he felt he had to ask anyway. "And by chance, have you seen a silver-haired User around? Or maybe another female with short, dark red hair?"

Tron shook his head, and Sora sighed again and hung his head. Goofy put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"So what's the MCP?" Donald asked, clearly trying to change the subject.

"The Master Control Program," Tron said, revulsion in his voice as he spoke of the program. " It controls the whole system. If you all don't get out of here soon…" He trailed off.

"What?" Sora asked, feeling dread creep down his spine.

Tron looked the Keybearer right in the eye. "If you all idle here, you will be de-rezzed."

"De-rezzed?" Donald echoed, shocked. Sora and Goofy started as well, staring in horror at Tron. _I don't like the sound of that! _Sora thought.

"So how do we get out of here?" he pleaded.

Tron folded his arms and turned to the monitor behind him, placing one hand on its side. "This terminal could have gotten you back to the User world."

Donald and Goofy eagerly leaned closer, but Sora felt dismay seep slowly throughout his body. "But…?" he prompted.

"The MCP cut the power fifty microcycles ago," Tron finished dejectedly. All three of them slumped in disappointment. "If we could bring the energy core in the canyon online, though, we could power it back up," he added quickly. "The problem is that we're stuck in this cell." He indicated said 'cell' by jabbing his thumb almost bitterly at the walls around them. "We're not going anywhere unless we unlock the energy fields."

"Energy...?" Sora soon spotted what Tron was talking about. At the entrance to the cell, a transparent wall patterned with blue hexagons blocked any entry or exit.

"Hm…" They all put their hands to their chins in thought. To his frustration, Sora realized Char probably would have figured this out right away. He could almost hear her voice berating him for having not thought of the solution sooner, and bit back any replies that he had instinctively begun to bring to the tip of his tongue. Char wasn't here, so he had to figure this out by himself.

He tried to think over this like she would, with calm logic despite the anxiety thrumming deep within him. _It's a door… no matter how freaky it looks, it's still a door… and doors can easily be unlocked if you have…_

His face lit up then, and he brought one hand before him. In moments, the Circle of Life, glowing bright blue at the edges, appeared in his grasp.

"Of course!" Donald said. "The Keyblade!"

Tron was eyeing the weapon curiously. "Will that work?"

Sora cast him an encouraging smile. "It should."

He turned toward the door, feeling determination replace his prior nervousness.

_We're coming, Char._

* * *

_Note to self: next time you decide to be on the run from the cops of a world, bring food,_ Char thought dryly.

When she had hopped onto that weird white disc, she hadn't expected it to move beneath her and take her on its designated path. And while she had no clue where the hell she had ended up – inside some tower thing, that was all she knew – no Heartless had come after her just yet. She counted that as a blessing. Maybe it was just her, but suffering the same fate that Donald and Goofy had seemed like a less-than-desirable option.

She groaned aloud and closed her eyes as something suddenly hit her, pressing her back more firmly into the wall she was sitting against. Now that she thought about it, just running off and leaving her friends to get arrested by that sleazy jerk hadn't exactly been one of her best ideas. In the vast array of terrible impulses she had acted on, this was right up there with getting drunk on Jack Sparrow's ship, as far as she was concerned.

Now, even if Sora and the others found a way out of this stupid world, they would have to find her first. She could almost hear Riku scolding her that she was supposed to go with Sora on his quest to find his friends, not make it more difficult by adding herself to said lost friends.

That train of thought brought her back to what she had said earlier. Char was startled to find she had meant what she had said about protecting Donald and Goofy and calling them her friends in the process. _Oh, come on. You acknowledged it right before you guys got to Hollow Bastion, remember?_ she chided herself mentally.

It was true, though. Then again, after all they had gone through together, the four gaining a tighter bond had almost been inevitable. Riku should have known that much when he agreed to Ansem's request to send her on this journey. Knowing him, he probably had known.

Sighing, she pressed her face against her knees, which were drawn up against her chest. Under any other circumstances, she would have allowed the part of herself that was screaming for her to stay alert for enemies to take over her actions. But somehow, she couldn't bring herself to heed that common sense and summon her blades. Maybe it was because the shining white disc that had taken her here remained at the entrance to this tower, and as far as she knew, the Heartless in this world couldn't just fly across the empty space to her. Maybe it was because it was the inside of her master's computer, and a strange sort of fascinated nostalgia softened any negative emotion she may have felt at that.

Maybe it was because there was no chance of Anxclof being here.

Abruptly, Char got to her feet. She had lingered here long enough. It was time to go find Sora and the others.

_And get some freaking food on board already,_ she added to herself, in tandem with an eager noise of encouragement from her stomach.

She had taken no more than a few steps when a tapping sound made her whirl in its direction. Her swords appeared in her hands in twin flashes of light, and she prepared herself for electrocuting Heartless and acrimonious commander alike to show up. Only when nothing other than the view of the platform just outside the window greeted her eyes did she allow herself to relax. The tension she had felt at arriving at Hollow Bastion in its current state returned in full force, and she took a few deep breaths to calm herself.

After that tapping, though, the only noise prevalent in the hall was that of her shoes against the floor as she made her way away from the window. The hallway widened into a larger room, and her eyebrows raised in mild surprise when she found a few crimson lines running up into the ceiling that broke into this world's typical blue.

Nothing much in the room was worth looking at – except for a spare chest lying at the room's edge, but upon closer examination, Char found that not even wedging the edge of the main blade on one sword between the chest's lid and body could open it; she figured that was a Keybearer thing, and decided to leave it to Sora. _If he even gets this far,_ she thought, but even the inherent deprecation in that thought was tempered by the amusement she felt at the next. _Knowing Sora, he's gotten this far already. _That manifested itself in a chuckle, and immediately she felt a little better about her friend's location.

She continued in her trek across the room. As she walked, the circular space tapered off again into a much narrower hallway than its counterpart opposite it, and she nearly expected to have to squeeze through. Fortunately, though, the corridor eventually ended in a blue, glowing door and did not shrink any further.

Tentatively, Char placed one hand on where the doorknob would be on any other portal such as this. When it failed to respond, she huffed and folded her arms. "Oh, come on," she muttered.

At that moment, though, to her shock, the door slid open with a mechanical whoosh, surprising Char slightly. "I guess it just needed a second to warm up…" As she spoke, she stepped through the doorway.

As the darkness faded away to a cyan-colored light, Char found herself opening her mouth in preparation for any spiky-haired Keybearers that might be standing in the room. With her final footfall into the room, she was even readying herself to accept the hug he was likely going to give her at knowing she was all right, an idea that gave her both a sense of self-deprecation and warm anticipation at once.

When her eyes had accustomed themselves to the change in lighting, though, no brunette or dog or even duck greeted her. Char felt disappointment wash over her in a teeming wave, but shook it off almost immediately. This was no time to wallow in despair.

_If I stick around here long enough, Sora's bound to show up._ And with that reasoning ringing in her head, she took a more thorough look around this new place. For the most part, its layout resembled that of its predecessor that she had gone through, but for the slightly elevated piece of land at the center of the room. A bright pink ray of light shone down onto the platform, and when Char drew closer, curious, she found she could hear a faint humming noise coming from it.

Shivering, she turned away. This was why she could never stand working for a long time with Ansem's computer during her apprentice years; the technology in the room made unnerving sounds, sounds that were almost inhuman. It sent chills along her spine, and not the kind that she could only feel when Sora said or did something for her.

Then her gaze found the other non-blue part of the room: a dull yellow computer whose design vaguely resembled only the monitor part of such a device. Upon closer inspection, she found the screen itself a deep, inactive black.

Suspicion began to simmer within Char, but all the same, she knelt down to the level of its keyboard. She placed her fingers on the keys, harking back to when Even had taught her basic typing skills. Her fingers settled over their respective positions, and she inhaled deeply, thinking about the day she had learned most of this. Her eyes slipped closed, and a kind of calm settled over her, along with the redolence that typically came with thinking about the old days.

When the light suddenly flashed, visible even from behind her lids, the apprehension she had felt rose up in an insistent, screaming rush, and her eyes opened.

But by then it was too late.

She had just enough time to begin an expletive of horror before the beam of light that the computer had produced consumed her vision entirely.

* * *

"So, what favor did you want us to do for you?" Sora asked, as they stood behind Tron in the pit cell. Mentally, he went over the events prior to this.

They had taken a mysterious, glowing white disc out of the prison area. For a moment or so, recalling what Donald and Goofy had said about her escaping on one of these, Sora had fervently hoped that it would take him to the place Char had vanished to. But it only slid on an invisible railing over the lower parts of the world to where Sora had woken up – the area Tron had called the "canyon."

Tron himself had gone with them, saying they would need someone who could interface with the device; Sora didn't quite understand what that entailed, but he decided to let the man – program? Whatever – go along with them. He knew that with Char gone, they could use all the help they could get. That, and because was written in every line of Tron's face.

Said energy core had turned out to be a tall, hourglass-like device whose upper portion contained multiple computer screens. After Sora had put the scattered parts of the machine back where they belonged, Tron had turned to them.

"That should make the terminal work again, right?" Sora asked. "Mission accomplished?"

"Yes." Tron had nodded, before a look of vague discomfort came over his features. "Now then… will you do something for me?"

"Of course," Sora said instantly. Tron had helped them do this much; he'd figured the least he could do was return the favor.

The man reeled back, startled. "Don't you want to hear what it is first?"

"You helped us; now it's our turn," Donald pointed out, speaking Sora's thoughts aloud. Although the duck spoke in a friendly tone, he folded his arms, as if telling Tron to take his hospitality or leave it.

Tron had chuckled and shaken his head. "You really are Users," he said. "Your actions are totally illogical."

"Hey, thanks a lot!" Sora cried indignantly. "If you don't want our help…"

Tron shook his head, effectively cutting off the Keybearer. "Let's head back to the pit cell," he said simply. "That's the vector where we met."

"Right," Sora had acquiesced. Then something hit him, and he sighed.

Tron glanced over his shoulder, already having turned to make his way back. "Is there a problem?"

"Well…" The brunette hesitated. "We _do_ need to get back, but… what about Char?"

"Oh, yeah," Goofy had murmured.

"Should we really be worrying right now?" Donald asked. "You heard Tron! If we stay here, we'll get… um…" He blinked and looked to the computer resident for assistance.

"De-rezzed?" Goofy prompted, in an ironic inversion of a typical exchange between them. Sora would have laughed, if the situation had not been so dire.

"Yeah!" Donald pointed up in the air as it dawned on him.

Tron shook his head. "I wouldn't worry if I were you. If she could get away from Sark and the MCP that easily, she could be back in the User world right now."

"I guess you're right," Sora had agreed, after a moment's thought. Although he barely knew Char, Tron had a point – knowing the redhead, she was probably waiting with Leon as they spoke. The thought strengthened his hope until it all but overtook the doubt he felt. "Okay then; let's go back."

In the present, Sora returned to the conversation just in time to hear Tron speak. "I want you to find my User," he explained, not turning away from where he was at work on the yellow terminal. "He'll give you the password to access the DTD."

"You bet!" Donald said.

"So, uh… what _is_ the DTD?" Sora inquired.

At this, Tron stood up and pivoted to look at them. "DTD is the name my User gave to the dataspace. Copies of all the original programs are stored there, along with anything that's sensitive or restricted."

"So you think there might be anything about the Heartless? Or Organization XIII?" asked Goofy.

_Oh yeah, _Sora realized. In his determination to help Tron, he had forgotten about his original goal here. Inwardly, he berated himself for forgetting about the reason why he was in this forsaken place.

"Hmm… most likely," was all Tron said. He turned and knelt, resuming his work on the keyboard even as he continued. "A number of my functions were appropriated when I last took on the MCP. That's why I need the password."

Functions… Sora took that to mean general abilities.

"If I can get inside the DTD," his new companion went on, "I can access my original backup program and restore all my functions." His fist clenched at his side. "Then I'll be able to put this system back the way it was, _before_ the MCP got control and changed everything. I'll make it the way it was supposed to be – a free system for you, the Users."

Sora nodded, understanding beginning to wash over him. Clearly, this world inside of Ansem's computer used to be a freer place, until the MCP came along and took over. At the same time, though, something inside of him balked at that decision. He couldn't help but wonder why Char's fellow apprentice Xehanort had gone to all the trouble of creating such a world in the first place, if his Heartless had been so consumed with making darkness tear every world apart.

He pushed that to the back of his mind and spoke. "Okay, we'll just have to ask your User what the password is. What's his name?"

Tron's eyes widened. "You mean you don't know?" When the others only shook their heads, he said, "My User is the user of this system: Ansem the Wise."

Donald and Goofy started violently at Sora's side. "Ansem?" Donald yelped, shocked. Although the brunette himself felt the same degree of confusion that his companions did, the memory of what Char had said – about Xehanort being Ansem's true identity – went through his mind again. And again, he wondered why Xehanort's Heartless had christened himself "Ansem" in the first place.

_If Ansem wasn't Ansem, then who's the real one?_ His heart – and head – began to pound again just thinking about it, and he reflected on how everything was simpler when their enemy had been obvious. When their mission had cast everything into neat categories of black and white, and no gray had impeded them.

At that moment, though, violent beeping and static noises rent the air, coming from the computer. Quickly, Tron whirled back around and began typing frantically. "Looks like the MCP's on to us. You all need to go – now!"

"B-but Tron…" Sora tried. "Ansem is –"

"We'll get the password!" Donald interrupted suddenly.

Tron turned and gave them a nod of thanks. "You're good to go. Now – hurry!"

"But what about –?" The name of their fourth companion got stuck in Sora's throat as bright white light suddenly surrounded him. He had just a moment to think that it reminded him of when he had left the Pride Lands, then the light vanished.

* * *

Ironically, the way the terminal transported Char back to the outside world differed entirely from the way it had taken her to the world within Ansem's computer. Before, she had been deposited rather roughly onto the ground, to the point where she might have suffered the same unconsciousness that had plagued Sora had she not twisted just in time.

Now, though, she found herself standing in the laboratory of Ansem's study, with his computer humming serenely away in front of her. The dizziness allowed her a split second to take all that in before it kicked in and she stumbled, thankfully catching herself on the edge of the desk just in time. In some part of her mind she knew that transporting from the virtual world to the real one had created this effect, but now all she could think about was her sudden gladness that she had not eaten already.

Footsteps pounded just outside, and she managed to push the vertigo aside long enough to raise her head. Leon stood in the doorway, and ran forward just in time to grab Char's shoulders and hold her up. "You okay?" he asked roughly. "Where are Sora and the others?"

Meeting his steely gaze, Char couldn't hold back a chuckle. "Hi to you too," she rasped, feeling the whirlwind in her head begin to calm. In its place came near-overwhelming concern, though, and that was almost as sickening. "I don't know where they are – they must still be inside."

"Still?" Leon let out a grunt that was caught between shock and worry, the closest he would come to gasping in fear.

"Yeah, still," she echoed. "Leon, there's this messed-up place inside that computer. The police force in there tried to track us down, and I got away, but Sora…" She was ashamed to find herself choking on the possibilities.

Thankfully, Leon seemed to understand. He slackened his grip on her shoulders a bit. "Can you stand?" When she nodded, he let her go entirely and turned to the keyboard of the computer. "We're gonna get them out of there," he muttered under his breath, beginning to type frantically in a way that sent persistent clacking noises throughout the room.

An instant later, though, a burst of light shone out of the corner of Char's eye. She turned and saw the crimson sphere on the wall begin to glow in a way that all but consume the whiteness of the door it sat on. "Leon, look," she gasped.

The older man turned and followed her gaze. A smirk crossed his face and he laughed to himself, shaking his head. "Figures," he said.

The radiance eventually condensed into three distinctive shapes. As Sora, Donald, and Goofy's features gradually became distinctive, Char's breath became shaky with relief.

The trio looked around – probably making sure they had, indeed, found a way back. Then, to Char's confusion, they exchanged glances and grinned. "We did it!" Donald cried.

"Did what, exactly?" Leon asked. To his credit, he sounded fairly level-headed, considering he had been in his equivalent of a frenzied panic just moments before.

"And where have you guys been, anyway?" Char added.

The sound of her voice made Sora glance over. When he saw her, an expression of such incredible giddiness wove over his countenance that she actually drew back a little, one eyebrow disappearing into her bangs. "Uh… what…?" she asked intelligently, heat spreading in her cheeks and along her back.

"Char, you're okay!" he cheered, all but tackling her and pushing her up against the computer, albeit unintentionally. At the jolt that landing back against the edge of the desk caused her, the dizziness damn near came back. The deliriousness that had come over her along with the rapid spike in her heartbeat didn't help.

"Of course I'm okay," she grumbled, sounding less irritated than she felt. "This is me we're talking about, remember?" The sound of a hoarse voice snickering reached her senses, and she craned her neck around Sora's unruly hair to glare at Donald and Goofy, who were smirking at each other. "And you two can shut up right now!"

At that, Sora seemed to regain his compunction. He moved back, still grinning like a moron. "I just – Tron said the MCP might have gotten you, and I…"

"Slow down," she interrupted, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Speak English. And tell us what went on."

"Right, right," Sora laughed. "Well…" His smile diminished until it had gone away entirely, replaced by a contemplative look. "We met this… uh, program, named Tron. And he –" He suddenly noticed Leon, standing near Char. "Oh, Leon!" he blustered. "There's this world inside the computer–"

Leon held up a hand for silence. "Char told me about that. Just tell us what this… Tron said to you."

"Okay!" Sora happily continued. "He told us there's this other program called the MCP who basically took over everything."

"Yeah, if we'd stayed in there any longer, we'd have been, uh…" Goofy tilted his head to the side, trying to remember the word.

"De-rezzed?" Sora filled in.

"Yup!" the dog said. "But Tron helped us outta there."

"But we had to fix this terminal thing first so we could leave," Sora added.

"Terminal, huh?" Char folded her arms in thought, remembering the way the computer she had found had taken her back here. Clearly, the one she had found had been working when she had found it.

"Uh-huh," Donald nodded. "But – oh, now I remember! Tron told us all the stuff about Ansem's research data is inside some dataspace."

The Keybearer's eyes brightened as the memory returned to him. "Oh yeah, he did say that." An instant later, though, his face fell. "But we need a password to get at it, and only Tron's User knows it. Guys… Tron's User – the user of the entire system – is Ansem. And, well…"

Char completed Sora's sentence, even though she knew the falseness of it. "You guys sent him to Kingdom Hearts. Right?" At the same time, though, her mind was racing. Tron clearly knew Ansem was still alive – still _hoped_ for it, if his obvious determination to find the old man and ask him for it himself was any indication. Despite herself, Char's shoulders slumped in a barely-disguised sigh. Not for the first time, she longed to tell them the truth about Ansem's true identity and where he was – that this computer belonged not to the Heartless Sora had defeated on his last journey, but to that Heartless' former master – but something told her that now wasn't the best time.

_When _is_ the best time, though? _

All the same, the fact remained that Ansem was probably back in the virtual Twilight Town, swathed in bandages and the guise of DiZ, with an equally-masked Riku.

Sora nodded sadly. "Exactly. But _some_body told Tron we could get the password anyway." On that last part, he looked pointedly at Donald, who turned away with a grumble.

"So let me see if I have this right," Leon cut in. "Ansem's research data is off-limits unless we have a password."

"Uh-huh," Goofy confirmed.

"But they already defeated Ansem," Char pointed out. "And I don't know where we would look."

"Hm…" Leon tilted his head down thoughtfully.

"Maybe we'll never find the password," Sora murmured, his despondence growing even further when he saw the suspicious way his longtime friends were looking at Char. Now that he thought about it, maybe they had a point. Char had always seemed to know more than she had let on, it was true – but any knowledge she could have given on this subject would have been helpful. It was strange that she seemed to _not_ know, since this computer had belonged to someone who had been so close to her.

"You'll never find what, now?"

The query came from the entrance to the laboratory room. Sora spotted Tifa standing there, her fists on her hips. "Well, well! A hidden room!" she mused with a grin. "Guess I'd better take another look around."

"Oh, great," Char huffed, even as the woman walked past her and promptly began her style of searching, which involved more near-earthquakes and the sounds of objects shattering. The redhead began to walk out of the room, not wanting to see the destruction. "Maybe she can break some of my master's stuff while she's at it."

"She just won't give up, will she?" Sora laughed a little weakly, following after Char.

"And neither will we!" Donald added fiercely. "We're gonna find that password!"

"Yeah, we promised Tron, after all," said Goofy. "We need the password so we can get to the, uh, DTD or somethin'." He scratched his head.

While Donald huffed and rolled his eyes at his comrade's typical lack of remembrance, Char blinked, her interest piqued now. "DTD?" she asked carefully. She knew that it most likely was not the path she had taken to visit other worlds during her researcher days, but it was the only context she could think of for it all the same.

"Yup," the dog nodded. "Tron said gettin' to the DTD's the only way we can get to Ansem's research."

"Interesting," Char muttered.

Suddenly, Tifa swept into the room. "There's one place I haven't checked," the group heard her mutter. The next thing they knew, she was standing right in front of the portrait of Xehanort. Sora looked on, bemusement coming over him, as she stared at it for a moment before cracking her knuckles. "Excuse me."

With a muffled grunt of exertion, she lifted the portrait off the wall and placed it on the floor, revealing a collection of doodles on the wall; Char inhaled sharply at Sora's side and leaned closer. When Sora glanced over, he could see genuine interest on her face and in her wide eyes, which suddenly looked a lot brighter.

Char knew more than she was letting on. But she definitely hadn't known about _this._

Tifa dusted off her hands and appraised the picture for a few seconds, then delivered a good punch to the wall. A satisfying rumble served as the response, and some detritus even drifted from the ceiling down to the floor. Sora braced himself for a rebuke on Char's part for nearly breaking a hole in the wall of her master's office, but shockingly, she remained silent, which made his interest in the diagram much greater than before.

Tifa turned and raised her palms to the sky with a sigh in a gesture of surrender. Then she dusted her hands off again and moved off; the sound of her footsteps growing fainter suggested she had left for Ansem's computer room.

"What's this doodle?" Sora traced over the picture on the wall with fascinated fingers. It looked like a heart encircled in multiple areas, with arrows pointing to and elaborating on each section of the cycle around the heart. Above the picture itself, someone had written a significantly more legible phrase than what had been scribbled next to the arrows. Even so, the handwriting was noticeably worn; not even Sora squinting and leaning closer yielded results in his attempt to decipher it. He could make out the word _Hollow,_ and a few letters beneath that word, but that was it.

Letting his hand fall back to his side, he instinctively looked to Char. "Do you know why this is here?" The question was a rudimentary one; she seemed so engrossed in the writings on the wall that she probably wouldn't even respond.

Char shook her head, not even glancing over at him. However, she did grace him with a verbal answer. "I don't know," she said. "I've never seen what was behind the portrait he usually kept here…"

Here she trailed off, only continuing to stare at the picture. Sora thought he heard a murmured "what are you playing at?", but he could not be sure.

Beside him, Donald stretched up on the tips of his webbed feet, narrowing his eyes in concentration. Sora moved a ways out of the duck's line of sight, knowing that even though he hadn't been able to decode the writing, the wizard of Disney Castle might be able to. "Hollow… Main… security… Tron… door to… darkness?"

"Wait!" Char cut him off abruptly, her face lighting up.

"What now?" Donald clearly did not appreciate the interruption of his concentration, and expressed that by dropping back down onto the flats of his feet and glowering at her.

"Calm down for ten seconds, would you, duck boy?" Ignoring his growl of protest, Char stepped forward and pointed at the letters just above the heart. "Look – D… T… D." She pointed to each letter of the acronym as she spoke it.

"Of course!" Sora gasped. "This must be the dataspace. DTD – the Door to Darkness!"

"Hey, yeah!" Donald said, only looking a little disgruntled at Char now. He cast her a grudgingly admiring look. "What do you know – you were right."

"It's happened before," Char answered smoothly. She turned to Sora. "But… that doesn't really tell us much about the password."

"Oh yeah…" Sora remembered, a little belatedly. The flicker of hope within him died down slightly at that. He sighed, thinking of Riku and Kairi and all the information Ansem's data might have about them. And again, that man's words echoed in his mind.

_Do you want to end up like Riku?_

"Do _you_ know what the password might be?" the Keybearer hurriedly asked Char.

The redhead tipped her head to one side, her pupils moving to the wall above the drawing in thought. Donald and Goofy moved closer to Sora's side, now looking fully attentive; he tried to tell himself curiosity alone motivated them, but the way his friends had acted in the past few days – tense, like they all were sharing a secret he couldn't be privy to – told him otherwise.

Then a sigh issued out of Char, and that last remnant of prayer disappeared. "If I knew, I would tell you," she confessed, frustration obvious in her words. "Sorry, Key-boy. I wish I could help, but… I wasn't really the one who helped Master with this kind of thing. I didn't even know that weird place was inside his computer." Even as she spoke, her voice had a kind of odd tightness to it, as though she were thoroughly restraining her annoyance at not knowing anything. Beneath that, though, there was desperation, the desire to reveal something held in a dark place inside. Although that tone had become familiar to him over the past few hours or so, Sora realized he hadn't stopped wanting to put that turmoil within her to rest just yet.

Genuine as it was, her apology stirred something deep within his memory. When he searched for the reason behind it, though, it vanished into the recesses of his mind, and he didn't bother trying to retrieve it. He turned back to the wall. "Door to Darkness… we're gonna need a better clue than that."

"Say, fellas – did somebody mention the Door to Darkness?"

Sora knew the source of the voice even before Donald and Goofy whirled around, dual cries of shock and happiness resonating from them. Even as he and Char turned to acknowledge the new presence, the brunette found his heart echoing their sentiment, albeit inwardly, in a way that strengthened when the presence in front of them was revealed.

"Your Majesty!" he, Donald, and Goofy cried. Char simply raised her eyebrows and gazed at the dark-clad, small mouse in front of them. _So this is the King,_ she mused. She had never met him in person, although she had heard enough about him from Ansem himself. The two of them had been close friends – ironic, considering Mickey had just begun to explore the nuances of the world of light and Ansem had dedicated his life to the pursuit of hearts and darkness. She did know that Mickey had served as the impetus for Ansem to consider giving up such research entirely; before her master had had a chance, though, the tragedy that had birthed the Organization had occurred. As far as she knew, Mickey still had no idea where Ansem was now.

And as far as she knew, Ansem had wanted to keep it that way.

She pushed back a wince. As if she didn't feel insulted enough, that the sight of the virtual world and the diagram on the wall – the diagram that detailed how DTDs were formed – confirmed her suspicions that Ansem had refused to tell her everything about his research. Now, though, thinking about all the information he had held out of her reach was only pouring salt in her proverbial wound. _I'd think that, since I'm the only apprentice that didn't turn on him, he would feel the same loyalty toward me that I've always felt for him. Even when something told me to waver, I never did. _

Immediately, Mickey put a gloved finger to his lips, effectively silencing the trio. He looked about the room in an almost nervous manner before pushing the door closed behind him. Almost the instant the echoes from the door closing had faded, Donald had let out a euphoric squawk and all but tackled Mickey to the ground. To his credit, the King only stumbled back a step or so, but managed to keep his footing. Goofy scrambled to a hasty stop beside him and looked as if he didn't know what to say or do; after a few moments, he just grinned impossibly widely and lifted both of his smaller companions up in his own embrace.

The sight pulled a chuckle out of Char. On a whim, she looked over to see how Sora felt about this.

Out of every reaction she had anticipated – amusement and gladness and even reverence for the Keyblade-wielding mouse-king the most prevalent among them – the last thing she had expected was wistfulness. It took her an instant to register that that was even the emotion on his countenance. But no, there it was – a disconsolate expression marring that otherwise pleased smile. It hit her, then, how much Sora missed Riku and Kairi and wanted them back in his life. Not just them, either – his home and his island and his parents and everything else were always at the forefront of his thoughts, what he had sought after for well over a year now. Her fingers went to the Keychain still in her pocket at that thought. Seeing Donald and Goofy find what they had been searching for must be tearing him apart inside.

Frankly, Char wondered why he didn't show more jealousy than he did. If she had stood in his absurdly clown-sized shoes at that moment, had had to watch the ruler of Disney Castle and all the worlds tolerate his subjects' idea of a joyful reunion while her own friends remained lost to her… Char knew that she would have to keep the darkness that had nearly taken over her at the Pride Lands at bay at the amount of envy she would have experienced.

But this was Sora, and Sora knew he had to be strong and be happy for his friends. For some reason, the amount of sympathy that surged through her at that thought damn near brought tears to her eyes.

Impulsively, she stepped a little closer to him and took his hand in hers. The warmth that she immediately felt surprised her, and she had only an instant to feel idiotic at following that impulse before Sora glanced at her, surprise etched into his features. At least that had wiped the sorrow off his face, she reflected dryly, and felt satisfied when that telltale dusting of crimson appeared there as well.

Then he sighed and twined their fingers very briefly together, actually giving her hand a squeeze before sliding his own away. Char could only look after him, wondering if he had enjoyed the contact or only forsaken it due to his feelings for Kairi; the latter gave her that hollow feeling again, and she found herself clutching desperately for the charm in her pocket.

"Long time no see!" Sora greeted Mickey with a grin.

The King brought a finger to his lips again, visible even though Donald's white feathers all but obscured him. At that, though, both duck and dog alike pulled back away from their ruler. "The Organization might be listening," Mickey warned.

When all three of them nodded in understanding, indignation eclipsed Char's former melancholia. "How come when _I_ tell you that, you act like I'm crazy, but when he says it, you listen?" she complained.

"Maybe because His Majesty actually knows things?" Donald suggested, and smirked at the irritated eye-narrow he garnered in response.

"Who's this?" Mickey asked, looking at Char.

"Oh, this is Char," Sora introduced. "She joined us not too long ago." He flashed her a quick smile, and she was about to say something when she realized that he was trying to put things back to normal between them.

She forced herself to meet Mickey's eyes. "Yeah," she said, bowing in respect to the King. "We've never met before, Your Majesty, but I used to live here."

"You mean, with Ansem and the other apprentices?" Mickey queried, widening his eyes.

Char cringed, but dared not lift her head. "Um, yes, sir," she mumbled. She braced herself for suspicious murmurs all around, but oddly, the others remained silent. _Maybe they just think he means Xehanort._

"I never knew he had seven apprentices," the mouse mused.

Char raised her head and couldn't hold back a tiny smirk. "And I never knew the entire realm was governed by a mouse."

That earned her an elbow in the calf and a pointed glare from Donald, but Mickey just chuckled. His amusement faded when he glanced back at Sora. "You were saying something about the Door to Darkness?" he asked, very seriously.

"Uh, yes, sir," Goofy said, shooting to attention along with Donald. "Y'see, we're looking for the secret password!"

"Password?" Mickey blinked in confusion. When the group gave him an incredulous look, his eyes lit up. "Oh, I guess you mean like a code!"

"Exactly," Char nodded. "We think the Door to Darkness may have something to do with it." Again, she felt that familiar prickle of shame that she did not know enough to divine the answer to this issue.

"Well," Mickey said, "the Door to Darkness can only be opened by the seven Princesses of Heart." He began to count them off on his fingers. "There's Snow White, Jasmine, Belle…"

"Of course." The murmur came from the entrance to the computer room. Apparently, Leon had been standing there the whole time, watching the group talking to Mickey. Char wondered whether the older man had seen her grab Sora's hand like an enamored schoolgirl, a suspicion that was confirmed when Leon gave her a quirked eyebrow and a suggestive upward turn of his lips. Quickly, she turned away, blushing furiously.

Mickey watched Leon go before looking to Sora. "What're you guys trying to do?"

"With that password, we can get access to Ansem's research data," Sora explained.

Mickey's eyes widened. "So that means you might be able to figure out where he is!"

Char guiltily stared at the ground, even as Sora laughed. "Stop joking around, Your Majesty," he chuckled. "We defeated Ansem – you know that."

"I already told you his name was Xehanort," she muttered, and then immediately regretted calling attention to herself, for then the mouse's gaze swung to her.

"Do _you_ know what happened to him?" he asked almost desperately. "I already looked for his other apprentices, but, well…" He shrugged helplessly, but a shadow crossed his eyes as he spoke. Char guessed he already knew what had become of Ansem's other six apprentices.

Although part of her screamed that here, _now_ was the time to confess everything she knew, the larger part of her – the part that maintained steadfast loyalty to Ansem even now, even after everything she had been through with Sora and the knowledge of what he was keeping from her – pushed that desire aside. "I don't know," she answered softly.

Sora couldn't hear most of the exchange that went on between the two of them, but he was getting the feeling that between mouse and redhead alike, they knew more than they were saying.

"It looks like I've got a lot of explaining to do," Mickey commented.

"You and me both," Char murmured.

The brunette _did_ hear that part. He instinctively leaned forward, ready beyond readiness to listen to what she had to say, wanting so badly to hear something that would cement his belief in her – but she merely looked away and said no more.

"We're listening, Your Majesty!" Donald said.

"Okay…" Sora thought, then settled on what had happened to Riku for his friend to be separated from the mouse in the dark realm behind Kingdom Hearts' door. _That, then I'll ask about why Xehanort's Heartless called itself 'Ansem' _"First, though, I've got a question –"

"Hey," Leon cut them off. "Isn't Tron waiting for you guys?"

Belatedly, Sora remembered he was right. Torn, he looked from the computer room to the source of answers in front of him.

Mickey seemed to sense his inner conflict. "Don't worry," he assured them. "I'm not going anywhere. If those Heartless attack here, I'll stand and fight with everyone."

"We will, too," Sora added, remembering the darkness that had covered the world even from the world between.

"Then let's talk more later," the mouse said, his gaze settling on Char in particular.

"It's a promise!" Donald smiled.

Mickey nodded, then waved at them. "I'll see you all when you get back."

* * *

So yeah, hand-holding all around in this chapter. And Mickey Mouse shows up! Exciting.

I kind of hope the way Sora is slowly figuring out Ansem's identity seems reasonable. I know he's a total retard in-game, but c'mon, the kid's gotta have SOME kind of problem-solving skills to have gotten this far. Look at some of the freaking mini-puzzles in KH1 and tell me how you'd make him figure those out in a KH1 fic if he's supposedly so stupid.

There ya go.

Next chapter should hopefully wrap up this stupid world... And then the real fun begins...


	56. Chapter LVI

Hey everyone; merry (early) Christmas! :) As a treat - and reward for getting me to 200 reviews; thanks so much for that! - I decided to wrap up Space Paranoids in this chapter, which is part of the reason why it's so long. As a result of that - and the way I've planned this fic - Char won't be making any confessions until the next chapter. OH NOES. Lol.

Still, though, I hope you all like the little twist I added in the middle of this chapter.

(I also find it really ironic that I'm writing this particular world right after TRON: Legacy came out, but whatever. XD)

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** I do not own Kingdom Hearts. However, I've said it once, and I'll say it again - if I found Sora wrapped in wrapping paper on Christmas morning, I wouldn't give him back. xD

* * *

Mickey stopped the group before they could head to the computer room. "Oh, I almost forgot," the mouse said. "I have some presents for you guys."

"Presents?" Sora echoed, puzzled. He couldn't imagine that Mickey had shown up just to bestow gifts on them; but then again, the king had obviously fought his way out of the dark realm for a reason.

_The question is, did Riku do the same thing?_

"Uh-huh." Mickey nodded enthusiastically before reaching out one hand. A brief flash of light heralded the arrival of a circular piece of steel, with a lifted, azure center and with bright golden spikes surrounding that center. A new shield, Sora realized, even as Goofy eyed the new weapon with wide-eyed, open-mouthed reverence. Even Char let out a tiny "hm" of curiosity.

"Goofy, I took it upon myself to get you a new shield," Mickey explained rather obviously.

Goofy looked rapidly from inanimate object to sentient being, from instrument to mouse, from weapon to ruler, and then back again. At last, the situation seemed to sink in, especially when Donald shoved him and gave him a look that told him to accept the gift. Finally, Goofy settled his surprised gaze on Mickey again. "Your Majesty, are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," Mickey chuckled. "Go on, take it."

Still, Goofy hesitated a moment before lifting it up and hefting it on his wrist. "Gee, thanks," he said, lowering his head bashfully.

Mickey nodded to acknowledge the dog's acceptance. Then light flashed again, and a broom-like staff appeared in his grasp. Much to everyone, particularly the recipient's, bemusement – although it was fairly obvious the weapon was for Donald – the mouse presented the broom-like staff to Donald. "Some of the servants back at the castle helped make this," Mickey said.

Char stifled a tiny snicker, which earned her a glare from Donald. As he appraised the weapon, he acquired a more skeptical expression than had covered Goofy's countenance. Odd, Sora thought, considering earlier the mage had practically pushed Goofy into accepting his own gift.

"I heard about your little weapon problem from Master Yen Sid," Mickey explained, before Donald could say anything. That quickly subdued the duck; he uttered a simple "oh" before staring at the book-cluttered ground, significantly cowed.

"This has stronger magic about it," Mickey went on. "Probably better than that Heartless one you've been carrying around."'

Reluctantly, Donald took the weapon, gazing at its brush-tipped head and handle-like grip with a less annoyed look than before, as though acknowledging its superior power to the fire Heartless' staff. (1)

Finally, Mickey turned to Sora. "And I wanted to give your clothes some new powers, Sora."

Sora's eyes widened in excitement. Merlin had used the exact same words when the old wizard had given him Wisdom Form, and while he hadn't had much time to use the gift that enhanced his speed and magic, he had looked forward to getting new abilities of the same kind. "Really?" he blustered.

Mickey smiled and nodded. He held out his hand and dropped a golden orb akin to the one the fairies had given him at Yen Sid's tower into Sora's palm. Like then, it promptly seeped into Sora's skin. "Yen Sid called that ability the 'Master Form,'" the mouse elaborated. "Try it out as soon as you can."

"Okay, I will. Thanks a lot!" Sora nodded eagerly. _Master Form… sounds powerful,_ he reflected, and couldn't help thinking that now that he was so close to finding Riku and Kairi again – and maybe visiting the dark realm in the process – he might need all the power he could get.

Mickey glanced at Char then, guilt appearing on his round face. "I'm sorry, but I didn't bring anything for you, Char," he said.

Sora expected the arrogance-tempered response from her, but felt startled nonetheless when she fulfilled his expectations. For some reason, he hadn't expected to know this girl as well as he did in the scant month or so in which he had known her.

"Don't worry about it, Your Majesty," she waved it off. The corner of her lips twisted up in a wry smirk. "The way I see it, if Yen Sid had nothing to give me, then that means I'm well off already. Right?"

"I wouldn't say _that_ much," Donald grumbled, barely audible.

Although Char didn't hear that doubtful little quip, Mickey did. The guilty expression dissipated in favor of a warm smile. "Go fulfill your promise," he dismissed them. "I'll be here when you get back."

Bidding Mickey farewell, the group made their way to the computer room. As they crossed over from erudite office to sterile laboratory, Sora fought back a shiver, his prior determination replaced by anxiety. He couldn't understand how Char had lived and worked so close to this place for most of her life. The surroundings were too mechanical for his taste, completely devoid of the life and warmth that had always marked his island.

He and Char differed in that way, though – she had lived her life here, in such isolation and strictness, amidst all these buttons and numbers. He had grown up among the sea and sand and paopu trees, with two best friends always at his side. _It affected both of us,_ he thought.

Once he started contemplating that, though, her obvious reluctance to reveal her past – and the secrets she obviously knew about Xehanort's Heartless – returned to the forefront of his obligations. And at this point, he knew he couldn't afford to think about anything other than using the password to get into the dataspace and find a way to get Riku and Kairi back.

So he forced those thoughts into the back of his mind, for now. _She'll tell me when she wants to,_ he told himself for perhaps the thousandth time since his heart had begun to swing the needle of its compass away from Kairi and toward Char. And for perhaps the thousandth time, he had to suppress the surge of impatience that promptly followed.

At Sora's side, Goofy stared in awe at the bright blue, cloud-like shield he now toted. "Gawrsh, Donald, the King sure is generous," he commented to the duck.

Donald shrugged, looking a bit grumpy despite the fact that his regard for Mickey should have immediately made him agree. "I guess so," he muttered.

"Hey, look at the bright side," Sora said, trying to reassure the mage, as he was eyeing the rather mundane-looking weapon with a hint of disdain. "If we go to any more worlds that need you to disguise us, you won't have to worry about it anymore." Down that road lay much bigger problems than the aesthetic factor of Donald's staff, the Keybearer knew. The memory of unexplainably finding Roxas in the Pride Lands with him – his dream self, somehow summoned there by the Heartless staff Donald was forced to use – ran through Sora's mind, and he shuddered at the inevitable thought of his ensuing concern and near-encompassing confusion.

"True," Donald acquiesced after a few moments.

Char had said nothing up until this point, and Sora looked worriedly at her. "Char, are you okay?" he asked.

She blinked a few times, as if he had dragged her from deep thought. However, her countenance held no trace of annoyance as she looked at him. "I'm fine," she said. "Just… thinking about how weird it is, that that world is inside the computer."

"Yeah, I know," Sora agreed. "Who takes the time to do all that, anyway?" Although he had to hide a cringe at the suspicious looks Char's words garnered from Donald and Goofy – clearly, they doubted that she hadn't known about Tron's world even now – the brunette's attempt to bring her spirits up didn't totally go to waste. Warmth surged distinctively within him at the smile his words earned, and he found himself returning that smile. Even if she was faking it for his sake, he appreciated her effort.

They rounded the corner and found Leon standing in front of Ansem's computer, his fingers already on the keys. Tifa hovered over his shoulder, looking curiously at the monitor, which was currently lit up with dozens of bright lights. Char could just see multicolored bars next to each other along the bottom of the screen, and recognized that the computer was giving them options. She and the other apprentices had seen those two little bars often enough, when looking up sources for research assignments.

When he heard them coming, Leon turned to face them. His brow was wrinkled just slightly, either in concentration at his task or in annoyance that Tifa was watching every keystroke he made.

"I think I found a way to put all four of you back in there," he said brusquely, immediately getting straight to the point. "But it's only giving me one destination to put you back."

Sora and Char moved closer, trying to get a better look at the screen. Char flinched as Sora's shoulder bumped against hers in his interest, but thankfully managed to ignore the heat his touch promptly sent to the area of contact.

"Pit Cell?" she repeated the name on the screen, and furrowed her brow in a frown of her own. "Um… is that close to the dataspace or whatever?" As she spoke the last part, she looked to Sora for an answer. He had pushed them good and deep into this venture, and he knew the most about how to solve this issue, having talked with Tron – who seemed to know the most about getting the information the Keybearer needed – and whatnot.

She had a split second to ruminate on the irony of _Sora_ having all the answers for once before he met her gaze and responded. "Maybe," he said, "but that's where we last left Tron. If he's still there, we can give him the password."

"And he can show us how to get into the dataspace," she gently prompted.

Sora smiled a little sheepishly. "Yeah, of course."

The sound of Donald clearing his throat roused the two of them, and they looked over just in time to see the duck in question tapping his foot, his arms folded in slight impatience. "C'mon, you two," he said, narrowing his eyes.

"Right, right," Sora chuckled, despite the flicker of embarrassment – and concern – that he felt at the slightly disapproving tone in Donald's voice. In the past, the mage's teasing had had a relatively playful air about it, as though he recognized that Sora had begun to fall in love with Char and accepted that, even though he and Char didn't exactly like each other. Now, though, his words were clipped and terse, and carried only the suspicion he felt for the redhead. Goofy simply looked from one teenager to the other, before giving a resigned sigh.

Char only rolled her eyes before turning to Leon. "Send us there," she told him. "Even if Tron's not there, we can still look for him, right?"

She didn't mention the deranged Heartless commander that was probably running around looking for her even as they spoke. With deadly voltage-shooting Heartless at his side, no doubt.

Leon didn't quite look convinced, but he nodded nonetheless. "Alright. I trust you guys." His fingers moved briefly over the keys, and the computer let out a _beep_ of acknowledgment to his commands. "Go stand in front of the machine," he said, signaling to the crimson orb on the white wall that had glowed when they had gone to the virtual world before. "I'll do the rest."

Sora nodded and looked to the others. "You guys ready?" he asked.

Donald and Goofy gave dual nods of agreement. Char merely angled her head to one side. "What do you think?" she queried dryly.

The return of her typical sarcasm soothed Sora's doubts at that moment. Sometimes it annoyed him, he had to admit, but at the moment, it only served as a sign reading that she was okay with this, despite the connection it had with her past. He offered her a reassuring smile and turned back to Leon. "Go for it," he urged.

Tifa watched curiously as the Gunblade wielder tapped a few keys, and the light that had divided the four companions into distinctive, transparent squares darted over them before engulfing them entirely.

* * *

Char had prepared herself for the landing this time. She had braced herself for the teleportation device to drop her as unceremoniously as it had when the computer had forced them in, and to take the same measures she had last time.

Fortunately, though, the four of them were simply taken to the pit cell area in a rather comfortable fashion. Maybe it was because the computer hadn't taken matters into its own hands this time around. She felt torn between annoyance that her mental preparation had gone to waste, and relief that she had escaped the humiliation that would likely have come with almost landing on her head.

In the end, she went with the latter.

She looked around the slightly cramped room, taking in the single, pathetic window and uniformly blue walls. She allowed herself only an instant or so to do even that much before mentally returning to the task at hand.

"So," she said, turning to Sora, "where is this Tron guy?"

Sora had copied her gesture of scanning the area, a look of confusion coming over his features. "I dunno," he answered. He smiled in mild embarrassment, lifting one hand to scratch the back of his helmet-covered head. "I guess he wouldn't have come back here, after we worked so hard to help him get out…"

Though he offered no further explanation than that, Char gathered that Tron had shared this prison cell with them when that Sark guy had arrested them. _And you just up and ran. Coward,_ she chided herself inwardly, feeling warm shame trickle throughout her body at the thought.

_But I'm not leaving this time,_ she thought, her self-contempt shifting into resolve in a heartbeat. _I promised Riku._

_And, in a way, I promised Sora too._

"Tron?" Donald had disregarded Char's lack of sardonic response to the Keybearer's lack of judgment in his own concern. The duck was currently wandering around the room as best he could, his feathered head swinging from side to side as though a shape clad in the same eye-burning armor as the rest of them would suddenly appear.

"Maybe we can use this to find him," Goofy suggested from next to Sora and Char. Turning, Char saw with a gasp that the dog already had his arms raised, ready to start pushing keys on the keyboard attached to the yellow monitor.

The one that had just teleported them in, not unlike the terminal she had found in the tower that had sent her back.

"Don't touch that!" she heard herself shout. Goofy immediately recoiled, staring at her in surprise and slight fear. Close by, Donald had jumped about half a foot in the air before turning to glare at her.

"What was that for?" the mage spat, sounding more startled than angry.

Char saw that Sora had all but copied Donald's movement. "Yeah, seriously," the brunette added, his voice a little high-pitched in the wake of his shock. "You scared me."

The redhead narrowed her eyes. "Maybe you needed to be scared." Stepping up to the terminal – Goofy dutifully moved aside to make room for her, though he looked like he had expected her to elbow him away – Char rested her forearm against the wall next to it, staring into the screen. A multi-colored circle swirled together on the monitor, stark against the rest of its darkness. She recalled the way the computer she had found before had been completely black, before it had come to life and sent her back to her master's study.

She glanced back to the others, and rolled her eyes at their identical expressions of bemusement. _"Think_ for ten seconds, would you? I was messing with one of these things after I ran away from you guys. I don't know if I hit a button or something, but it's still the reason why I got back to Hollow Bastion before you did."

Sora still looked a bit confused, but had the expression of one with a dawning sense of understanding. "So… if we'd kept messing with this thing, it could have sent us somewhere dangerous?" he asked. Now that he thought about it, Char's newfound policy of carefulness made sense; maybe Tron had always pushed his way to these terminal things first for a reason.

_Maybe he knew that Users like us wouldn't know how to use it._

Char nodded very slowly and derisively. "Give the boy a prize."

"Oh, brother," Donald muttered.

"Ignoring you!" Donald grumbled under his breath as Char brought her gaze to Sora's. He seemed slightly irritated at her contempt toward him, if the tiny furrow of his brow was any indication. Otherwise, though, that same look of contemplation and need to understand remained.

Char tried not to draw away, knowing this was the worst possible time for her treacherous heart to start acting up. _Gods, but he even looks cute while he's pissed off. _

Instead of moving back, Char pushed her hands into her pockets, her fingers instinctively finding the charm of the Keychain she still held captive there. It was a sick, stupid thought, but she felt almost like she was keeping Kairi away from him – or at least, the item that could resurrect his love for her. _Idiot, letting your hormones control you,_ the dual wielder told herself for perhaps the thousandth time on this journey. (2)

Realizing the Keybearer still waited for her to continue, she hastily did so. "If this… MCP guy is really out to get you guys, then don't you think he'll be controlling those terminals, waiting for the chance to take you away somewhere you can't escape while he throws Heartless on you?" she asked.

Sora's eyes widened as the full implications of what they had almost done dawned upon him. "Yeah, you're probably right," he murmured.

"Gawrsh, Char, I'm sorry," Goofy said, sounding genuinely contrite.

Looking at the dog, Char couldn't help but sigh. "Don't be; it was a perfectly valid curiosity." She gnawed her lip as contemplation consumed her and she lowered her head to think more properly. The insane blue of this room wasn't exactly conducive to deep thought, though – it gave her a headache more than anything else.

"So if Tron's not here –" Sora was cut off abruptly as light flashed in the room. He pivoted toward the source, as did his allies, just in time to see the light fade away and reveal a man clad in much the same way as the group lying prone on the ground.

"Tron!" Sora cried, immediately moving to the man's side. Donald and Goofy followed close behind, with Char taking her normal spot at the rear.

_So this is Tron,_ she thought, watching as the virtual world native shakily got to his feet. As she looked on, he swiftly turned down the offers from the trio to help him with just one wave of his hand.

"I don't understand," Tron said weakly. "Why are you here? The MCP –"

"We came to give you the password!" Sora interrupted earnestly.

Tron stared in disbelief at them for a few moments before shaking his head and palming his forehead. "Why didn't you just transmit the data?" he asked.

"Transmit?" Char asked, raising one eyebrow. Inwardly, she seethed, wondering why the hell she hadn't thought of that. She could have avoided coming back here, to the world her master had created to protect all his secrets, altogether if she had thought that far ahead. As always, though, she had failed to curb her impulses, and it was costing her.

Those dark eyes shifted to her. "Is that… the User you were looking for?" he managed to ask, just before fatigue overtook him and he staggered on his feet.

Quickly, Sora caught the man before he could fall. "You okay?" he asked, even though it was all too obvious that Tron wasn't. Something had clearly all but annihilated Tron's strength, and forced him back into this cell.

_Gee, I wonder,_ the Keybearer thought, flashing back to agonizing shocks and a man clad in a bright red uniform.

Summoning his remaining dignity, Tron pushed himself out of Sora's supporting hold. "I'll be all right… once we access the DTD," he rasped. "I can get all my functions back there… and then we can stop the MCP."

"And get the information we need," Char cut in, eyeing Sora with a hard stare.

"Yeah." Sora nodded; he hadn't needed that reminder.

This time, Char blinked in slight confusion that he hadn't reacted indignantly to her attempt to get him back on track. She found herself smiling a little at the sight of his determination – the firm resolve that definitely wasn't just Roxas' single-mindedness shining through. _This is all Key-boy,_ she thought, and was reassured.

"By the way," Sora said, already starting toward the exit to the pit cell, "yeah, this is who we were looking for." He hesitated. "Well… one of the people we were looking for, anyway. This is Char."

"The one who ran away from Sark?" Tron asked, following after the brunette with a stride hampered by invisible wounds. Donald and Goofy walked close behind him, ready to support him if he stumbled.

Despite his apparent anathema toward his new weapon, the former whipped the broom-like staff out and cast a healing spell whose green light rent the horribly blue air briefly before disappearing. Tron gave the weapon a curious look, but he was already looking better, and he seemed to decide to just accept that.

Char cringed, but thankfully managed to suppress most of her humiliation. "Yeah, kinda," she grunted.

"Just 'kinda.'" Donald snorted, even as he stepped onto the white disk behind Sora and Tron.

While Char glowered at him – a look he returned with gusto – Tron glanced back at her, envy and interest warring on his countenance. "Well done," he said. "How did you accomplish it, if I may ask?"

He didn't seem fazed when the disk beneath them abruptly whirred to life and began to soar across the sky at a brisk pace toward the canyon beyond; although that combined with his wounds should have all but made him fall, those wounds didn't even plague him now, thanks to the timely intervention of Donald's Cura. Char tried not to stumble, but eventually got used to the disk's movement. Its relatively calm path helped immensely.

"Um…" She hesitated. "I… kinda hit him in the face with one of my swords and ran for the nearest exit." That exit had taken the form of a glowing white disk that had taken her to the tower she had gazed at off in the distance while waiting for Sora to awaken from their fall into this world.

Sora laughed; he hadn't heard this part of the story. "That's Char for ya," he grinned.

"And just what are you implying by that?" Char huffed, folding her arms and looking away. However, Sora could see a grin quirking her lips upward from the sidelong glimpse he could get of her face, and knew she was speaking just as playfully as he was.

"Exactly what I said," he chuckled.

"Oh, right!"

At this point, the disk had arrived at its destination. As Char stepped off behind Sora and his companions, refusing to look down at the drop that awaited her if she took a misstep between here and the canyon, she realized it was the same place that the portal in Ansem's computer room had first deposited her and Sora.

Sora was still grinning a little from his conversation with Char when he looked over at Tron to see how the virtual program was faring. The Keybearer's amusement faltered when he saw Tron only eyeing him and Char with a strange expression. "Uh… Tron? Are you okay?" he repeated his earlier question stupidly.

Tron seemed to come out of a trance then, and he nodded. "Yes, I'm all right." (3)

"So… do _you_ know where the DTD is?" Goofy asked shyly.

Though Char did not share Goofy's reluctance to get to the point, she did share his sentiment. Every moment she spent standing around in this place, she felt herself growing more and more anxious. She pushed her bangs back off her face in an attempt to focus better, though, as always, they fell right back into place. Pathetic as it was, she kept imagining Sark appearing with his Heartless at his side, the same sadistic gleam in his eyes as he watched them fill her full of shocks – his retribution for her escaping him and the MCP.

_The MCP._ Her agitation's source switched from Sark, to the master he allegedly served, according to Sora's retelling of the events. If she thought about it, the entire state of this strict, tyranny-filled world had come about due to that program taking over it. Char knew only her loyalty to Ansem made her want to eradicate the world he'd spent so much precious time creating of its threats, and she also fully understood the stupidity of it. But she still felt that way even now.

Even now that she was finding out secrets even she hadn't known about him.

Tron nodded in response to Goofy's question, soothing Char's raw nerves only slightly. "It's relatively close by, actually." He pointed to a building lined with bright red, which stood just up the stairs where the Heartless had first taken Donald and Goofy. "The dataspace should be in that building. We can access the DTD there."

"Should be…?" Char muttered doubtfully.

Seeing her uncertainty, Sora felt sympathetic. Acting on a whim, he reached over and squeezed her shoulder, trying to ignore how very warm it felt even under the fabric of his glove. "We'll get there," he reassured her. "If Sark comes back and tries to get us, we'll just take him down like we always do."

"Yeah," Donald agreed, and Goofy nodded on his other side.

Char looked from the hand that was still on her shoulder, to Sora, then to Tron, and back to Sora again. "I guess you're right," she said at last, though she still didn't sound convinced. "Oh, and, um, you can take your hand off now."

"What?" For the first time, he realized the truth of her words. Hurriedly, he dropped his hand back down to his side, feeling disappointment replace his previous desire to see her consoled. Even he knew the moment was lost. "Oh, right. Sorry," he laughed.

He turned to face the building and took a deep breath. Now that the answers he sought were so close, he could feel his heartbeat thrumming in his ears, assisted only slightly by the effect of his contact with Char. "Let's go."

* * *

Fighting through the Heartless that guarded the dataspace's entrance took longer than Char had first assumed. Mostly, that was due to the way Sora, Donald, and Goofy had balked at the sight of them, not wanting to be a victim of the electricity-harnessing Heartless' vicious voltage again. Fortunately, Tron had broken the spell by attacking one of their foes with a slicing disk he drew out from his uniform; seeing that these enemies could be stricken down so easily snapped the original trio out of their fear, and together, the five had taken down the Heartless in their way.

Now, standing in front of the brightly-lit barrier between him and the information he sought, Sora raised a hand to open the door – and hesitated.

"Sora?" Donald asked, craning his neck around Tron to look at the brunette.

"You okay?" Goofy inquired.

Sora knew he should give them the answer they needed to hear – the answer _he_ needed to hear – but something held him back from uttering that oft-used lie. He knew what that something was, and had that knowledge reinforced when the source of his tentativeness shifted from behind Tron.

Char had kept her gaze on Sora the entire time, but even to him, it couldn't have been more obvious that something weighed heavily on her mind. Her pupils kept flickering from him to the dataspace entrance and back again, as though she were wondering about the extent of what information Ansem had hidden just beyond the portal Sora was blocking.

He shared her sentiment, more strongly than he would have thought possible. Though the concern about Char's strange absent-mindedness and desire to know the reason behind it remained, the desire to know what Ansem had to say about Riku and Kairi took the forefront of his emotions and stayed there.

And so in the end, he ran his eyes over the entire group and replied, if only because even Tron was looking a little impatient to get on with this. "Yeah, I'm fine," the Keybearer said, smiling and turning back to the door.

As he searched for a means with which to open it – a doorknob would have helped immensely – a frown briefly eclipsed his countenance. An instant later, though, Sora let out a cry and reared back as the door slid open beneath his palm, revealing a green-and-yellow-clad interior.

"Oh, yeah, those do that," Char said distantly.

Sora spun to stare indignantly at her. "A warning would've been nice!" he yelped.

In spite of himself, Donald sniggered, only to silence himself moments later, as if even laughing at Sora's expense was going along with the girl who was keeping so many secrets.

"The DTD should be just inside," Tron said, already moving past them.

Sora nodded, jogging to catch up with the program; he could hear his other companions following at his heels. _Tron must really want his powers back,_ the brunette reflected. His fist clenched. _Just like I want my friends back._

As the sound of their footsteps changed in accordance with the area, Char trailed along behind Sora and Tron, at the same time taking a good look around the alleged haven of her master's secrets. It was actually a rather refreshing difference from the neon-lined azure of the walls outside. Although the garishly bright green here still made Char squint her eyes a little, the sight of what awaited them just in front of those walls drew her gaze and held it.

As they drew closer, she saw that the object that had caught her attention was a set of computer screens, whose blinking lights signified that it had been active long before the yellow terminals had. Char guessed that those three screens corresponded to the three monitors that made up the majority of the walls around them.

Tron broke away from the rest of the group, walking with a strength he hadn't possessed before their walk here. He knelt down in front of the computer screens and began moving his fingertips against the middle one, whose surface rippled and fluctuated in response to his touch; Char guessed that was the command board for this place.

During his work on its invisible keyboard, a light flashed, and a white bar with a blinking cursor appeared. The white light reappeared just above the screens, and Char looked up just in time to see a replica of the computer screen Tron was typing on appear on the corresponding monitor.

"All right," Tron said brusquely, not even looking up. "What's the password?"

"Well…" Goofy lifted his hand and began to count them off on one hand. "It's, uh…"

"Belle, Snow White…" Donald began.

"Aurora, Alice, Jasmine, Cinderella…" Char continued, deciding to contribute to the remembrance of all seven princesses of heart. Although she knew that whatever lay within the dataspace, Ansem likely knew little to nothing about Riku and Kairi, the fact remained that Sora would find a plethora of information about the dark realm here.

_At the very least,_ she thought wryly, _it'll help him along in what I was supposed to help him accomplish in the first place – revenge on the Organization._

Tron had been frantically typing everything in, but now he stopped and glanced over, still not doing anything – perhaps knowing there was another part to this. Char looked at Sora, hating the way her heartbeat kicked up at his reluctance to say the final princess' name. Donald and Goofy copied her gesture before exchanging glances, as though trying to decide who should name the girl Sora had loved so much.

_You know he feels the same way,_ Roxas reminded Char. It sounded more a mockery than ever now.

At last, Sora lifted his head and spoke quietly. "Kairi. The last part of the password is 'Kairi.'"

Thankfully, if Tron picked up the conflict between Sora and Kairi's name, he chose to say nothing about it. "Kairi, got it." He returned to his work, finishing typing in the names and tapping a button onscreen. An instant later, a small earthquake shook the area, unbalancing Donald, who would have fallen but for Goofy quickly reaching out to him, and Char, who caught herself in time.

Above them, the monitor on the wall flashed bright green before remaining that single color. Tron turned to face them, triumphant. "That did it!"

No sooner had he finished speaking, however, than a siren not dissimilar to what the group had heard prior to their first arrival here suddenly began to sound, rending the air with its cacophonic blaring. Goofy immediately put his hands to his ears, and Char winced.

"Now switching DTD over from hibernation to active mode," a disembodied, ambiguous voice intoned. "This process will take some time. Please enjoy a game while the process is running."

Sora paled visibly. "A 'game'…?"

Tron shook his head, his triumph from before replaced by urgency. "It's the DTD's final security routine. This is serious. Stay focused!"

"Right," Sora said, shaking off his previous dread and summoning the Circle of Life to him. Instinctively, Donald, Goofy, and Char called forth their own weapons, and the group moved to stand back to back.

Sora had expected a mass of Heartless to appear, but what happened was entirely different. Instead, silence reigned briefly before a voice distinctively different from the one just moments before spoke. With a jolt, Sora realized it was the voice that had first "arrested" them.

"Why have you Users returned?" the voice queried, calm fury in its tones.

Tron gasped. "The MCP!"

"Program, you will suffer immediate de-resolution if you do not stop assisting these Users," the MCP warned.

"I know that! But…" Tron hesitated.

"Oh? Do tell," the MCP prompted, mocking curiosity oozing over every word it spoke.

"I don't know, but… something in my programming commands me to do what is right," Tron confessed, looking Sora in the eye.

"Oh, really? And what code might that be?" Now the MCP seemed almost bored.

"Does it matter what _code_ it is?" Char cut in angrily. "It's just something people are supposed to do." Even as she spoke, though, she was well aware of the hypocrisy of her words. _Doing what's right doesn't exactly involve lying to your friends all the time, after all…_

A pause. Then the MCP spoke again, and the note of newfound dangerous interest made Sora instinctively step in front of Char.

"Ah, you must be the User who escaped Commander Sark," the tyrant program mused.

The redhead narrowed her eyes, at the same time moving away from Sora and casting him a brief, hard stare that said she could take care of herself. "Brilliant deduction. It couldn't possibly be because I'm the only female User _in_ here, right?"

"Such impudence must be punished," the MCP went on, acting as if she hadn't spoken.

That made Char blink, a newfound kind of slow apprehension beginning to spread through her. "Really?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from trembling. Although ordinarily she would have scoffed at the threat, she knew anything Ansem had set to guard his secrets wouldn't say such things lightly. "And how, pray tell, would that happen?"

"Don't!" Tron shouted, reaching out his hand; but it was too late.

The last thing Char heard before the light swallowed her vision entirely was Sora screaming her name. (4)

* * *

Sora whirled about, trying desperately to pinpoint where the MCP's voice was coming from, his blood beginning to roar in his ears. "Where's Char?" he demanded. "What did you do with her?"

The MCP let out a scornful "hmph" before replying. "I merely sent her to play a game for Commander Sark."

_Again with the "games!"_ A sickening kind of horror rose within him and mingled with his rage, causing him to tighten his grip around the Circle of Life. The DTD's security had used the same term when describing its yet-interrupted final security measure, but Tron had defined it as a euphemism for something much more dangerous.

Beside Sora, Tron let out a gasp. "This isn't good," he murmured.

"What's gonna happen to Char?" Goofy asked, worriedly looking to Tron.

"If I know the MCP," Tron said, "then they've sent her to the game grid."

"The game grid…?" Even Donald sounded anxious at this point.

"The place they send errant programs who stray from the MCP's system," Tron explained, his distress making itself clearer in his voice by the moment. "There, the programs are forced to fight until…" He trailed off deliberately.

Sora finished the man's sentence in his head. _Until they die._ Or whatever equivalent for death that people had here.

He stared at his feet, despondency and grief and anger mingling all at once within him. He'd known Sark and the MCP had an extra eye out for Char from the very beginning, since she had escaped from the arrest that had led to Sora's meeting Tron. And yet the Keybearer had still allowed her to come along this time around, with that knowledge fully in his mind.

_I promised myself I wouldn't let anyone else get hurt because of me, and now I might have just let the girl I love die._ Sora would have mentally balked at the first clear definition of his feelings for Char, but right now, the image of Kairi's maroon hair and violet eyes flickered through his mind only briefly before vanishing in favor of his despair.

In the end, though, anger won the silent battle, and he jerked up to glare at the ceiling, where he gauged the voice was coming from. "Let her go!" he demanded pathetically; it was the best he could come up with at the moment.

He could almost see the MCP rolling its eyes. "I will consider… if you open the DTD."

"If we…?" Donald tried to ask.

The appearance of multiple Heartless cut the duck off, though. Immediately, Sora charged into battle, while his comrades quickly hastened to do the same. He knew it was a slim hope that the MCP would take Char out of the game grid as soon as he could access the DTD, but it was all he had right now.

* * *

As soon as the light covering her vision faded, Char dared lower her arm from where she had instinctively thrown it over her eyes. "Crap," she muttered aloud when only high walls and the bleak sky of this world greeted her eyes. She had figured as much when little light made its way past the boundary of her arm after the whiteness had disappeared, but she hadn't wanted to acknowledge it.

Glancing around, she wondered where exactly she had been taken. _I remember the MCP saying I had to be "punished," and then…_ She couldn't help but wince a little; in hindsight, making flippant remarks to the tyrant who controlled this entire world wasn't exactly the best idea. It was too late to change that now, though.

"Welcome to the game grid," a voice suddenly boomed. Char stumbled in her surprise, a feeling that grew substantially when the ground beneath her abruptly lit up with a grid of neon-blue lines.

"Game grid?" she echoed, more confused than anything else.

"That's right," the voice confirmed, although not without a disdainful lilt to it. Char's eyes widened as she realized the voice belonged to Sark. Doubtless, he recognized her as the arrogant little User who hit him and then ran, she reflected with a guilt born of the danger her action had put her in. She found the courage whose façade she had maintained ever since they had seen Hollow Bastion wreathed in darkness from the Gummi ship faltering, and suddenly she wanted to find the nearest corner and hide there.

Her hasty attempt to crush that feeling halted instantly when another flash of light appeared in her periphery. Turning to detect its source, she tilted her head to the side, a frown wrinkling her brow. _A motorcycle? _It had just revealed itself at that very moment, sitting there in all its crimson-and-blue glory.

At first, relief surfaced in her heart at the thought of just hopping on and riding it far away from Sark and whatever he had planned for her. Then reality kicked in and she knew things wouldn't go that easily. The fact that the motorcycle had popped up in accordance with Sark speaking told her that much. Not to mention the walls that rose up around her as far as she could see blocked any visible exit.

Besides, even if she could manage to escape, there was no telling how many times she would almost crash the motorcycle before she got out.

Sark continued, "You've been chosen to play a few games. Lose, and you will be subject to immediate de-resolution. Win?" He chuckled derisively, and a shudder lanced down Char's spine at the sound. "Well, no one wins."

At his words, the redhead felt annoyance replace her apprehension. "Well, there's a first time for everything, right?" she spat. "Get on with it!"

Over the speakers, she heard Sark let out a tiny scoff. A pause ensued, and then a series of translucent dark spheres announced the arrival of a group of unfamiliar Heartless. The multitude immediately closed in on her, and she cast her blades to her in dual flashes of light. She had never seen these before, but knew she could probably easily take them down.

"Really now, this is the best you've got?" she snarled, and whipped one sword out to the side, fully intending to send the nearest Heartless to Kingdom Hearts…

…only for it to roll effortlessly out of the way.

"What the…?" Her words were cut off when one of the others shot forward and lashed out with one of its claws. She tried to twist out of the way, but the attack came too quickly for her to dodge, and her side got the full brunt of the blow.

Bringing a fist to her side to try to stem the flow of blood, Char saw why the Heartless moved so quickly. The light cast by the bright blue of the grid on the ground caught off the wheels that the enemies were moving on – the reason why they had so easily dodged and then attacked her.

"You'll have to do a bit better than that," Sark taunted from above.

She narrowed her eyes, only for them to fly open as three of the Heartless converged on her at once. Their claws snapped together harmlessly about an inch away from an area just a little below where the first one had wounded her; that area was quickly soaking the top part of her uniform, and throbbed fiercely with the heat of her blood rushing to it. The pain of it made her crouch slightly and try to catch her breath.

_If I want to stay alive, I need a way to…_ Char's gaze suddenly lit on the motorcycle, which sat, mercilessly, just a ways away from the farthest Heartless. _Of course!_

Quickly, she glanced around before straightening and charging toward the vehicle. At once, the Heartless wheeled after her; but by some herculean burst of adrenaline she managed to dance around their blows and leaped for the motorcycle's seat. Admittedly, her first attempt didn't work so well – she ended up bouncing her leg off the side, and curses rent the air at the ensuing jolt of agony; it didn't help that it was the leg Hades had blasted, either – but the second time, she swung easily onto the vehicle.

"Okay," she muttered. At the same time, she mentally ordered one sword to disappear so she could place one hand on the handlebars. "Now how the hell am I supposed to –?"

While Char had never ridden a motorcycle before, and Ansem had removed any chance of them getting bicycles to ride around town with his proverbial ban on Christmas, she and Ienzo had seen people cavorting around Hollow Bastion's marketplace with motorcycles' less-powerful cousins. And so now she blindly put one foot against where she judged the pedals would be on a normal bicycle. _Hey,_ she told herself, _it's a _little_ like a bike. _She figured just feeling around with her foot couldn't do too much harm.

What she _didn't_ count on was her current means of escape's suddenly revving up in response to the pressure of her foot.

"Holy –" The sound of the engine purring thoroughly drowned out the rather vulgar expletive that had come at the end of that sentence. "All right, then, _you_ take me out of here," she shouted at nothing in particular. Inwardly, she cursed in disbelief, not believing she was screaming at an inanimate object.

And yet oddly, she didn't feel too shocked when the motorcycle obliged, letting out a roar of warning just before shooting forward. However, the sudden jolt did nearly unbalance her. Char found herself clinging desperately to the handlebars as her surroundings flashed by her in a blur. Suddenly, she regretted only having concentrated enough to put away only one sword; this thing almost needed both hands to drive.

And gods only knew she was a terrible enough driver as it was.

The thought summoned forth the memory of when she had driven the Gummi ship – the word "driven" being used in its loosest definition, of course. Along with that memory came the mental image of Donald and Goofy's horrified expressions, and Sora's futile attempts to pacify that.

_Sora._

Immediately, Char found the mental stamina to regain control.

Steadying herself, she allowed herself to look away from the grid long enough to survey her surroundings. The Heartless had sped up in accommodation to her change in speed, she noted with brief irritation; already, they were approaching on one side of her – fortunately, it was the side of her that had the sword on it.

Clumsily, she lashed out with the three-pronged weapon, and felt the vibration of it catching against flesh. To her extreme gratification, when the Heartless she had slashed let out a mechanical cry and flew backward. "That's what I _thought!"_ she screamed after it. She thought she heard a voice coming from above – Sark, probably – but to her immense relief, the motorcycle engine drowned out whatever condescending crap he was likely saying.

She looked back in front of her – and yelped, her voice leaping up a couple of octaves as the wall suddenly loomed before her. Throwing her sword-holding hand onto the handlebars to steer better, she strained to turn the vehicle away so she wouldn't crash it and effectively ruin her best chance of getting the hell out of here.

Much to her surprise, it responded rather quickly, darting away from the wall that had suddenly appeared almost the instant she twisted its front fork. Due to that quick response, she almost fell off the motorcycle again. After a few moments of desperately trying to regain her balance, she steadied herself, and took a deep breath to calm down.

After that, the "game" became almost easy. Swapping her remaining sword from one hand to another to combat the Heartless that kept moving up beside her was immensely facilitated as time went on, and she found herself almost enjoying seeing how close she could get to the walls that still rose up out of nowhere before she moved out of the way. Other than a few shallow cuts along her arms and legs from where the Heartless managed to claw her – along with that gradually-scabbing wound on her side, of course – Char managed to ride out of the initial mass of Heartless practically unscathed.

"C'mon, Heartless commander!" she shouted, hoping that bastard could hear her, wherever he sat watching. "This the best you've got for me?" As she spoke, the motorcycle continued to move forward, a fact that sent a mild surge of annoyance through her. _Note to self – figure out how to stop this thing before I get done here._

Sark's response came in the form of a low growl from over the speakers; an instant later, a purple, quadruped Heartless appeared nearby. Char got a glimpse of the white ball of light that was coalescing between two of its glowing pincers before her common sense kicked in and she swerved the motorcycle out of the way. The attack sailed harmlessly past her, and she glared over her shoulder at the now-vanishing Heartless. Unable to resist another chance at a snarky remark, she snarled after it, "Hey, that could've killed me!"

Then she heard the sound of the wall caving in just in front of her. Hastily, she looked toward its source and saw the Heartless' attempt to kill her had successfully broken a hole in the wall.

_There's my escape!_

"All right," she muttered under her breath, her heartbeat suddenly quickening. She could feel her face tensing from its prior flippant expression into one of seriousness, and despite her abrupt change in disposition, she knew why it had come about.

She had to get out of here as soon as possible and get back to Sora, see what the dataspace had yielded to him in terms of knowledge.

It wasn't just because of her promise to Riku, although that was definitely a factor. Given that her motives for following Sora now ran much deeper than just a promise to his best friend, though, the agreement she had made with the silver-haired boy a month back had a relatively small influence.

The odds were, no matter what he found, she would have to explain what he didn't know about her. If Ansem had information about Riku and Kairi, Sora would wonder how to get to the dark realm to reach them, and then Char would have to tell him how. If Ansem had nothing about Riku and Kairi, Sora would still be damnably curious about Char's past, and then Char would have to explain everything to him, especially in light of what she had told him about "Ansem" being Xehanort's Heartless.

_Either way, I'm screwed. _A dry little laugh escaped her at the thought, that she was giving in so easily.

_It only took ages of dancing around his inquiries, but I'm ready._

Char focused her gaze on the gradually coalescing walls just ahead of the break in the game grid's own boundary, knowing she would have to make her way through the maze to reach her escape. But she found herself not caring, so long as she made it.

* * *

Sora struck down the final Heartless with a swing of the Circle of Life. The Keyblade absorbed the electricity held within the enemy's body, and the brunette fought back a shudder at the feeling of it coursing through the weapon and into his hand.

Ignoring the unpleasant sensation, he raised the Keyblade and pointed it at the remaining monitor along the wall. He concentrated briefly – although that concentration was considerably hampered by the computerized voice repeatedly screaming a warning for them to stop – before a beam of light shot out of the blade and landed soundly at the center of the monitor. The crimson pallor that had taken over the monitor vanished immediately.

Behind him, Donald and Goofy let out dual sighs of relief and slumped against each other. Tron was handing them each a Potion to drink in order to heal the injuries they had sustained; Sora ignored that, despite his own minor scrapes, and instead chose to look frantically around, although he knew the MCP wouldn't show its face. "Okay, we unlocked the DTD," he yelled. "We did what you wanted. Now let Char go."

"Oh, I'm afraid that User is inconsequential at this point." At those words, Donald, Goofy, and Tron looked up, concern written on all their faces. Sora blinked and let out a tiny, anxious murmur; he didn't know what that entailed, but something in Tron's expression told him it could not be anything good.

"Now that I have full access to the DTD," the MCP said smugly, "my takeover of the system is now complete." Tron gasped, but the tyrant only ignored him. "I might have anticipated such a simple password."

_Simple?_ Sora didn't know if that was exactly how he would classify it. However, dread immediately swept that minor bemusement aside. He didn't know much about this odd world inside Ansem's computer – had never cared much about technology to glean much knowledge about computers in general, in all honesty – but from what Tron had told him, if the MCP got access to the DTD…

Not only would this world be completely lost to the MCP's control, but any information Ansem might have had on Riku and Kairi would be completely lost.

"No!" Tron barked, and charged forward. He practically slammed his hand against the middle screen; in response to his touch, a white line appeared on the screen, tracing along the outline of his hand before flashing just beneath it.

"Program!" the MCP said, shock clear in its voice; Sora expected that it would have gasped, had it the ability to express such a human gesture. "You changed the password!"

Tron turned back toward them, a weary smile spreading across his face. "There; that should hold him back."

"Tron, what's going on?" Donald demanded, jumping to his feet now that the Potion's healing properties had made their rounds through his system.

The program swept his gaze over all three of them. "I managed to hold back the MCP before it could get a further hold of the town's defenses," he explained. "You all in the User world should be safe, for now." He smiled – a strange gesture for him – and clenched his fists at his side. "And all my functions have been restored, so I should be ready for whenever the MCP regains control." (5)

Sora smiled in relief, realizing that now Tron could fully combat the dictator who had taken over this world. "Thanks, Tron," he said.

"But what about Char?" Goofy asked.

The dog's words made Sora start before he looked down in slight guilt, while Donald only snorted. "She'll be fine," the duck muttered.

Tron put a hand to his chin in thought, though not without a hint of unease. "I don't know… The MCP might have lost control of the User town, but he still has a hold on the game grid."

"So you're sure she was sent to the game grid?" Sora asked, his fist clenching around the Keyblade he had never put away. "Can you take us to her?"

Tron's eyes widened as he stared at the brunette. "Programs can't willingly go to the game grid." The words _they _don't_ willingly go to the game grid_ were left unspoken, but they hung thickly in the air nonetheless. "The only way to get in there now would be if we idled near a terminal for too long, and then the MCP would take us there."

"Then where's the nearest terminal?" Sora demanded.

Tron hesitated.

The Keybearer struggled to keep a firm hold on his patience. "Tron, Char's our friend, too. We need to get her back so we can go back to the User world. We…" He swallowed past the sudden obstruction in his throat, the near crippling grief that throttled his breath and made it difficult for him to speak. "We need her." (6)

He half expected a scoff from Donald, but to his intense surprise, the mage said nothing. Sora did not check his friends' expressions; if he had, though, he would have seen equal sympathy on both Disney residents' countenances.

In spite of Sora's growing agitation, a few moments still passed before Tron responded in the form of a sigh. Immediately, Sora looked more alert. "The MCP won't stay back forever," the program reminded them. "And even if you manage to rescue your fellow User, there's no guarantee we all won't get stuck in the grid as well."

"I know," Sora said immediately. "Just… where's the nearest terminal?"

Tron took so long to answer that Donald began tapping his foot, and even Goofy started to look a little antsy. Then the program spoke reluctantly. "There's one in the communications room of the I/O tower," he admitted. "Our best bet is there."

"Okay." Sora nodded. He seemed to remember himself and where he was at that moment, and he turned to Donald and Goofy. "Are you guys okay to travel?"

"Yup, Sora, I think so," Goofy said.

Donald gave a terse nod of agreement.

Sora forced a brief smile onto his face – at the same time, though, that guilt from before scythed through him again – and pivoted to face the exit. "All right then, let's go."

* * *

"This is it." Tron patted the multicolored door at the end of the large corridor.

Sora eyed the neon-red-lined door, the fervent hope that Char could be found so easily taking hold of his heartbeat and causing it to accelerate once more. However, adrenaline had already served that same purpose, due to the Heartless that had gotten in the group's way.

They had stepped onto the white disc and allowed it to transport them to the I/O tower area. Donald had pointed out that this was probably where Char had gone when she had fled from Sark and his Heartless, an assumption that Sora had agreed to readily enough, seeing as this was the only other place with a terminal in it that he knew of.

Almost the instant they had arrived at their destination, though, the yellow, electricity-filled Heartless had appeared in droves once again. Fortunately, the fighting was made infinitely easier by the fact that Tron had regained his propensity for battle, and they had disposed of the enemies in their way rather quickly. Sora didn't know whether to count his own agitation facilitating the battling as a blessing or a curse

Inside, the hall took a largely circular shape – large enough for the purple Heartless that had attacked them earlier to comfortably move about and fire their energy attacks at them, Sora remembered with a wince. As if in response to his thoughts, the light injuries that the unfamiliar foes had given him began to sting again.

"So is the terminal really right past here?" he asked quickly, to avoid Donald inevitably getting ready to cast Cura. For some reason, he thought the duck's reaffirmation of his concern toward the brunette would make him feel guilty.

While Donald grumbled a little and lowered his staff, Tron nodded, the gesture visible only due to the light cast by the door he stood in front of. As this corridor had narrowed, giving only Sora and Tron enough room to stand where they were, the light had dwindled considerably as well. "If I'm correct," he said, "it is." He fixed Sora's sapphire gaze with his own, dark one, uncertainty suddenly returning to his expression. "Are you absolutely certain –?"

"Yeah," Sora cut in firmly, not wanting Tron's own hesitation to become contagious and seep into him as well. "I'm sure." He was well aware that he, Donald, and Goofy had accomplished their main objective here – unlocking the DTD and, therefore, obtaining the way to find out what might have become of Riku and Kairi. Tron had even given them further reason to get out of this world before things got worse, by rebuffing the MCP before it could cause any more problems. Under any other circumstances, Sora would probably have taken this opportunity to leave, with the relief of knowing he had only sustained minor aches and bruises this time around.

But these weren't any other circumstances.

_I'm not leaving any more friends behind,_ he avowed.

Behind him, Donald and Goofy exchanged glances, the latter bringing a hand up to cover his mouth. "Uh, Sora –" Donald began.

"We have to help Char," Sora interrupted instantly, whirling to stare at the duck. To his credit, Donald only glared evenly back, albeit with a gaze tempered by hard-earned respect. "If it was Goofy stuck in there, you'd be the first to volunteer to go get him. Why is this any different?"

"Because Goofy's honest with us!" Donald exploded.

Sora drew back, a gasp escaping him; Goofy clasped his hand over his mouth more tightly and stared in shock at his longtime comrade, and even Tron's eyes widened. The brunette found himself putting one hand against the doorframe for balance. The mage's words cut him to the core; he had grown used to Donald's little outbursts over the course of their last journey, and even to his brutal honesty. But the way he had pushed directly to the crux of the matter – his and Goofy's seemingly unwarranted suspicion toward Char – drove something distinctively sharp into Sora's heart and twisted it. He could only appraise Donald in dumbfounded shock, his hands hanging limply at his side.

Goofy himself lowered his hand and found something very interesting on the bland ground. "Uh, Donald, couldja maybe leave me out of this?" he tried.

"No, I won't!" Donald squawked, clenching his fists at his side and transferring his glower to Goofy. The dog in question cringed back at the fire blazing in the mage's eyes. "You know she's hiding stuff from us. So do you, Sora!" He swerved back to the Keybearer, his chest heaving from the force of his fury; he seemed to have forgotten Tron was still there in the heat of his ire. "She might be involved with the Organization, and she's definitely involved with Ansem!"

At this, Sora had to take umbrage. "She knew him before he was a Heartless," he argued. "That doesn't really –"

He was saved from having to continue the argument – and from having to face the reality of Donald's words – by a distinctive thump from beyond the door he had all but forgotten about.

Tron immediately murmured, "Uh-oh," and pressed his palm against the door; a few moments later, it slid open with a mechanical whoosh. Sora pushed past the program, who was already trying to move into the room, only to halt abruptly in his tracks as he felt himself tread on something unfamiliar. Looking down and lifting his foot, the brunette saw a circular object a much lighter shade of blue than what he had become accustomed to. Bending down to pick it up, he realized it was a Keychain with a small, flat blue orb at its end.

He had a split second to wonder how a Keychain had gotten here of all places before something shifted out of his periphery and he saw the source of the noise.

The room he currently stood in was relatively small compared to the corridor they had just left, with its only truly notable characteristics being the terminal in front of them and the bright pink beam of light that shone down from above. But these went all but ignored to Sora's eyes, due to the dark crimson that had drawn his gaze.

He felt an uncontrollable grin begin to spread across his face as Char rose to her hands and knees, bringing one half-gloved hand up to massage her forehead. "Ow," she muttered. "Didn't think I'd crash the thing trying to get through the crack…"

Then she looked up and saw Sora standing there.

By this time, Tron and Goofy had managed to squeeze past Sora, who still obstructed the entrance; Donald squawked indignantly as he jumped up and down behind his three taller companions, trying to see what was going on.

Suddenly aware of the weakness of her current position, Char quickly got to her feet, ignoring the way the sudden surge of movement brought a fresh wave of pain to her wounds. "Hey," she said. Shame escalated within her when the remnants of the adrenaline that had fueled her fast escape made her voice sound more breathless than anything else.

"Hi," Sora answered, still not taking that idiotic grin off his face.

Char tilted her head to the side and appraised him with narrowed eyes. "Uh, Key-boy, you okay?"

"I don't believe it," Tron said, walking forward to stand in front of her. Due to the absence of one of the blocks in his path, Donald, who had been trying to push his way through to see better, ended up falling flat on his face. "How did you escape the game grid?"

Char blinked. "That's what that weird place was?" she asked, more for the others' benefits than anything else. "Huh. Well, a Heartless popped up and blew a hole in the wall, so I just escaped through there."

"Hm," was all Tron said, before turning to the terminal. "Well, now that you're here, it looks like we can send you all back to the User world."

"Huh?" Sora seemed to snap out of his stupor at the program's words.

"We can leave?" Char prompted him.

"Oh, yeah – you're right, we can." Sora smiled, albeit with a much lesser degree of relief than before. At the same time, though, disappointment flickered through him at her lack of response to that.

He turned to Tron, who had already knelt down and begun to ready the terminal for the group's departure. "Thanks, Tron. We really owe you for this."

Tron shrugged, not looking up from his work. "I'd say I owe you Users a debt as well. With all my functions restored, I think I've got a chance of getting system control away from the MCP."

"I'm glad you can fight again, Tron," Goofy quipped.

"Yeah," Donald nodded.

Char thought she saw a smile flit over the program's face, but it was gone so quickly she couldn't be sure. "I'd better get to work as soon as possible," he said, sounding as though he were thinking aloud. "Getting the system back to normal… It's what my User would want."

The redhead's eyes widened at the note of respect in Tron's voice. It made sense that he would feel obligated toward Ansem, but at the same time, her master had been the one to create the MCP within this world in the first place. She wondered if Tron was aware of that. "What Ansem would want…" she heard herself murmur aloud.

Hearing Char's words, Sora cast a hesitant glance over his shoulder at Donald and Goofy. They nodded encouragingly, and he turned back to Tron. "Um, Tron?" he queried. "About the password… we didn't get it from Ansem. We… just kind of found it."

"And Ansem was our enemy," Donald added.

"Yeah," Sora said. "Well… he still is. I guess."

At this point, Tron had finished his work on the terminal. He got to his feet and faced them, his tall form covering the bright light that had begun to shine on the terminal's monitor. "Well, actually… he's _my_ enemy, too."

Char folded her arms, her surprise increasing. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"Ansem took ENCOM's original system and customized it for his own use," Tron explained. "I was part of the original system, and Ansem modified me, too."

Sora looked to Char to see how she was taking this new knowledge – of what her fellow apprentice had done to this place – but she had only inclined her head slightly downward, silently listening. Now, she thought, the long days she and the others had spent away from this area so Ansem and Even could add some new "updates" to the computer made sense.

_They were making adjustments to this world,_ she realized.

"But Ansem is also the one who brought back the MCP," Tron went on. "The Ansem I first knew wouldn't do that."

_That_ confused Sora. If Ansem – Xehanort's Heartless – had owned this computer and gone to the trouble of creating this entire world to guard his secrets, then bringing back a program that had made it such a lawless place and tried to kill them at every turn didn't make much sense.

_Then again, if Ansem's name wasn't really Ansem, then we might not be even thinking about the same person…_ The thought was giving Sora a headache, and he crossed his arms, trying to ignore the pangs that he typically only got when Roxas was about to appear in his mind's eye.

Beside him, he heard Char draw in a sharp breath, as if having just realized something. He glanced at her, about to ask what was going on, Donald's words about how Char was hiding more than one secret from him echoing in his head more loudly than ever.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Tron said, ignoring Char's change in demeanor. He probably figured it was just a weird User thing, Sora thought with a brief, wry sense of amusement.

Meeting Tron's eyes, the brunette unfolded his arms. "That's okay, but… now I really don't get it," he confessed.

"Me neither," Goofy groaned.

"I don't… understand it either," Tron admitted, a little grudgingly. "But I think in the end, it'll be you – the Users – who finally figure it out." When even Char looked slightly curious, he said, "You have the ability to take illogical routes and still arrive at the answers you seek. Now go – before the MCP starts acting up again!"

Sora nodded, discarding his bemusement for now. "All right." He turned toward the yellow terminal. "Uh… how do we use this thing again?"

Tron smiled. "I thought you'd ask." He patted the keyboard he had just been tapping fastidiously away at. "I've already pulled up your destination. All you have to do is confirm it."

"Okay, thanks." Sora spared a glance at Char, wondering for a moment how she would react to this.

Sure enough, the force of his eyes on her was enough to drag her out of the fog of contemplation that had surrounded her – that was around her all too often, as of late. She blinked, her face obtaining a more focused look about it, then looked a little anxiously at Tron. "Are you sure we should mess with it now? With the MCP and everything…"

"Tron took care of it," Goofy told her with a grin. Belatedly, Sora realized they had yet to explain how the man had changed the password to the DTD and delayed the MCP's full takeover of the system.

"Oh." This time, she looked bewildered, clearly having not having anticipated that twist of events. Sora found himself smiling slightly at that.

"Well then, let's get the hell out of here," she said, moving to stand beside Sora. An instant later, though, she moved her head to examine his face better, raising one eyebrow. "What're you grinning about?"

With a start, the brunette realized that the visible evidence of the warmth he felt at the rarity of Char's acting flustered hadn't left his face. Hastily, he shook his head. "Uh, nothing."

"Sure," Donald muttered.

Sora cast the duck a slightly embarrassed grin, before stepping forward and surveying the monitor. As he stared at the two options the terminal was giving him, he lifted one hand, ready to select the one that confirmed his desire to return to the outside world. _Finally, we can get at Ansem's secrets._

Then something hit him, and he looked at Tron. "How do we get at Ansem's data from the User world?"

"Any data you need can be directly accessed from the terminal you entered from," the program explained. "I'll keep a dedicated access channel open for you. I changed the password, so you won't have to worry about the MCP for a while."

Char blinked. "Access channel?"

Tron chuckled. "I knew you'd ask." He leaned down and reached past Sora to press the button that would send them out of this world. As the white light began to gather itself, visible in the cracks between the keys on the keyboard, Tron straightened and glanced over at them. "It's a very important link between our worlds. It helps us stay connected."

Light flashed up and surrounded the group, and Char actually started, the fear that had taken over her when this terminal had done the exact same thing to teleport her back to Hollow Bastion briefly flaring up before vanishing. Thankfully, she calmed just before Sora could notice. She told herself to relax; now that she knew Tron was controlling this thing, the knowledge that it would take her where she wanted to be came with that.

Of course… The inevitability of explaining everything she was withholding from the others – Ansem's true identity, Riku's location, Roxas' connection to Sora, Anxclof's connection to Roxas and why she was hunting Sora down – weighted heavily in the back of Char's mind. And suddenly, the readiness to confess that she had felt back in the game grid seemed worlds away compared to the return of the hesitation that had plagued her for so long.

_Who am I kidding? I'm not ready for any of this – not to fight Anxclof for Sora's life, or to tell him everything. I'll probably never be._

Only Donald and Goofy seemed to sense her inner turmoil, much to her chagrin; she didn't need them feeling any more suspicious toward her than they did already. Thankfully, though, only the former cast her a squinty look; the latter's gaze held more anxiety as to her status.

Oblivious to the goings-on, Sora tilted his spiky, helmeted head to the side. "Okay, but… Tron, what did you change the password to?"

This time, the smile the program gave them was blurred slightly by the light that surrounded them and began to steadily consume them.

"You – my friends – are the new password," he confided.

Sora returned the smile. "Thanks, Tron. Take care!"

"You too. And give my best to the Users!"

He got just the merest glimpse of the man giving them a thumbs-up before the terminal's teleportation beam blotted out his vision entirely.

* * *

Tron is such a dork in KH2. I love him. -shot dead-

(1) The weapons Mickey gave Goofy and Donald are the Dreamcloud and Lord's Broom, respectively. Just thought they deserved a weapon change, because Goofy's been hauling the same shitty shield around since chapter 7. XD

(2) Yes, Char is the jealous type. Lol.

(3) While I was writing this scene, I realized just how, well... _flirty_ the SoraChar banter scenes were. So I decided to have Tron's confusion as to what the hell these Users are doing sort of lampshade that.

(4) If the MCP being IC or not is a concern here... I kind of thought the same too, until I took the time to watch the original TRON. Recall the MCP's little "when someone pushes me, I push back" quote? Yeah, that's kind of what I drew on there. Sark, however, is an entirely different story. XD

(5) Why yes, this part IS _deus ex machina_ on my part, why d'you ask? LOL.

(6) How many people want to bet he's thinking "_I_ need her" at this part...

OKAY. Mass of A/N's aside, some good old-fashioned Char confessing should FINALLY happen next chap. It only took 40-some chapters, people, but she's finally made it.

Reviews rock my life!


	57. Chapter LVII

All RIGHT. Chapter 57, folks. Lots of awesome shit in this chapter.

I'll just shut up and let you read.

EDIT: My GOD I OD'd on the eye thing at the end of this chapter. x_X Some major editing has just been done, folks.

**_Disclaimer-_** I only own Char, Anxclof, Falcon, Copperhead, and the Shadowed Desert world.

* * *

As the light spots cleared away from his vision, Sora groaned, shaking his head at the dizziness that had suddenly assailed him. "I'll never get used to that," he murmured under his breath.

Beside him, Goofy gave a rigorous nod of agreement. Donald, who materialized a moment later, and who hadn't heard Sora's remark, tried to take a step forward, only to stumble with a squawk and barely avoid the undignified contact of his face and the floor.

"Yeah, well," Char muttered, "there's something about your molecules being taken apart and put back together again that just screws you up a tiny bit." She put one hand against the wall with the red, lens-like device on it for balance, looking a bit queasy; however, the quickly-stabilizing pallor of her face told the Keybearer her stomach was calming down.

"That's true," he conceded, before looking back in front of him. True to Tron's word, the terminal had deposited them back at Ansem's computer room, as both the sight of the large monitor in front of them and the bright light beyond revealed. Tifa had left the room – probably to look for whoever she sought, he assumed, and couldn't help but wonder if the fact that she and Cloud had shown up looking for someone here at the same time meant anything.

In an instant, though, he dispelled that thought, as much from the thought that it probably wasn't significant as the sight before him. Leon stood in front of the computer and was giving them an expectant look.

Sora took a deep breath before making his way toward the older man; most of his vertigo from the computer teleporting him back here had ebbed, but he didn't want to take the chances of embarrassing himself in front of Leon. "Well," he said, putting his arms behind his head in a casual gesture and grinning, "that's that."

In response, Leon's gaze softened into the expression of one with recently-confirmed suspicions, and he smiled – a little sardonically, Sora thought.

"Look," was all the Gunblade wielder said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the screen, and he moved aside to let them see. Sora leaned in to get a better view, while Donald, Goofy, and Char crowded in.

The Keybearer's grin widened in spite of himself at the picture on the screen – small, pixel-composed versions of the four of them, waving from their respective vantage points. Below that read the words "THANK YOU!" in blocky white letters.

Donald and Goofy chuckled to themselves, and Sora heard Char huff out an annoyed breath on his other side. "Really, Tron? Really?" she muttered.

"Aw, come on, Char," Sora said, unable to resist the chance to tease her. "It's kinda cute."

"And at least he said 'thank you' at all," Donald pointed out, in a way that told her tacitly to stop complaining.

Oddly, the duck's words garnered no sarcastic comment from the redhead – another sign all was not as it seemed with her, Sora realized as guilt replaced his previous playfulness. He winced as Donald's words echoed in his mind once again. _She's hiding things from us. _

An unidentifiable emotion rose up within Sora at the thought of what the duck had said, but before he could pinpoint it, Leon spoke. "I'm guessing you guys managed to get the DTD open," he said. The way he cast a glance at Char and then back to Sora suggested he was trying to change the subject.

Char gave Leon a grateful look before answering. "Yeah," she said, before glancing a little uncertainly back at the others. "Uh… you guys _did_ find a way to access the DTD, right?" It still felt a little strange to refer to the dataspace that held all of her master's secrets with the same appellation she had used for the portals she had taken to visit worlds in her researcher days.

Sora blinked. Only the hard nudge of Donald's elbow against his leg broke him out of the stupor that had come over him moments before, and he quickly shifted away from the mage. "Yeah, we did," he confirmed. Moments later, though, he flinched and shook his leg a little. "Ouch, Donald, that _hurt."_

"Well sorry," Donald grumbled, not sounding sorry at all.

Leon raised his eyebrows. "How would Char not know if you'd gotten the DTD data or not?"

Char folded her arms and stared self-consciously at the ground. "I… kind of pissed off the wrong people," she confessed, feeling hot fingers of embarrassment creeping up her spine.

"Yeah, the MCP almost got her," Goofy added, giving her a grateful look. "I'm sure glad you're okay."

While Donald snorted and glared in the opposite direction, Char looked up and gave the dog a slightly bemused stare – but no, he seemed honest enough, even though he had every reason not to trust her, especially in light of her subdued manner both around Ansem's computer and the world within it. _Suspicious much?_ she scolded herself.

Out loud, though, she only sighed. "Thanks, Goofy, but you really didn't need to worry." She couldn't resist smirking and went on, "As soon as I crashed the motorcycle they gave me, I was going to find a way to get out of there anyway. It just came sooner than I expected."

"Wait." Sora eyed her with a growing expression of both envy and wonder. "The game grid had something where you rode a motorcycle around?"

"And nearly got killed by Heartless in the process, yeah." Just thinking about the game grid – Sark's condescending comments; the sharp agony of the Heartless' claws slicing into her; the vibrating whir of the motorcycle beneath her – made the wound in her side start to throb, and she all but put a hand to it to stem the pain before remembering that these dorks overreacted to every little wound and thinking better of it.

"Wow," Sora uttered, and such an earnest gleam of admiration lurked in his gaze that Char had to look away. _Don't do this to me,_ she thought desperately, suddenly fighting the urge to cry. _Not when you _know_ I'm keeping so many secrets from you._

Even Donald had to say something. "How did you not crash it?" he demanded.

His voice – and the acerbity in it – pushed Char out of her melancholia, and the glower she cast on him rivaled his own acrimony. "Hell if I know," she grunted, "but be glad I even got out at all."

"Calm down, you guys," Goofy tried to intervene.

Until now, Leon had remained silent, only listening to the conversation and watching the duck and the redhead glare daggers at each other. Now, though, he spoke. "Do you guys want to access the DTD or not?"

"Of course!" Sora immediately sprang to attention and walked forward to stand beside Leon at the keyboard.

The older man rolled his eyes, though a smirk was on his face. "Better not," he rebuffed, gently moving Sora aside with one hand. "You might make that MCP come back again."

"Oh, come on," Sora pouted, but stood away nonetheless. "That was Donald's fault, not mine."

"Hey!" Donald cried indignantly, distracted from Char for a few brief moments.

Char, however, had turned her attention away from her glaring contest with the mage; now she watched Leon at his work. He tapped a few keys, and the screen with the pixel versions of themselves dissipated, replaced by the typical desktop background of the monitor.

"Hey, so, where's the King?" Goofy asked hesitantly.

Leon replied without looking up. "He's checking a situation in town," he explained. "He'll be back soon, so don't worry."

"A situation…?" Sora blinked, dread beginning to seep through his heart.

Hearing the growing horror in the Keybearer's voice, Leon shrugged. "It's the same thing that brought you guys here in the first place – nothing we can't handle."

Sora thought of Cloud and Leon's sword skills, Aerith's healing spells, Merlin's magical power, and Yuffie and Tifa's obvious attack power, and realized he believed Leon.

_But that won't stop us from helping them._ His fist clenched at his side, around the orb-shaped charm at the end of the Keychain he had found in the communications room. _As soon as we get what we need here, we can help our friends._

"But he thought you guys might be hungry after going through that world," Leon went on. He halted in his typing and indicated something by nodding to the left; the group followed his gaze and saw a bowl of freshly-cut peaches on the desk.

"All right!" Sora cheered, and immediately made a beeline for the food. Char wasn't too far after him; although she didn't want to seem rude, the pangs of hunger that had assaulted her stomach not long after her initial escape from Sark returned to both her memory and her stomach.

Encouraged by that hunger's insistent sounds, she picked up a slice in her hand, careful only to put her fingers into the bowl once Sora had taken his share. She didn't want to cause any potential awkwardness if their fingers brushed by mistake.

At least, that was what she told herself.

Hastily, she took a bite of the peach, her eyes slipping closed as the juice settled against her taste buds.

"This is so good," Sora murmured through a mouthful of fruit.

She stared at him and thought about reprimanding him for forgetting to chew his food, but the sight of his satisfaction made her balk. _I have plenty of chances to lecture him,_ she thought wryly, _might as well save it for later._

Swallowing her mouthful, she finished the piece of fruit in her hand in another bite. Donald and Goofy had each taken their own respective slices and were enjoying the respite from their hunger; belatedly, Char remembered that none of them had eaten since breakfast, and while the meager meal hardly constituted a good lunch, the four of them needed all the food they could get right now.

Especially with all things considered.

Leon watched them finish their food before turning back to the keyboard and continuing. After a few more moments of silence – penetrated only by the sound of Leon's fingers against the keys on the keyboard – a white bar with a blinking cursor appeared on the monitor. "It's asking for a password," the Gunblade wielder said, and cast a look over his shoulder at them. "I'm assuming you guys have it?"

"Uh-huh," Goofy said. "It's –"

"Sora," the brunette quipped, remembering Tron's words.

Leon turned and began to type.

"Donald," the duck added.

"Goofy!" the knight in question blustered, puffing his chest out.

Unlike her comrades, the redhead chose to add no flourish to her name. "Char," was all she said.

Leon let out a small, breath-like chuckle. "That's… to the point." He finished typing, and pressed a button near the right side of the keyboard. In tandem with his unspoken command, a new window with a rapidly filling circle appeared on screen.

Sora stepped forward, finding himself shifting anxiously back and forth on his feet. He'd gone through so much to get this information, virtual worlds notwithstanding; now that he was so close to possibly discovering how to get Riku and Kairi back, excitement filled his entire body and made his heart pound. "Well?" he asked.

An instant later, the loading screen vanished, replaced by a dark blue background with multiple icons permeating it. Char's own heartbeat kicked up at the familiarity of her master's computer, ready to be used.

"That did it; we're in," Leon said triumphantly, before turning to Sora. "I have to go into town for a bit."

The Keybearer's eyes widened. "You're not gonna check out the data? It wasn't exactly easy to get."

Char's side began to throb again at his words.

"I'm coming right back," Leon assured him. "Why don't you get started on loading the data and copying it down?" At Sora's hesitant look – he didn't want a repeat of the last time they had been too hasty about getting information from this computer – the older man simply chuckled, patting Sora's shoulder as he walked past. "It's just a few keystrokes. Ask Char to do it for you if you can't."

He didn't linger to see Sora's response, but the smirk that Char caught a glimpse of at the lack of verbal acknowledgment said more than enough. Sora stared after the man with wide blue eyes, his mouth just slightly open; it would almost have been funny, had her mind not been whirling in a mix of panic and despair at Leon's suggestion.

Because gods only knew what lay inside her master's computer – what information they could get – what information about _her_ might lurk within it.

_Stop panicking,_ she thought angrily. _You need to tell them sometime._

And yet infuriatingly, some part of her – the part that was loyal to Ansem, the part that had made that stupid promise to Riku in the first place – held her back, kept a hold on the proverbial reins of her desire to tell Sora everything. He deserved to know, she could never argue that point – especially in light of her newfound emotions toward him.

As soon as the dark heel of Leon's boots had vanished from the room, the redhead looked to the others. Donald's annoyance she ignored, but Goofy and Sora seemed genuinely ready to follow up with Leon's suggestion. Ready to follow _her,_ she realized. She felt the sensation of her heart trying to tamp down her pride, and was thoroughly reminded of the times near the start of this journey when they had looked to her for leadership and she had had to step aside.

A self-deprecating sigh caught itself against the back of her throat. At least _some_ things hadn't changed in a mere month's time.

"Well, you heard Leon," she said, a little lamely, she thought. As of late, she was definitely falling down as far as sarcasm went.

_Then again, recent events haven't really helped me there._

"Do you guys want me to try and load up the data?" she prompted, raising an eyebrow when they only eyed her.

Sora cocked his head to the side. "Can you do that?" he asked curiously.

Char shrugged. "I didn't really use this thing for anything other than research in the past," she confessed, "but I do know where he kept his information." Speaking carefully to keep them from getting too much insight on just who exactly owned this computer, she moved forward to stand right in front of the device.

Painfully aware of the three of them hovering just behind her, Char placed her wrists against the edge of the desk, let her fingertips settle against the keys. She would have closed her eyes and let herself drown in the nostalgia of being so close to her master's old computer – in the way her fingers fit against the grooves between the buttons; in the familiar warmth of the body heat in her hands pooling beneath her palms; even the smell of the coffee Ansem had always drunk in the morning lingered, after almost eighteen months of absence.

"Char…?" Tentatively, Goofy reached toward her with one hand.

Quickly, she snapped out of her redolence, with such a force behind her movement that the dog jerked his hand back as though he had touched fire. "Sorry," she muttered absently, and refocused on the screen. "Just… thinking, is all."

_Thinking, sure._ Even Sora saw through that lie. And from the very little he had managed to glean about her, she seemed like one of the best liars he knew.

For what felt like the millionth time today, he experienced that uncomfortable mixture of sympathy and pity and the desire to just hold her until that annoyed look and indulgent smirk returned. And for what felt like the millionth time today, he had to shove it to a dark corner of his mind with the knowledge that she didn't want that kind of comfort from him.

Pain twisted his heart. _Doesn't mean I have to like that, though._

His conflict must have shown on his face, because he felt a feathered hand brush against his clenched fist. Looking down, he saw Donald gazing at him, with a considerably more concerned look than the one he had given Char.

Silently, the brunette shook his head to signal that everything was fine. The duck gave him a doubtful stare, but he withdrew his hand.

Meanwhile, Char appraised the line of icons on the screen, wondering where to start. A few of them – such as the row of folders labeled "Research Projects" – were familiar to her, but the ones she had never bothered to look at posed an issue. She supposed she could open each folder to figure out what function each held, but, she recalled with a shudder, they had already found out what happened by just messing around with it.

"Hey, maybe this'll help," Goofy suddenly said, pointing to an icon labeled _search._

Char blinked, wondering how she had missed that. "Oh, yeah, good eye," she cast the compliment over her shoulder. She pushed the arrow buttons until she had selected the icon Goofy had pointed out; an instant later, a white bar with a blinking cursor appeared.

"I'm guessing first we should try to look up Riku and Kairi?" She asked this mostly for the benefit of Sora, who was staring wide-eyed at the computer screen and fidgeting in a mixture of anxiety and excitement. Char had to fight back a wince at his obvious impatience; she couldn't fault him for wanting to know if his friends were all right, but it didn't stop it from making her heart twinge.

That, and his over-eagerness was starting to annoy her.

Sora nodded rapidly, clenching his fists in front of him. "Yeah, of course!"

Char gave a simple head movement of response, only bothering to roll her eyes once she had turned her back to him. She typed in "Riku Kairi" in the search bar, not expecting much to come up on them. (1) After all, until the trio's illustrious ejection from their homes had occurred and they had each embarked on their separate paths of Keybearer, dark emissary, and Princess of Heart, Ansem had known little about them.

_The only one he might have anything on here about is Kairi, and that's only because she's a Princess of Heart._

Sure enough, a "Data Error" message popped up in a large red window on the screen. Char sighed, unable to stop the pinprick of disappointment that assailed her; despite her better judgment, she had prayed Ansem might have had time to come back here and enter some data on Riku and Kairi's respective locations – for Sora's sake, if nothing else.

"Sorry," she murmured. "Looks like Master doesn't have anything on them." Her slip of tongue – saying her master owned this computer, and not Xehanort, like the group would assume – went all but unnoticed to the other three, as she saw with guilty relief when she turned to face them.

Donald uttered a gusty sigh and gazed at the ground; Goofy shook his head wordlessly; and Sora…

The brightness that was beginning to permeate his gaze nearly coaxed tears to Char's own eyes.

"No way…" he whispered, pivoting numbly away from them and hanging his head. "Even Ansem's computer doesn't know…"

Although she couldn't see the impending culmination of his sorrow and frustration anymore, the feelings of desperate sympathy that it had elicited within Char stayed inside her. Perfunctorily, she swiveled back to the computer screen, hating the error message that remained at its forefront.

Staring at the red window, Char suddenly felt a fresh wave of determination. _He wants his friends back, he's gonna get them back, gods damn fate and everything along with it._

She narrowed her eyes and began to type something else into the search bar, something she knew Ansem would have information about – one form of that something, at least.

Goofy looked up at the flicker of movement and cocked his head to the side. "Whatcha doin'?"

"I thought I'd see if it had anything about Organization XIII or the Nobodies," she replied. Hearing the hopeful murmur from Sora as he looked back up at her, Char had to fight back a tiny smile.

However, the result of her search wasn't what she had expected. "Organization XIII Nobodies" only yielded a message of the same kind as before.

_"The data is corrupt," _the computer announced obviously.

At that, Char let out a gasp and nearly fell back onto her haunches in the face of her shock. She _knew_ Ansem had information about all of his apprentices and their work on here, including herself. She'd known that with all the certainty she possessed.

And yet…

A low snarl threatened to escape her as it dawned upon her. _Of course. _She might have seen this coming a mile off had her judgment not been clouded by her desire to help Sora. Xehanort's Heartless must have done a final security procedure to see his identity wasn't exposed and wiped Ansem's database.

"That _bastard!" _she spat, slamming her fist against the desk. In response, the bowl that had previously held the peaches rattled unnervingly.

"Char…?" Sora asked; although his shock and anger mirrored her own, he had managed to rein it in just before it could break the surface of his emotional restraints. While Char wasn't exactly the master of holding back emotions like that, he hadn't expected such an extreme reaction from her.

However, she recovered quickly. Pressing a button to eradicate the error message from the screen, she typed in something else and confirmed it so hastily that none of the others could see what it was.

_"The data is corrupt,"_ the computer declared again.

This time, Char did fall back into a kneeling position, gazing in growing horror at the dark red window on the screen. "You've got to be kidding me…" she breathed, ice-blue eyes huge. Sora was used to abrupt changes in mood from her, but this was strange beyond reason.

Maybe Ansem's computer didn't hold all the answers after all.

Frustration surged anew within him at the thought. He had gotten so close, _so close_ to getting answers about getting his friends back, and he refused to believe it had all happened for naught.

_Tron said it would help us. He _promised.

The Keybearer pushed forward, to cries of confusion from Donald and Goofy, until he stood beside Char, whose shocked face swung from the computer to him and back again. "Stupid computer!" he shouted, punching the keys repeatedly. In tandem with the loud clacking his outburst produced, windows of bright green and red flipped about wildly on the screen.

The force of his fury brought Char to silence, forcing her to look on as he vented his feelings on the computer. She couldn't – didn't dare – bring herself to stop him, as she felt the exact same way.

"Sora –" Goofy began, only to stop immediately when a brand new window popped up, sending all of its neon-colored companions to rest. The window held a picture of a blonde-haired older man, clad in a lab coat and crimson scarf, with amber eyes seemed to hold infinite wisdom and exhaustion, even in pixel form.

Donald let out a questioning noise. "Who's this guy?" Sora echoed, his flash of ire ebbing to be eclipsed by bemusement.

Char stared at the picture of her master, feeling surprise rush through her yet again, before chuckling to herself and shaking her head. Xehanort's Heartless had left one piece of information unscathed, it seems.

"My master," she murmured.

"Your… master?" Sora whirled to look at her, having to angle his head slightly downward to appraise her expression, since she still knelt.

Char seemed to realize this awkward position, and she hurriedly got to her feet, narrowly avoiding bumping the top of her head against Sora's chin in the process. "Yeah," she said. At the same time, though, her mind began to race. Now was as good a time as any to start confessing, to tell them Ansem's true identity; her relation to the Organization; and everything in between.

But…

"Hey, fellas! How's it going?"

Char silently thanked every god in existence that Mickey had entered the room when he did. The four companions turned to see the black-bedizened mouse walking into the computer room.

"Not so well, Your Majesty," Donald sighed, although his irritation was tempered by the rare respect that only showed up around the King.

"Yeah, we tried to get data on Sora's friends and the Organization," Goofy added. "But it keeps saying the data inside's all ker-skuffled."

Char huffed, succeeding in pushing her bangs very briefly out of her face, and rolled her eyes. "Interesting way to put it, but rather fitting. Your Highness, do _you_ know where we could…?"

She trailed off, though, when she saw the way the mouse king was eyeing the picture on the monitor. Dread began to ooze throughout her body with the force of a poison river. Of course Mickey would react like this at seeing his old friend again, even in photograph form – Ansem had been missing for over a year, after all.

Why hadn't she thought to close the window before Mickey had walked in?

"Ansem the Wise!" Mickey uttered the man's name.

Sora blinked, a shadow beginning to flit over his eyes. An instant later, though, that shadow had vanished, and he sighed, folding his arms and giving Mickey a look thoroughly reminiscent of a teacher admonishing a stubborn child. "C'mon, quit with the jokes. Did you forget what Ansem looked like, Your Majesty?"

Even as he spoke, though, he felt something at the back of his mind begin to stir and push urgently against his thoughts. If Mickey had called this man _Ansem,_ and Char had once called him "master"… and the guy they thought to be Ansem in the past actually was Xehanort's Heartless…

"Of course I didn't," Mickey argued, not noticing Sora's change in demeanor. "And this is him – I'm positive!" (2)

While the King spoke, trying desperately to prove Ansem's identity, Char could only stare helplessly at the picture of her master on the screen, as though she could glean some of his wisdom from those orange eyes and find a way out of this situation. It had almost arrived – that moment when she would have to confess everything she knew – and the knowledge of how unprepared she felt for this moment hovered so poignantly within her it physically hurt. She continued to take in every varying shade of amber in Ansem's gaze – both eyes looking at her, not with one swathed in crimson bandages, as in his DiZ ensemble – and suddenly wanted to ram her fist into his face.

_It's your fault I'm stuck here, you jerk,_ she thought, despising the feeble defiance in her mental voice more than anything else.

Sora could only take in the desperate expression on the King's countenance, and felt his own heartbeat begin to kick up. Suddenly seized with the impulse to have this confirmed once and for all, he moved forward and grabbed Mickey's hand, beginning to drag him back toward Ansem's study itself. "Excuse me? Could you come with us, please?" he inquired almost mockingly, considering Mickey would have to come with them anyway. The mouse squirmed in Sora's grip at first, but eventually relaxed; Donald and Goofy followed, with the former getting a conflicted look on his face at Sora's disrespect before calming down.

Mechanically, numbly, Char walked out of the room after them, feeling as though her legs had just decided to replace their original composition with sticks and her feet with leaden blocks. Blaming Ansem would not get her out of this mess.

Only saying what she needed to say would.

The realization sent both tentative determination and reluctance alike seeping through her veins.

The former ended up winning.

She found the Disney residents, their king, and Keybearer standing in front of Xehanort's portrait, with the brunette pointing to the picture of the gray-haired man. "Look," he was saying, in a slow, deliberate voice. _"This_ is Ansem. You know, the guy we all worked _really_ hard to defeat?" The word "really" was dragged out in a slightly contemptuous manner. And yet in light of the knowledge Char had yielded to them already, doubt seemed to shift across his face, as though he didn't quite believe what he said.

Mickey perked up immediately. "Oh, that's right; I never finished explaining. Well –"

"Wait."

The single word echoed throughout the room and made animals and boy alike turn to look at her. Char stood at the threshold between computer room and study, between mechanical and sentient, between lies and impending truth. The blood roared in her ears, and beyond that she could only hear her growing labored breathing.

When she spoke, her voice was strained. "I…"

Her eyes, groping about the room for something non-incriminating to focus on – even the papers scattered around on the floor made her cringe inwardly – found Sora's. The two stared at one another for a moment – and then Sora gave her an encouraging nod.

The look of earnestness in his gaze was so genuine it made her heart hurt all over again.

Clearing her throat and getting her bearings back – she was nothing without her pride, after all – Char began again. "I think I should be the one to explain this to you guys. I owe you that much."

At that, even Donald looked interested.

Mickey watched her for a moment; seeing no hesitation in her stance or countenance, he spoke his assent. "Well then, Char. You're his last remaining apprentice; you should know more than anything what's happened to him. Go on."

Char took a deep breath. Closed her eyes, clenched her fists, unclenched them.

Then she opened her eyes.

"All right," she said, but couldn't resist her next words. "But, just a fair warning? You might want to sit down first." (3)

* * *

In the wake of Axel's departure, Anxclof had been seized by the urge to step away from her hiding spot in the corridors' wall. For some reason, the way he had left her – brusquely, without even giving a reason why he was breaking away from their friendship – rankled her and sent a slow kind of anger pounding through her veins.

Then again, though, she couldn't help but wonder how stable their alliance had been in the first place. The female Nobody narrowed her eyes in contemplation as she padded through the winding hallways, all but ignoring the soft sounds of her footsteps and water dripping from loose pipes onto the ground. Other than these sounds, silence suffused the area entirely, almost unnervingly.

Axel had made it obvious from the beginning – from when she had visited the World That Never Was in search of Roxas, only to find out Sora had already absorbed him – that he and Anxclof had to work separately. She knew it made sense despite their identical goals; as far as she knew, the Superior didn't even realize she still wandered the worlds, and she wanted to keep it that way. Her lip curled at the thought of Xemnas finding her and using her to fill Kingdom Hearts again. _Now that Roxas is back with Sora, and they don't want Sora gone, I'm their best bet if Sora kicks it._

But, gods willing, Sora would die by her hand, and she and Roxas would never have to deal with the Organization again.

She pushed away the idea of their friendship never being the same and refocused on the oddity of Axel's actions. His desire for them to travel separate paths on their way to find Roxas had worked out just fine for her, at first; her success at getting Roxas back had proved that much. Char's interference aside, everything had worked out. The Blade of Vengeance thought of the way Roxas' hand had felt against her neck as he had kissed her and felt a twinge where her heart should've been.

_But that one kiss wasn't enough._ With the coherent part of her mind, Anxclof understood it would never be enough. Not until she hunted Char and Sora down and made them pay for taking him away from her.

Just thinking about that redhead and her naïve, idiot Keybearer made Anxclof halt in her tracks and slam her fist against the nearest wall. The contact sent a shock wave up her arm, but she could not focus on it, so inundated with the desire for revenge as she was.

She supposed what it all boiled down to – her confusion as to Axel leaving her _now,_ when Roxas was so close to coming back – traced back to her wanting to know the reason why he had left in the first place.

"I thought you cared about Roxas," she hissed to no one in particular, flexing the fist that still remained against the wall. She summoned her Keyblade to her free hand and clenched her fingers around it, ignoring the way the cold steel of the hilt stung against the still-bleeding cut on her palm. Vaguely, she thought, _I must've really cut myself up there, if my nails even got through the fabric on my glove._

"I thought you wanted him back as much as I did!" Her voice rose to a snarl, a near-deafening crescendo that would have echoed all around her had the walls the quality to reflect her voice. "So then why…?"

She wasn't aware of it, but her face had twisted into an almost animalistic expression of rage. The reason why Axel had eyed her apprehensively just before fleeing had returned as well, though not in as much subtlety as before: a flash of Heartless-like golden surging across her gaze and marring its ordinary green.

But Anxclof knew none of this.

She could feel her powers pushing against their bounds, wanting to be freed, to track down Char and destroy her for everything she had done – for taking her love away from her, for turning her other best friend against her. _It's all her fault,_ was all Anxclof could think, a furious mantra that eventually faded into the backdrop of her consciousness and melded into part of her very being.

_It's her fault that everything is wrong wrong _wrong.

She didn't want to delude herself into thinking Roxas' presence would bring complete and utter happiness and perfection and all that garbage into her life. Even Anxclof allowed her all-encompassing desire for vengeance to step aside long enough for her to admit that much.

But…

"Gods, I just want you with me," she whimpered, trying very hard not to let herself cry.

That attempt failed.

* * *

Sora settled down in one of the chairs nearest the round desk at the center of the room. He knew the others were doing the same – even Mickey, who undoubtedly already had most of the information Char was about to relate – but couldn't register that due to the way his heart pounded. Finally, _finally_ they were about to get all the answers she had held back from them for so long.

He found his gaze lingering unflinchingly on Char, trying to gauge her feelings about all of this. She had positioned herself at the very edge of the table, arms folded across her chest and legs crossed at the knee, chin raised in a deceptive mien of readiness; however, even Sora could see the anxiety that manifested itself in her tapping her fingers against the opposite arm.

Judging by the gruff way in which she had requested to relay whatever Mickey had to say, she hadn't planned any of this. Briefly, the notion offended him, that her decision to trust them enough with her knowledge had come on an impulse; but that emotion lasted about the time it took for him to blink, and then it was gone.

The deepest kind of sympathy had replaced it. He had never seen her look so nervous before, not even on the days when she had relayed little bits and pieces about her past to him. Sora winced a little; if just telling him, while they were alone together nonetheless, tiny snippets of who she had been had that much of a physical strain on her, he couldn't imagine how this would take its toll on her.

All these thoughts flew out of his head, though, when Char swiveled her head toward him and raised one eyebrow in a silent inquiry as to why he was still staring. Quickly, Sora ducked his head, though not without having to hold back a tiny smile. _Yep – that's still her in there._

As soon as Donald, Goofy, and Mickey had gotten comfortable, Char fixed her eyes on them and took a deep breath. "All right," she said simply. "Ask me something."

The Keybearer blinked; he hadn't quite expected it to go like this. From the odd look Donald was giving her, it seemed the mage shared the same sentiment.

Fortunately, Goofy's curiosity won out over any bemusement he might have felt. "Uh, so who's the real Ansem?"

"And who's this guy?" Donald added, having gotten over his confusion at Char's clumsy start to the discussion. He jerked one thumb toward the portrait of the gray-haired man on the wall as he spoke.

Char sighed. "I thought you might ask that first. Well, the man in the picture – Xehanort – is definitely the one who tried to take over Kingdom Hearts – the one you guys defeated." She waggled three of her fingers toward Sora, Donald, and Goofy at her addressing them.

Sora tilted his head to the side as flashbacks of that day went through his mind. The gray-haired man had created a fabrication of Destiny Island to be the background of their initial battle with him, only for that illusion to fall away in favor of near-suffocating darkness during their last fight. The Keybearer could still remember having to take down the vessel that their enemy had summoned to carry him before defeating Ansem – or whoever he was – himself.

"But he was actually the Heartless of one of my fellow apprentices – Xehanort." Char's voice seemed to grow tighter at the very mention of Xehanort. "He wasn't really Ansem. He took the original Ansem's name and went around destroying the worlds in that name."

"You mean…" Goofy scratched his head.

It took the trio a few moments to fully process this new information, but when it hit them, the force of their shock nearly unbalanced even Mickey. _"Whaaaat?"_ they yelped.

Char rolled her eyes. "I told you you wanted to sit down first."

"You mean we went through all that trouble to defeat an imposter?" Sora asked incredulously, hanging his head.

"Not exactly," Char corrected. "He was a fake _Ansem,_ yes – but that didn't mean he didn't have to be stopped."

"So who's the real Ansem?" Goofy repeated his previous question.

The redhead uttered another sigh and stared at one of the papers on the ground. "My old teacher.

"There were six other apprentices besides me, but we all lived in that tiny building you guys saw in the postern. Ansem mentored all of us and taught us everything he knew."

Sora thought back to the days Char had known some odd fact about a world, and her rather flimsy excuse of having read it in a book. Now, he realized it made sense.

"Wait, Char," Mickey interrupted. The mouse had a look of newfound curiosity on his round face. "You said the Heartless Sora defeated was of one of Ansem's apprentices. Which apprentice did you say that was?"

"That was Xehanort," Char confirmed.

Sora gave a slow nod of understanding.

Then another thought occurred to him and he spoke. "Wait, so if Xehanort became a Heartless, does that mean a Nobody got created, too?"

Char froze at that question; but the shock only lasted a few seconds before it passed and she relaxed. "Yes," she answered quietly. "The accident that killed Xehanort and created his Heartless did the same to my other fellow apprentices. Braig, Dilan, Even, Aeleus, and Ienzo…"

Her voice caught on the very last name, and Sora abruptly noticed the unnatural brightness in her eyes.

Sounding as though she were fighting back against a barrier in her throat, she went on. "They all got tracked down by Heartless. Well, actually," she amended with a bitter chuckle, "more like they sat around and waited for the Heartless to push them into darkness."

Goofy's eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets at this point. Even Donald was subdued, filled with a horror that he probably didn't realize was pushing its way onto its countenance at the thought of just waiting for Heartless to tear him apart.

"The Heartless killed them," Char continued shakily, "and six Nobodies were created. These Nobodies eventually became the founders of Organization XIII."

Silence reigned in the room. Even Mickey was staring at Char with shock and pity on his countenance. Clearly, even he hadn't known this much.

After giving herself a few moments to push that bloody memory back to an untouched corner of her mind, Char looked back at Sora. "So, to answer your question? Yes, a Nobody got created. And that Nobody…" She hesitated – an odd gesture, Sora thought with a surge of slight annoyance; she had gotten this far in her confessions without faltering and he didn't know why she was stopping now – but then pushed on. "Xehanort's Nobody is currently the leader of Organization XIII."

"Of course!" Mickey cried abruptly, startling the other Disney residents so badly that Donald had to hold on to the edge of his chair to keep from falling off. "It makes sense." To the others, he explained, "I've only met Xehanort once, but I've also seen the Organization's leader about, too. It kind of felt like being around the same fella. Now I know why."

Donald and Goofy gave respective sounds of understanding.

As for Sora, he felt torn between sympathy for Char at losing her closest friends; exhilaration at the way this knowledge was piecing itself together in his mind; and fury toward Xehanort's Heartless, both for what he had done to Char and for what he had done to Sora's life. _If this Ansem guy taught Char and Xehanort and everyone else everything they know, _the brunette thought, _taking his master's name and using it for darkness isn't really a good way to repay him._

Abruptly, he stood and walked toward the portrait of Xehanort. The others watched as he halted in front of the picture. "You…" he murmured in revulsion, clenching his fists at his side. "You started all of this. Because of you, Riku and Kairi are…"

Suddenly he cut himself off and whirled toward Mickey. "Oh, that's right! Your Majesty, do you know where Riku is?"

"Yeah, weren't you guys together in the realm of darkness?" Goofy queried.

"You know where he is, right, Your Majesty?" Donald added.

Char stared down at the desk in guilt, but the others' eyes were steadfastly on the mouse king. Mickey fidgeted for a few moments before sighing and copying Char's gesture of finding something interesting on the ground. "I'm sorry. I can't help."

Sora's eyes widened. Trying not to give in to the way despondency was weighing his heart down and making it sink in his chest, he cocked his head to try and look into the mouse's eyes. "Really, Your Majesty? Are you sure?"

"I'm sorry, Sora," Mickey murmured, turning away. The peremptory aura of pure sadness about him suggested he wouldn't answer any other questions about Riku.

The brunette folded his arms across his head and couldn't help but sigh in despair. "Okay, then…" He fought back the irritation toward Mickey that was rising up inside him; it wasn't the King's fault that Riku remained missing.

Still… Something nagged at the back of Sora's mind; an old memory that had affected him deeply at the time of its occurring, but that he had buried and dismissed as nothing. Furrowing his brow, Sora dug deeper into his memories, trying to find the source of the feeling. He remembered Port Royal… stepping into the cabin to wake Char… hearing her say something in her sleep…

Something that sounded disturbingly like _Riku._

_But I probably misheard her,_ he argued with the hope that was making its illustrious return within him. _Why would Char know where Riku is? _

Then again, she seemed to know just about everything else…

The Keybearer's thoughts were cut off, though, when Mickey spoke, his sorrow having vanished with the brief interlude it had taken Sora to ruminate. Feeling like he was emerging from a long sleep, Sora surfaced in time to hear Mickey say, "Char, I was plannin' on asking you this when you first introduced yourself."

The redhead angled her head toward him in a silent confirmation that she was listening.

"Do you know where Ansem – the real one – is? I've been trying to figure this out for a while now, but I don't know where he could be."

Char's reaction gave Sora a sense of déjà vu, since Mickey had done the exact same thing only moments before. She stared at the mouse with growing anxiety on her countenance: an expression of one trying desperately to think of what to say. At last, she hung her head. "Sorry, Your Majesty. That's… not something I'm privy to."

Mickey blinked, though he hesitated before speaking, as though aware that if he reacted dramatically to her refusal to say anything, he would be a hypocrite. "All right, Char," he sighed. "Ansem the Wise should know all about Organization XIII's plans, and what's been happening to the worlds. He would be a big help if we knew where he was."

Char shook her head. "All I know is that the Organization has been sending Heartless into the worlds." The others pricked their ears and leaned in to hear more; their eagerness was almost contagious, and Char almost hated to disappoint them. Nonetheless, she just shrugged, idly tapping her foot against the edge of the desk. "That's it, though. Sorry."

Sora, Donald, and Goofy's shoulders slumped, and even Mickey looked crestfallen.

"B-but that doesn't mean we can't still track him down, right?" Char hastily said, unable to resist heeding the desire to palliate their distress.

Mickey raised his head and smiled. "Yeah, you've got the right idea."

A few more moments of silence passed. Desperate to fill the area with something besides her own thoughts, Char swept her eyes around the group. "Anything else you guys need to know?" she asked, feeling oddly, idiotically like Ansem giving one of his lectures.

Sora angled his head down so his chin tilted toward the floor, thinking. As far as he knew, Char had answered most of the questions that had plagued him for so long about her: why she had lived here in the past; what she had done; who her fellow apprentices were; and who her master was.

And yet something felt missing. He almost passed it off as wanting to know what she had said during her sleep in Port Royal and nearly shoved it back into his mind again; after all, she probably wouldn't remember that, and suspicions based on incoherent dream-musings were unfounded anyway. But no, this newfound question took another form, a form that nudged at his thoughts and urged him not to mentally walk away until he found its identity.

He couldn't help but wonder what else Char would have to say to him. After all, she had successfully solved most of the mysteries whose existence had filled Donald and Goofy with suspicion since their visit to the Pride Lands. Thinking back, Sora suddenly realized that Roxas' presence had stirred up those suspicions.

_Roxas._

The brunette's head jerked up with the force of his realization, causing everyone to pivot toward him in bewilderment. "Sora?" Goofy asked.

But the dog went all but unnoticed by Sora, who just stared at Char, wondering how he was going to phrase this without sounding completely insane. "I have one more question," he confessed almost breathlessly.

He could tell by the way Char quailed slightly under the force of his gaze on her that she felt more than a little uncomfortable, but that arrogant tilt of her chin didn't falter in the slightest. One eyebrow rose over an ice-blue eye. "All right."

"I…" He hesitated, thought, then settled on a careful wording. "Members of the Organization keep calling me 'Roxas.' That Anxclof girl who tried to kill me called me that, too. I've been having dreams about someone named Roxas – and when I do, it feels like I _am_ him. And when Donald's staff messed up at the Pride Lands, Roxas had to travel with us." Donald let out a squawk of remembrance, a sound that Sora pushed aside.

"I guess," he went on, "what I'm trying to say is… Do _you_ know who Roxas is?"

During the Keybearer's speech, Char had gotten an almost bored look on her face, as though she were gearing herself up to tell him she already knew all those things. But when Sora finally got to the point and uttered his question, distinctive dread wiped that boredom right off her countenance.

"C'mon, Char," Sora pleaded. "I need to know."

"Yeah, Char, I'm kinda curious too," Goofy cut in tentatively.

"All right, all right!" Char growled almost immediately, making the boy and the dog recoil. Seeing them do so, her eyes actually softened, and she ran her fingers through her bangs a couple of times before replying. Even as she spoke, though, trepidation marked her mien, and… what was that, _regret?_

Any attempt to pinpoint what she was feeling, though, halted instantly at her answer.

"Sora… Roxas is your Nobody."

Silence.

Sora was aware his jaw had dropped just ever so slightly – and that paled in comparison to Donald and Goofy, whose expressions of shock could have caught flies – but he couldn't quite bring himself to close it. Behind him, Mickey let out a gasp. The seriousness of the situation fully cemented itself in Sora's mind when Char's countenance registered next to no amusement at all: just a kind of quiet observation, surveying his reaction.

"But… but that's crazy!" Sora managed. "I never turned into a Heart –" A memory cut him off: of the day he had infiltrated the castle with Donald, Goofy, and the Beast at his side. Of the day he had fought, and won against, Riku.

Of the day he had sacrificed his heart to save Kairi and the other Princesses of Heart.

"Oh, right," he heard himself murmur aloud.

"You turned into a Heartless when we rescued Kairi, remember?" Donald said obviously.

Hearing the duck recall that day, Sora felt a fresh wave of guilt roll over him and threaten to bowl him over. Unbeknownst to him, Char cringed under the weight of the same emotion, and both teenagers found themselves clutching at their respective star-shaped charms in their pockets: Sora at Kairi's good-luck talisman, and Char at the Keychain she had picked up from Sora's room in the Gummi ship. (4)

_That's right,_ Sora thought, _I sacrificed myself for Kairi. I would've done anything to get her back._

He nearly flinched at the path those thoughts were about to reach. The same emotion existed, of course, but now it held only the desire to save his friend, not the desperate love he had felt for her back then.

Apparently, Char had decided this awkward silence had gone on long enough, for she continued to explain more about Roxas. "He joined the Organization, which is why they keep calling you 'Roxas' – they're probably trying to draw out that part of your heart."

"He joined the Organization alongside Anxclof," Char went on. Sora felt fear flare up within him at the mention of that name; the memory of the fiery agony that had rent his chest as her Keyblade had erupted through it was still particularly vivid in his mind. However, Char's voice as she mentioned Anxclof sounded neutral. "The reason she's chasing you down is because she wants Roxas back."

"She wants Roxas back?" Donald echoed with a frown. "Why?"

Char shrugged. "Hell if I know," she grumbled, with genuine puzzlement in her voice. "They were friends, I guess."

_"Friends"_ _being the euphemism of the century,_ she thought dryly.

Sora furrowed his brow, confused. He knew that, judging by the warmth he always felt during the dreams of Roxas around Anxclof, "friends" wasn't exactly a fitting moniker for the two of them.

_But… how can they feel like that for each other?_ he wondered. _Nobodies don't have hearts._

That Organization member's words at Twilight Town rang through his head. _True, we don't have hearts. But we remember what it was like._

Shaking the doubt that began to ripple within him, Sora turned to Mickey, who blinked at the sudden attention shift. "Your Majesty, do you know what happened to Kairi? Organization XIII might have kidnapped her."

Mickey gasped. "Oh no!"

Char pushed herself down off the desk. "So does that mean you don't know what happened to her, either?"

The mouse shook his head at her, but solemnity had begun to cast a shadow over his face. "You know," he mused, "I was planning to go get help from Ansem the Wise. But I forgot the most important thing. Helping others should always come before asking others for help."

His gaze landed on Char as he spoke that last part, then returned to Sora, Donald, and Goofy, who stood slightly in front of her.

"We're safe and sound – and free to choose!" Mickey spread his hands. "So there's no reason we shouldn't choose to help our friends."

Sora and the others nodded in agreement.

The mouse extended one hand toward them. "Let's go look for Riku and Kairi together," he offered.

Suddenly, a loud rumbling noise rent the air, causing a small earthquake to rattle the area. More books tumbled off their shelves with the impact. Donald almost fell, and Sora, Goofy, and Char caught themselves at the edge of the table.

"Sounds like we've gotta start by helping out here," Mickey said, determination audible in his voice. Without waiting for a response, he dashed out of the room.

Sora turned to the others, feeling a newfound sense of readiness coalesce within him. "Are you guys ready to go?" he asked. He knew that whatever was causing these quakes was probably behind the world being covered in darkness.

Raising his head, Donald nodded enthusiastically, the broom-like staff already in his hand.

"Gawrsh, Sora, do you really have to ask?" Goofy inquired, but he smiled as he said it.

Char said nothing, just nodded with a look of resolve on her face. With a thrill along his spine, Sora realized that the anxiety that had marked her since their arrival in this world had all but vanished.

The sight pulled the corners of his mouth up into an uncontrollable grin, and he took his place at the head of the group. "Let's go."

* * *

Anxclof was fighting back tears when a condescending female voice cut into her thoughts. "Oh, do stop that."

Startled, the Nobody jolted, looking up as bright green fire glowed in her periphery, all but obscured by her blurry vision and eyelashes as it was. Suddenly self-conscious, she nearly brought a hand up to wipe the tears that had escaped off her cheeks before remembering that would be acknowledging their existence and lowering her arm.

When the fire cleared away, the witch Maleficent stood in front of her, a look of boredom on her features. Anxclof narrowed her eyes, ignoring the way a couple of tears escaped their confines due to that action. "I thought Axel said he hadn't put Kairi here," she growled.

Maleficent scoffed. "Fool. I am not after the Seven Princesses this time." A triumphant smirk twisted her countenance, and she swept out a hand. An instant later, a dozen armored Heartless with a sword as one arm appeared, surrounding Anxclof instantly.

"Once my Heartless take over this world," she went on, "Kingdom Hearts itself cannot be far behind."

"Kingdom Hearts?" Anxclof couldn't hold back a derisive stream of cackles at that.

Maleficent glowered at the Nobody, her smugness fading, but she said nothing.

"Oh, you're so _cute,_ Maleficent," Anxclof laughed once her amusement allowed her to become coherent enough for speech. "You think you'll be the one to get the power of Kingdom Hearts? Dream on!"

She stopped as the sound of footsteps from the other side of the corridor became audible.

"Maleficent, I've put Heartless around town, just like you asked!" the large, dog-like creature shouted. "Although there's a lot around already…"

"Silence!" Maleficent barked over her shoulder, making Pete cringe. She swept out her hand again, and the Heartless turned obediently to her. "Heartless, attack the husk! Make sure she does not escape here alive."

Immediately, the enemies lunged for Anxclof. With a snap of her fingers, though, a group of Avengers had met the Heartless' strikes, matching them blow for blow.

"Did you just call me a 'husk?'" Anxclof asked, mock indignation on her face. "Geez. All I did was say you couldn't have Kingdom Hearts." She clenched her fists, and that eerie gold flickered across her eyes again. _Not until I get Roxas back, at least._

As she spoke, one of the Heartless destroyed the Avenger it was fighting with a telltale squelching noise, and turned its attention to her. In an instant, though, even the Heartless had fallen in the wake of the assault from the Dusk that had just appeared behind it.

Anxclof's eyes widened, even as Maleficent hissed in anger, making Pete flinch away again. Then Anxclof smirked and began to laugh. "So the Organization is here after all," she giggled. "Oh, that's lovely. Amazing. I didn't know they cared enough to come back to a place with so many _great_ memories for them."

Her gaze swept the room, and landed on a blur of bright pink that contrasted drastically with the walls. _Dancer Nobodies?_ she thought. _Then that means Demyx is here, too._ Her grin widened substantially. _Yeah, right, Xemnas. Have fun watching Sora take _him_ down._

Maleficent narrowed her eyes. "Hear me, my Heartless!" she spat. "Attack the white husks!" She pointed her staff, and more of them appeared to combat the fresh group of Dusks and Dancers. "Sweep them away!"

"Oh, what, now I'm not important enough for you to attack or something?" Anxclof pouted.

"What, are you nuts?" Pete cried. "We're never gonna win! I don't know about you, but I'm outta here, sister!" He turned tail and fled down the corridors, toward where it exited to the postern.

Anxclof swore she saw Maleficent roll her eyes. "You pathetic coward," she muttered.

A flicker of movement drew Anxclof's eye. Immediately, instinctively, she darted around the opposite corner…

…just in time to see Sora and his companions run out just behind Maleficent.

_And there she is._

The cut on Anxclof's hand began to sting again as she summoned her Keyblade to her. The flash of golden light probably gave her away, but she found herself not really giving a damn at the moment.

Soft little giggles bubbled up within her again at the sight of Char standing at Sora's side.

_Finally._

* * *

When Sora rounded the corner, he saw a tall, dark shape standing in front of the oddest spectacle he had seen today: including everything that lay within the virtual world.

After all, it wasn't every day that one saw Heartless and Nobodies dueling.

Maleficent turned at the sound of the four's approach. "Maleficent!" Donald cried.

The witch appraised them for a moment before vanishing in a blaze of emerald fire. "Come back here, you coward!" Char snarled.

But Maleficent wasn't done with them. "Heartless!" her voice echoed throughout the room. "Leave the white ones. Turn your attention to Sora and his friends!"

Immediately, the gray-armored Heartless turned and charged at the group, and Sora brought the new, bright blue Keyblade he had found in the computer world up to parry a Heartless' blade. An instant later, he brought its shaft down, hard, into its body, attacking in a series of blows that annihilated it right there.

"Uh-oh!" Goofy gulped, barely bringing up his shield to block one in time.

Sora had to admit he shared the same dread. He quickly scanned the room and saw, with a feeling of nervousness, that Heartless and Nobodies alike far outnumbered them, even with the one he had taken out already. Thankfully, though, the Heartless only consisted of the armored ones that so easily fell to an aerial attack from the Keyblade.

"Looks like we only need to worry about the Nobodies!" he shouted to them before leaping into battle.

He narrowly dodged a Dusk Nobody's undulating claws and instead headed straight for another of the robotic Heartless. The sound of Donald shouting as he cast and Char grunting with the force of her blows faded to the background of Sora's hearing as he sliced into its armor. It sprang back and began spinning toward him, its claws and sword alike swirling into a deadly blur.

Sora knew how to dodge this attack; he leaped up into the air and, letting fire cloak the tip of his Keyblade, drove his entire body down toward the enemy. A few repetitions of this downward assault pushed it right into Goofy, who shoved it down into the floor with his shield and took it out right there.

Pausing for a brief break, Sora looked around to see how his other allies were faring. Char was currently ripping a Dusk apart, while Donald and Goofy had trapped an odd pink Nobody between their respective weapons of spell and shield and were easily destroying it. The latter two had a few wounds along their bodies, but nothing they couldn't handle.

Sora spotted another group of Heartless and lunged toward them. He delivered a flurry of attacks to the center robot; once he had succeeded in drawing them closely together, he allowed his magic to explode out from his body and destroy the surrounding foes.

With the Heartless gone, Sora turned his attention onto the Nobodies. From the looks of things, the strange newcomers did not seem near as dangerous as the brown ones that had attacked them in Twilight Town; however unfamiliar they were, they couldn't be nearly as horrible as the latter Nobodies.

"Sora!" Char roared over the sounds of combat around her. "A little help would be –"

She didn't get a chance to finish speaking, nor did Sora hear whatever she might have said; for something jerked Sora away by the arm and dragged him through the air before slamming his body down, hard into the floor, and a sword slashed into Char's arm.

She drew back, glaring at whatever had attacked her and feeling heat rush to the wounded area in response to its beginning to bleed. What she saw, however, made the breath catch in her throat.

_No,_ she whispered. _Oh gods, no, not now, I'm not ready, it's too soon –_

The Avenger eyed her an instant longer, then resumed its attacks on her. Caught off guard, Char pushed it away with one sword before it could pin her to the wall and finish her off there. It stumbled back, and she took that opportunity to charge and impale it with both swords at once.

As the squelching sound associated with its defeat came and went, Char whipped around and raced toward Sora, who she had seen grabbed by one of the pink Nobodies just before she got distracted. Her heart pounded at the thought of what the Avengers' appearance meant; but she knew if she let Sora die at this point, her entire journey would have been for nothing.

He had pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, groaning. "Are you okay?" she asked, immediately reaching into her pocket and drawing out a Potion. Seeing he couldn't get his breath long enough to open it, she pushed her thumbnail against the lid and uncapped it before handing it to him.

Sora cast her a grateful look before downing the healing liquid and getting to his feet. Already, he seemed to be feeling better, although the way he still held his side with his free hand suggested his fall had bruised a rib or two. "Yeah," he answered shakily. "I just… that thing grabbed me and I couldn't stop it."

"The weird Nobody?" When he nodded, Char glanced over her shoulder at the two that remained after Donald and Goofy had finished one of them. Currently, they were making quick work of one, but the other was already creeping toward them. "Crap," she hissed under her breath, before grabbing Sora's arm. "C'mon, let's go help them."

"Huh?" the brunette replied intelligently.

She gave him an impatient look – honestly, she had touched him before, why was it incapacitating him _now_ of all times? – before giving his arm an insistent tug. "You want them to get hurt too? Let's _go!"_

He allowed her to drag him closer to the scene, before she let go of him and sprang toward the Nobody, which had been just about to grab Donald and spin him in the same way that had hurt Sora. Her arm extended just enough that one of her swords could slice into the Nobody from behind; halted in its impromptu dance number, it froze before rising into the air, undulating in a way that almost seemed like it had lost all its bones.

Taking this opportunity, Char leaped up and laid into it with all her strength. Sora made as if to help her, only to stop short as something distinctively sharp dug into his back, where the wounds from the fight with Oogie Boogie had just begun to heal. Grunting in pain, he turned to the source, only to find himself face to face with a Nobody he hadn't seen since Beast's Castle.

His eyes widened as the Avenger lifted up its blade to slice him again; before it could repeat that same attack, he ducked beneath its sword and thrust upward with the Keyblade. Knocked into the air, the Avenger quickly twisted its body so it would land, cat-like, on its feet, then resumed its stalking toward him. Sora stared in shock at it before shaking it off and meeting its attack halfway. His forward approach threw it off, and it didn't take long for him to finish it off.

Caught up in the adrenaline of battle, he glanced around, only to relax when he saw no more enemies remained. Donald, Goofy, and Char must have been successful with their respective opponents.

"You guys okay?" he asked as they came to stand by his side.

Goofy nodded. "But Donald got a really bad wound on his leg," he pointed out.

Donald scoffed and turned away, lifting his staff and casting a healing spell before anyone could say anything. The green light wreathed the injury briefly before vanishing, leaving the feathered area there not quite as pristinely-white as before, but not bleeding anymore. "There! Ya happy?" he growled.

Char rolled her eyes, at the same time rubbing her side. "You are quite possibly the biggest hypocrite alive, duck boy," she snorted.

"Hey!" Donald squawked.

Suddenly, there came a soft sound. The four of them started, looking around for the source, weapons at the ready. It only took a few moments for them to realize that it was… clapping.

"Very nicely done," a derisive female voice congratulated mockingly.

Char's eyes widened. _Oh, no._

Anxclof stepped out of the shadows of the connecting halls, still not slowing up in that slow, cynical clap. "Good job taking out my Avengers," she said, sarcasm dripping off every word.

Sora stared at her, multiple emotions rising up within him. Fear, of the girl who had tried – and succeeded – at killing him in the past; conflict, at knowing another part of himself had cared so deeply for her; and anxiety at her entire demeanor. In the past, Anxclof had always held a rather dignified air about her, in spite of her perpetual, almost reckless determination to get Roxas back.

Now, though… Something was off about her. Sora couldn't say what, but a feral look seemed to flicker every couple of seconds on her face and in her eyes.

"Anxclof," he greeted breathlessly.

She turned to face him, and something inside him seemed to cry out.

"Roxas," she whispered. "Are you...?"

Sora hesitated, not knowing what to say.

Abruptly, Anxclof reared back, laughing so contemptuously that Goofy winced and put a hand to his ears. "I'm just kidding, you know that, right?" she grinned. "I know he's in there somewhere, but it'll take just a teeny tiny bit more of a stimulus than just my voice to pull him out."

She hefted her Keyblade and held it out in front of her, making Sora draw back with a start. The four of them found themselves immobilized as she moved closer, her shoes making clacking noises against the tile, until she stood right in front of Sora.

"It takes," she breathed, placing the tip of her Keyblade against his belly, making his heartbeat and breathing accelerate as he remembered the last time her blade was this close to him; "just a bit more," she pushed it deeper until a tiny, dark blot appeared on his shirt; "of a push."

The soft deadliness in her voice seemed to snap Donald out of his trance; he let out a screech and leaped for her. However, she merely sighed, sounding almost bored, before lifting a hand, not taking her eyes off Sora's. An instant later, Donald bounced off the fiery wall that had appeared in his path.

Char managed a trembling chuckle, despite her screaming heart and itch to draw her blades and finish Anxclof off. Just a little more force behind that Keyblade and…

She didn't want to think about it.

"Got any new tricks, Anxclof?" she asked. "You used that fire wall thing last time, remember?" The attempt at dryness failed miserably, though, as her voice came out a desperate croak.

Drawing the Nobody's attention to her turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes she could have made at that moment. Anxclof's head jerked toward her, and Char felt her stomach twist at the subtle hint of Heartless-eye-gold that flitted across her gaze.

"Oh, Char," she whispered. To the redhead's immense relief, she took her Keyblade away from Sora's stomach, allowing the Keybearer to take the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Char, Char, Char, Char, _Char,"_ Anxclof sighed, shaking her head. "I've got so much up my sleeve that you haven't seen, it's almost sad. Oh, wait." She narrowed her eyes, the first direct display of fury she had shown during this encounter. "You saw all that when you saw Roxas' memories, didn't you?"

Char couldn't say anything.

"Didn't you?" Anxclof snarled. When she failed to garner a response, she sighed, immediately back to her prior façade. "Oh, what, am I not important enough for you to talk to, now? Well, have it your way. This won't take very long, anyway."

She turned back to Sora and readied her Keyblade. "Whatever trick you used last time won't work again," she hissed. "Because I will kill you, and then Char, and then you other two idiots. And, hey – if that doesn't work? Whatever. I'll kill you as many times as it takes until you _stay dead."_

As the Nobody raised her Keyblade, getting ready to drive it into Sora's chest, something stirred within Char. And before she could rein that emotion in, she found herself standing in front of Sora.

"Don't bother," she growled.

Anxclof blinked and moved a little ways back. "You know," she said, a flash of her old self in her voice, "stepping in front of someone who's getting ready to kill you? _Really_ not such a good idea."

Char might have smiled, were the situation not so dire.

Sora stared at her. "Char…?"

"Go," was all she said, casting a look at him over her shoulder. Oddly, she felt no traces of nervousness: just a kind of serene readiness that she had never experienced before. Not even the sight of Sora's wide eyes tempered it.

"Char?" the male brunette repeated, this time with more than a hint of panic in his voice.

"I said go!" Char spat, inducing a murmur from him and making him draw away. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she tried to smile. "Go help Leon and the others. I'll hold her off here."

"But –" Sora began, his heart suddenly beginning to pound harder than ever. His mind had shut itself down, seemingly only able to think about the situation before him.

Because he _knew_ Char would die if she fought Anxclof now, and the thought almost choked him.

"Just get out of here," the redhead murmured, turning to face Anxclof again. A tiny bit of lucidity had come into the Nobody's emerald gaze, and she was eyeing them with a tilted head and curious expression.

"Sora, c'mon," Goofy whispered, tugging at Sora's arm. Mutely, the Keybearer turned to face the knight and saw a desperate kind of sympathy on the knight's countenance.

Meanwhile, Donald had stood up and looked on with a numbly horrified expression. "Guys…" he began, only to stop immediately when Char gave him an insistent look.

Quickly, the duck and dog turned and made for the end of the corridors, only to stop at the edge of the room when they saw their leader wasn't following. Char felt something push against her fingers and looked down to see the navy fabric of Sora's glove meshing with her own green glove.

Staring up at him, she was surprised at the complete and utter terror she found on his face and in his eyes.

"Promise me you'll come back," he whispered.

Char gazed at him for a few moments, weighing her options. She could lie, and say she would. She could tell him the truth, and go off to die with the strength of all she was leaving unsaid in her blade.

Instead of either of these things, she picked a third option.

She smirked and drew her hand away from his grasp. "Hey," she said, putting a hand on his cheek. "This is _me,_ remember? I'll be fine. Promise," she added for good measure.

Sora looked as though he were trying not to cry, an expression that sent something sharp into Char's heart and twisted. _Don't do that,_ she wanted to say. _Don't cry for me, I don't deserve it._

But in the end, he only briefly brushed his hand against the one on his face before moving away. Char let her hand drop back down to his side and watched him run after his friends.

Anxclof raised one eyebrow. "You know, that was really cheesy."

In response, Char summoned her swords to her side. "Yeah, well…" She shrugged. "I had to send him off with something to keep his hopes up."

Anxclof appraised Char for a moment, before her lips twitched in what might have been a smile. "I guess you owe him that much."

Standing here – making _banter_ with the girl who would probably paint these walls with her blood – Char felt a sudden, poignant tug at her heart. _If things had gone a little differently,_ she realized, _my Nobody would be Number VII in the Organization right now, and you and I would probably be best friends._

Fast on the heels of that thought came a newfound, last-resort urge to assuage Anxclof's fury. "Anxclof," Char said desperately, "it doesn't have to be like this. It doesn't –"

"Oh, for the love of the gods, would you just _shut up?"_ Anxclof hissed, that terrifying golden oozing over the green of her eyes entirely. "I haven't gotten this far just to succumb to a damn pity party from _you."_

Ice blue stared into inhuman amber for a few moments. Then Char forced herself to smirk and pointed one sword at Anxclof. "Fine," she said. "Then I guess I'll have to take you down. Because I promised him I'd come back. And I don't go back on my promises."

* * *

FUCK YEAH SUMMARY DROP -shot-

(1) You know, when I first wrote this part, I had a crazy idea for an omake-type-thing where Char finds RiKai doujinshi on Ansem's computer XD

(2) Anyone else notice that the original scene with this has a translation error? Quote:  
Sora: C'mon, are you teasing us again?  
Donald: Did you forget what Ansem looked like, Your Majesty?  
Mickey: Of course I do! And this is him! I'm positive!  
...yeah...

(3) Ah, yes. Psychotic!Anxclof is about to make multiple appearances, you guys.

(4) Yup... Char is definitely the jealous type XD

A/N's aside, FINALLY the big showdown is here. Char vs. Anx - who will win? You might be surprised to find out what happens. ;3 But you'll find out faster if you REVIEW!

And telling me what you liked about this chapter would help too. I do appreciate getting reviews, don't get me wrong, but I can never tell if I'm doing anything _right_ or if you're all just scrolling down to the bottom and then saying stuff like "zomg so cute! update soon!" -_- Just... pretend you know what I'm writing about? Please?


	58. Chapter LVIII

Hey everyone! Sorry this chapter took so long; I had difficulty deciding how I wanted to write the Char/Anx confrontation. 'Tis here now, though, and hopefully you'll all be happy with how it ends. :3

This is more of an action-oriented chapter, but there's a bit of romance at the end.

Enjoy!

_**Disclaimer**_- I don't own Kingdom Hearts. That should go without saying. It should also go without saying that all I own are Char, Anxclof, Falcon, Copperhead, and the Shadowed Desert world.

* * *

Sora didn't slow down in his desperate flight until the fresh air of the castle postern greeted his senses. Only when the sound of his footsteps changed from the steady pounding against tile to the rattle of the grate in front of the corridors did he stumble to a halt, panting.

He was dimly aware of Donald and Goofy catching up just behind him – although they had made a beeline for the exit sooner than he had, they had fallen into step to follow Sora once he had left Char – but couldn't find it in himself to speak to them. The way he had to gulp in every anxiety-labored breath might have had something to do with it, but he knew it was more due to the reason behind that anxiety.

_Hey. This is _me, _remember? I'll be fine._

_Promise. _

A kind of numb horror began to sweep over him at the thought of how he had left Char to face Anxclof alone. From the pure, unadulterated fury in the latter's words and movements, it did not seem like Anxclof intended to let Char escape alive, especially now that Char stood in her path of getting Roxas back.

As though the thought of his Nobody – his _Nobody;_ Sora was going to take a while to get used to that – had summoned it, the brunette felt the spot on his abdomen where Anxclof had broken his skin begin to throb. Although she had barely applied enough pressure to the point of her Keyblade to make him bleed in the first place, Sora knew why it hurt so much. He recalled when she'd almost killed him at Beast's Castle and flinched.

If Anxclof had been angry enough to kill him then… he could not imagine the depths of her emotions now.

And Char had chosen to take the brunt of those emotions.

He would almost have reflected on the irony of it – a Nobody, feeling something despite not having a heart – under any other circumstances.

"Sora?" Donald asked tentatively. "Are you okay?"

"Did she make you bleed?" Goofy added, sounding concerned.

With some effort, Sora turned and gazed at them. Even though he appreciated their sympathy, the absence of a red-haired girl behind them still ripped a fiery trail across his heart. He tried to smile, but what with the skeptical look he earned from Donald in response, that attempt at nonchalance failed miserably.

"Yeah, she did. But I'm fine," he answered. _Physically, at least._

Donald snorted and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "yeah right" under his breath.

Goofy gave the duck a hard stare before returning a much gentler gaze to Sora. "D'you think Char's gonna be okay?" he asked, dark eyes becoming round with worry.

Sora winced and looked away. Clearly, the dog hadn't meant to get right to the heart of the matter; the comment had only been an innocent expression of curiosity.

However, the question still stirred up so many mingling sentiments inside Sora that it almost hurt. Dread and concern stood at the forefront of those sentiments, but the distinctive sensation of his heart clenching that accompanied fervent hope – hope that she would emerge relatively unhurt – was also among them. The very latter was a futile prayer, he knew, but he still wanted to believe she would come back.

She had promised, after all.

Seeing the lack of response from their leader, Donald and Goofy exchanged a glance before looking back at him. "We have to help Leon," Donald reminded the Keybearer, in as careful a voice as he had ever used.

Sora lifted his head from where he had been determinedly memorizing the contours of the grate beneath his feet. "I know," he said, attempting that smile again. To his immense relief, his brave façade seemed to reach his allies, and they each gave him a determined nod. "The King did say helping others should always come before asking others for help."

He glanced up at the postern, at least what was visible of it from the way the path beneath his feet wound away from it. From his somewhat limited viewpoint, he could see the area was relatively empty, which meant most of the Heartless and Nobodies had concentrated themselves deeper into Hollow Bastion.

_I hope we don't have to get close to Maleficent's castle again… _The memory of the near-crippling fear and guilt – at knowing he was the cause of her being able to infiltrate Disney Castle in the first place – that had accompanied him there was all too vivid in his mind.

As was the fact that if Char had not intervened in time to retrieve him from Kingdom Hearts, he would have stayed a Heartless forever.

He thought of the battle that was undoubtedly ensuing deeper into the corridors they had just left behind. Suddenly, he wanted to turn on his heel and charge back to that room and fight at Char's side. He knew full well that Anxclof's fury would escalate to a near unstoppable level at the sight of him – the one she had sought to kill for the past month – but in the face of his and Char's combined attack power and coordination in battle, that wouldn't matter.

Right?

Besides… Sora had the advantage of the fleeting flashes of Roxas' memories with Anxclof. Most of the female Nobody's weaknesses had already revealed themselves to Sora: how her strategy of maneuvering her opponents into a corner could easily be countered by ducking under her blade; how she tended to mostly rely on her Avengers to fight battles she thought weren't worth her attention; how when her anger took over entirely, her attacks grew much more reckless…

The very latter was the only thing he could think of that might turn the battle in Char's favor. Other than that, though, the chances of Char emerging victorious from the battle were extremely slim.

_And if she doesn't win…_

The thought of that outcome made the breath catch in Sora's throat, and he found himself fighting the urge to cry all over again. He had barely managed to restrain it when Char's fingers had settled against his cheek, if only to maintain his composure in front of her; for some reason, he thought her seeing him as strong as ever would encourage her.

And it had worked, for the most part: the look she had tossed over her shoulder as he had dashed off had had both wistfulness and determination in it.

_If she doesn't win, then Anxclof will kill her. _

Having faced that possibility did not ease the growing knot of terror inside his stomach; if anything, it grew even more difficult to ignore. The fact that another part of himself – or the absence thereof – had pushed Anxclof to tracking him and Char down and trying to kill them only enhanced that anxiety even more. Sora knew that whatever had happened between Char and Roxas – the one thing she hadn't told him in Ansem's study, he realized with a chill – was entirely out of his hands, but he still couldn't help but feel like part of this had happened because of him.

In a way, though, it had. Char had done this to protect him, after all.

Something seemed to flicker in the back of Sora's mind, a realization that carried so much weight behind it it nearly toppled him. When he tried to get a hold on it, though, it evaded him and scuttled off into the shadows. Instead of pursuing the growing feeling further, he shook it off. (1)

"C'mon," he told Donald and Goofy. At the mildly confused looks they each gave him, he elaborated, with a distinctively heavy feeling growing as he spoke. "All we can do is trust Char to come back. Right now, we need to help Leon."

"Yeah," Donald agreed, already brandishing his staff and looking around the area with a determined expression. "We'll take out those Heartless _and_ the Nobodies."

Goofy said nothing, but the nod he gave Sora was filled with the same readiness. Looking at his two longtime comrades, the Keybearer realized he could see worry for Char that mirrored his own tempering their resoluteness; even Donald, who had never exactly gotten along with her.

Aloud, though, he only said, "Well then, let's go find Leon and the King." (2)

* * *

Char barely parried a powerful thrust from Anxclof's Keyblade, only to have to twist away and dance backward when the Nobody didn't let up in her assault. She half expected a steady stream of taunts from Anxclof to permeate the air – it would fit, considering the newfound demeanor about her – but, like their fight in the Land of Dragons, she said nothing, furious golden eyes eternally focused on the battle at hand.

Now was different, though, Char had to remind herself, even as she darted around another flurry of attacks. Last time, Anxclof hadn't had a month to ruminate on her desire for revenge; last time, Char had had help from Sora, Donald, Goofy, and even Mulan.

The redhead's eyes narrowed. _Sora._ The reminder of why she had stayed behind in the first place appeared in her mind's eye, and suddenly, her determination rose up inside her in a fierce, towering wave.

With a snarl, Anxclof swung her Keyblade toward Char from the side. Caught off guard by the sudden change in target, Char couldn't dodge in time, and the sharp points at the edge of the Keyblade's shaft slammed into her already-bruised side.

Pain quickly exploded there, and Char fought the growing urge to scream with the force of it, not wanting to give Anxclof the satisfaction of seeing her in this much agony. Only a hiss breathed out between clenched teeth betrayed how much the impact of the weapon against her wound from the virtual world had hurt.

"What's wrong, Char?" Anxclof demanded, not faltering in the slightest as she raised the Keyblade up to continue her onslaught. Char barely brought up her swords to block in time, summoning every ounce of the concentration that was emerging from the hot pain in her side in order to rebuff every attack in time. "I thought you were going to get back to Sora. I thought you were going to take me down."

_There's the taunting,_ Char thought, a bit of dryness in her mental words despite the situation. Suddenly realizing Anxclof was lifting her golden weapon again, unable to dodge, she hastily whipped up her arms and guarded with her own silver-bladed swords in an x-position.

The force of Anxclof slamming her Keyblade down into Char's waiting swords sent a fierce shock wave up her arms, and it was all the redhead could do to keep from yielding beneath the pressure. As it was, though, the upper body strength that learning to fight with two swords had given her kept her from doing anything more than crouching slightly to accommodate the weight of Anxclof's blade pushing into hers.

"This is pathetic," Anxclof growled into Char's face, the pure anger that was visible behind the barrier of both Char's swords and her Keyblade burning in her now-golden eyes. Char was sure panic had stamped itself onto every facet of her own countenance, a fact that somewhat annoyed her, but that she felt was valid, given the situation. The odd eye-change on Anxclof's part didn't help matters; Char assumed it had something to do with Number XIV's powers.

She groped momentarily within her recesses of memory for the source of those powers, but then Anxclof was pushing more viciously down with her Keyblade and Char could only afford to focus on keeping it from tearing her open.

"I expected more from you," Anxclof went on. "The woman who managed to subdue and take Roxas should be able to put up more of a fight than this."

_But I had help,_ Char reflected, thinking of Riku pulling off his blindfold and becoming Xehanort's Heartless. She said nothing, though, not wanting Anxclof to go after Riku. Confident in the silver-haired young man's abilities as Char was, Char knew that Anxclof's main quarrel was with her.

_This is my fight. I promised I'd protect Sora, and that's just what I'll do._

"Oh, what, nothing from you?" Anxclof heaved a sigh, but her growing grin suggested that disappointment veiled something much more deadly. "I guess we'll just have to make this more interesting. At this rate, I'll never get him back."

In the next instant, something intensely bright and hot had sprung up between them. Startled, Char sprang back, realizing how disturbingly close to a non-crumbling part of the wall she was only after her back nearly bounced off it.

Looking on, she saw her instinctive gesture of getting the hell out of the way had saved her, even as the fiery wall that Anxclof had summoned vanished. Char felt her breathing begin to increase and the old wound on her leg begin to throb – yet another result of her having protected Sora.

She wanted to curse the brunette in that instant, but couldn't. Partly because of her feelings for him, and partly because of the terror that filled her at the thought of how close she had come to burning in the flames.

"There we go, that's better." Anxclof smirked, her Keyblade catching the light as she rolled her wrists to stretch them. "We couldn't have that standoff forever. Now, where were we?"

And then she was coming at Char again, so quickly that Char couldn't get away in time, and delivered a series of blows that knocked Char against the wall. The impact of her head against the plaster was uncomfortably tangible and audible at once, to the point where she could feel something thick and warm begin to drip down the back of her neck. Even as she shakily rose to her feet, she realized that the Keyblade had also ripped several bloody furrows along her belly and ribs.

The wounds begin to heat up with the force of the blood rushing to them, and Char barely managed to draw back out of the way of Anxclof's final strike in time. In the same motion, she ducked under the Nobody's sword and stumbled a little ways away – far enough that her back wasn't to the wall anymore. Through the sharp pain that was accumulating in the areas Anxclof had slashed, Char recognized the fact that had she stayed all but pinned to the wall like that, the female brunette might have gained the upper hand.

Of course, what with the Nobody's newfound ferocity – a ferocity that made her eyes glow an even brighter shade of gold than before – Char did not know how much longer their being evenly matched would last.

A bolt of pain shot through her fresh injuries, and she found herself swaying on her feet. Dimly, she was aware of Anxclof rearing back briefly before lunging forward again, relentless in her charge as ever, and her own perfunctory response of feinting out of the way. Despite the stinging of her wounds and the uncomfortable awareness of her blood spattering the floor, Char's sense of clarity was returning. _A fine job of protecting Sora I'm doing, if I let just a few side wounds put me off. _

Still, if she let the battle go on for too much longer, the amount of blood that steadily pulsed from the afflicted areas could cause disaster. That knowledge only reinforced itself when something oozed down her cheek, and she was reminded painfully of her head's little scrap with the wall.

Up until now Char had been fighting defensively – why, she still didn't know; the viciousness of Anxclof's onslaught might have had something to do with how she could barely get an attack in edgewise. Now, though, Char knew she needed to distract Anxclof long enough to down at least part of a Potion.

As the Nobody whirled to face Char again, the redhead leaped forward and lashed out, hard, with her blades. Even though the dully growing ache in her arms put very little force behind the attack, it sufficed to get past Anxclof's defenses and slice deeply into the area just above her hip. Hissing, the other girl recoiled.

Char had anticipated Anxclof to take a few seconds to recover, but either her attack was weaker than she had thought, or Anxclof's fury so controlled her that it kept her from feeling the pain. Either way, the dual wielder only had a split second before Anxclof was rising up from her distance across the room, her eyes nothing more than glittering amber slits.

"About time you got serious," she remarked.

Quickly, Char dug through her pockets for the healing panacea she sought. However, she only found the star-shaped charm of the Keychain she had picked up just this morning. Panic seized her very briefly before the truth dawned upon her, so icy and terrifying in its clarity that it pushed that panic away with all the speed of a sudden gust of wind.

_I gave my last Potion to Sora, during that last battle with the Nobodies._ Her eyes widened in horror, and her wounds began to throb almost on-cue. The possibility – rather, the _likelihood_ – of her losing had been in her mind, of course, but now it seemed much more likely than before.

Something flashed out of the corner of her eye. She looked over just in time to see a burst of light crash down inches away from her feet, an impact whose heat she felt more than the pieces of tile that flew against her legs as a result of that.

Anxclof's gamma ray attack, Char belatedly realized before a series of condensed drops of golden radiation slammed down around her.

Frantically, she tried to find the gaps between each deadly raindrop so as to not get hit; for a few moments, it seemed to work. All she had to do was look up, and the future paths of where the rays would fall became clear to her. Her breath caught in her throat at knowing Anxclof could take advantage while she was distracted, but the redhead knew she couldn't afford to worry about it now. Just one of those dagger-like rays could pierce into her and then it would all be over.

Then – stupidly, idiotically, _moronically;_ Char could try to condescend to it all she wanted, but it happened anyway – the old leg injury flared up in a spasm of pain that damn near crumpled her.

All at once, a series of gamma rays sliced into her.

Char had half a moment to think _stupid wound, if Sora had gotten out of the way in time back at the Underworld I'd be fine right now,_ before the anguish hit with the force of the fire that had caused the problem in the first place.

Only this time around, it didn't just concentrate itself on that single area on her calf; it exploded in the places the rays had ripped into her.

She staggered, her swords falling to the floor with loud clatters, and multiple spatters of her blood soon joining them. Staring at the blood staining the edges of the blades that it touched, Char could almost trick herself into thinking that the life liquid belonged to Anxclof – if Nobodies could even bleed, a hypothesis she found herself adhering to, if only to carry on with her fantasy – that Char had won, that it was now Anxclof on her knees on the ground.

The sound of a furious cry from above made her lift her head, sluggishly, as though the contents of her neck had replaced themselves with marshmallow and her head with solid lead. Every muscle in her body wanted to snatch her weapons off the now-decimated floor, to block Anxclof's aerial attack, to even curse at how the Nobody had torn up this part of her former home.

_Get up,_ Char screamed at herself, _this fight's not over, she'll go after Sora next, you can't let her do that, you promised Sora –_

_Sora –_

She was dimly aware of Anxclof whispering something, but then the fire-cloaked Keyblade crashed into her shoulder and knocked her back to the floor. (3)

Part of her still pushed for her to provide a counterattack, however unsuccessful the end result might be. As it was, though, all she could do was grope about on the floor before she seized one sword.

Anxclof looked on, her face filled with a kind of uncontrollable glee at being so close to taking down this obstacle, as Char pushed herself up with the one sword, digging its main point into the floor for support. Suddenly unable to hold her head up – both due to the steady stream of blood dripping down the back of her neck and in the face of her own failure – she let her neck curve just slightly downward, so her bangs could obscure the sight of Anxclof's demented happiness.

And yet in spite of her shame at her defeat, in spite of the fact that her own death likely waited at the edge of that golden Keyblade, Char felt a strange sense of freedom. She might have failed, yes, but at this rate, Sora might have gotten just enough time to get far enough away from here that Anxclof couldn't find him.

He was safe.

A tiny smirk twitched across her countenance, before even that, too, disappeared in the face of how weak the blood loss was making her. Only a month ago, if anyone had asked her if she was prepared to die for anyone, she would have laughed and denied the question vehemently.

_Sora has that effect on people, I guess. Changes them so easily._

The icy cold pressure of steel against the underside of her chin forced Char to lift her head, to see that Anxclof had knelt down to her eye level. She stared as defiantly as she could into those childishly pleased golden eyes.

The sight of something distinctively red dripping down just behind Anxclof drew Char's gaze, and with what would likely be her last thought, she realized Nobodies could bleed after all.

"I guess you can't keep this promise," Anxclof purred. "But I'll keep mine."

Rising to her feet, gripping the hilt with both suddenly-trembling hands, she lifted her Keyblade high above her head, ready to bring it down into Char's throat.

Even as she readied herself for the final blow, though, something faltered inside her.

Anxclof straightened slightly, her grip on her Keyblade's hilt slackening a little. She frowned, the Heartless-eye-like amber that had coated her gaze making its exit in favor of her normal green for just an instant. Clarity seized her, so sharp in contrast to the way her prior desire to dispose of Char to get to Sora – and, therefore, to Roxas – had encompassed her that it almost hurt the heart-shaped emptiness in her chest.

She wanted to scream at the hesitation that kept her from finishing it. The reasons to kill Char were all lined up so neatly in front of Anxclof: she had kidnapped Roxas; torn him away from Number XIV right as she had gotten him back; had all but dangled him in front of her at the Pride Lands.

And yet… something didn't seem right.

Anxclof tried to place the emotion that made her balk, but could not find a fixed name for it. With a kind of panicked desperation, she dug through the repertoire of emotions that living Falcon's life had provided her. Regret, for having to kill such a worthy adversary? Irritation, at how Char had bowed her head in acceptance of her own death?

Or… something else?

_What's the matter with me? I… I should finish her off here. _

_I hated her… but… why? I don't remember her ever having done anything to me…_

_Roxas. She's standing in the way of Roxas. I'm so, so close…_

Still, her resolve wavered.

Hot pain suddenly bloomed in her back, and she whipped around just in time to see a dark-cloaked shape lowering its hand, violet fire swirling into oblivion at the tips of its gloved fingers. (4) For a brief moment, horror at the fact that Xemnas had found her froze her in place.

An instant later, though, confusion replaced her fear. This shape was too short to be the Superior. And unless Axel suddenly controlled shadowy flame instead of his typical ordinary yellow, Anxclof had no idea who this newcomer could be.

She heard Char let out a gasp behind her, but did not dare dwell on the redhead's surprise for too long, as it brought up the question of _why_ exactly she had faltered. Her breathing grew rapid, the thought destroying her concentration enough for her Keyblade to vanish.

Her fingers clenched around the Keychain so forcefully that her knuckles surely turned white under the part of her fingerless gloves that covered them. Absurdly, she had the idea that the action was almost like her clinging to the reality that her Keyblade entailed.

When her fingernails dug into the tiny wound that they had created just an hour or so before, though, the memory of everything leading up to this rushed back to her. Axel leaving; her wandering the corridors in a state of incoherence; Maleficent showing up; Sora and Char appearing not long after…

Jerkily, Anxclof pivoted away from the sight of Char staring in shock at the mysterious figure and opened a dark portal. With her nails tearing her palm open all over again, she dashed through, confusion and anger toward herself pulling her on.

She needed to figure this out.

As the tails of Anxclof's jacket disappeared into the shadows that had swallowed her up, Char redirected her attention to the newcomer, eyes wide. Shock at both the way Anxclof had spared her and what she alleged to be the identity of her savior permeated every ounce of her body, effectively drowning out the pain that still throbbed throughout her.

At the same time, though, joy tempered that surprise. Under any other circumstances she would be leaping to attention and into her battle stance at the sight of that infamous black cloak, but no other Organization member used the kind of attack that this person had just distracted Anxclof with.

"Ri –?" she got out.

Immediately, the figure put a finger to his lips. Char quickly silenced herself. Suddenly aware of how she must look – on her knees, half bleeding her life out on the floor, supporting herself with one sword – she lurched to her feet, summoning every iota of concentration she had left to mentally order her weapons to vanish.

The young man flicked his wrist and tossed something at her. She barely caught it with both hands, made clumsy by the waning adrenaline from the battle. When she opened her hand, she saw a bottle-like container filled with golden fluid, whose heat she could feel even through the glass. Sora had not found one of these on this journey yet, but she knew its name: it was an Elixir.

She uncorked the stopper with a trembling hand and tipped it back to slide some of it down her throat. It felt warm and reassuring, and she felt the majority of her wounds and the bruising along her ribs vanish almost at once. A sigh of relief escaped her as she lowered it, only to see her savior turn on his heel and start toward the dark portal he had just summoned.

"Riku, wait!" she tried to shout, but he had already disappeared.

Staring at the spot where he had stood, she huffed indignantly, pushing the stopper back onto the Elixir. Already, she felt well enough to be annoyed, she reflected; that had to be a good sign. "Thanks," she murmured, only half grumpily.

Pocketing the remains of the healing item, she turned toward the exit to the room. She allowed herself to take in the greater amount of debris than before; the way the gamma rays had ripped the tile of the floor to reveal the concrete beneath; the amount of blood from both human and Nobody alike that littered the ground.

And suddenly, a breathless grin overtook her countenance.

Yes, Anxclof had escaped; but the pure confusion that had overtaken her expression told Char that the female Nobody would not plague her and Sora for a while yet. As much as the redhead did not want to let her guard down now, she figured Anxclof would need a little while to figure out why she had chosen to spare her.

_Not that I'm complaining._

At any rate, though, now she could get back to Sora. Char chuckled to herself; knowing Key-boy, he had probably eradicated most of the Heartless by now.

Still, though, she had stuck with him this far. She might as well keep going.

Her footsteps echoed loudly as she dashed off through the corridors.

* * *

Sora had known Hollow Bastion was about to be overrun by darkness – the sight of it from the Gummi ship window had told him that much – but he hadn't anticipated anything like this.

He brought a hand up over his eyes to see better from the limited vantage point that his position offered him. From the very bottom of the bailey, where he currently stood, he could just get a glimpse of the Great Maw, the ravine far below that surrounded Maleficent's castle. The blue rock that made up its area almost drowned in the sea of shadows and off-white that had overtaken it, unbroken but for the occasional sight of pink – Aerith – or the silver glint of a blade. Whether that blade belonged to Leon, Cloud, or even one of the Heartless, Sora did not know.

Although his hopes of not getting close to the site of so many bad memories were for nothing, he found himself unable to think about that. Instead, worry for his friends, who were undoubtedly fighting the masses of darkness that he could see below, consumed him.

"Whoa…" he murmured aloud.

Behind him, Donald scrabbled forward to get a better view. "Let me see, let me see!" he squawked, pushing himself forward against Sora's leg with the hand that wasn't gripping his staff. However, the duck's annoyance at his height keeping him from seeing what so concerned Sora petered off immediately, and Donald could only stare with wide, dread-filled eyes. "Uh-oh," he gulped.

"Leon and the others have to be down there!" Goofy said, hefting his shield.

"You're right," Sora said with a nod. He spared a glance back over his shoulder at the dog and felt a sudden pang assail his chest: not just at his ally's obvious determination, but at the fact that Char still hadn't returned yet.

Earlier, they had left the postern and reached the construction site, only to find a series of Nobodies had surrounded Aerith and Leon. Sora had distracted himself with taking down the Nobodies, only dimly noting Char's absence in the heat of battle as Aerith and Leon had escaped.

Now, the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee – along with Cloud and Tifa, as Leon had told Sora with a soft undertone of irritation to his voice – fought fiercely to drive back the threat to their home. Thinking about this, Sora couldn't help but wonder if he could have saved Destiny Islands if he had the power they had back when it happened.

He shook the question, and the near-crippling sorrow that came with it, away. This wasn't the time to drown in regret; his friends needed him.

"Let's go," he told Donald and Goofy.

The two Disney residents nodded. Donald swung his staff around threateningly, and a few sparks flew off its broom-like tip, as though even the weapon eagerly desired this battle. "We'll drive off the Heartless and the Nobodies!" the mage growled.

"Yeah, and help the King out, too," Goofy added, his eyes narrowed in a rare display of belligerence.

Heartened by his friends' resolve, Sora lifted the blue Keyblade – which he had dubbed Photon Debugger, after a process within the virtual world that Tron had told him about – and placed it over his shoulder. Although the waves of Heartless and Nobodies below seemed daunting, the brunette knew his and his companions' combined strength could take them down.

For a moment, he considered uttering the obligatory question as to whether or not his comrades felt prepared for this; then realized there was no point.

"Leon… we're on our way!" he whispered.

He made as if to charge toward the broken stairwell that led from here down to the ruined green-and-blue courtyard below, only to leap back with a start as a small, dark shape leaped in front of him. The large, round ears that topped its head revealed it as the King.

"Your Majesty!" Donald gaped.

Mickey did not turn to face them, only putting two black-clad arms out to block their path. As tiny as he was, the gesture served its purpose, startling the trio into staying where they stood. "Uh, Highness?" Goofy asked.

"You guys have to get out of here and find Riku and Kairi!" Mickey commanded, still keeping his back to them. "We'll take care of things here!"

Sora's eyes widened, and the arm that had slung the Photon Debugger over his shoulder dropped back to his side. His senses registered the sound of the Keyblade's shaft hitting the ground, but he ignored it. "What?" he gasped. "But – Leon and the others are friends, too!"

_And I left Char behind back there,_ he thought with a wave of trepidation. _If we leave now… I'll never get her back._

"Don't worry," the mouse said, casting a glance at them over his shoulder. Although his tone carried no small amount of firmness, Sora could see the sympathy on his face even from here, and realized Mickey knew how much they wanted to stay. Perhaps he had already gathered the reason why they had had to leave Char behind. "There's already lots of help here," he went on.

"But… I promised Leon…" Sora argued weakly, hanging his head. "And… and Char…"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Donald and Goofy move closer, as if to reassure him. However, they quickly shot to attention as Mickey spoke their names. "Donald, Goofy! Take Sora and get goin'!"

As much as Sora wanted to disobey Mickey's orders, he knew the king had a point. If he got overwhelmed by the hordes of Heartless that waited beyond the bottom of the broken stairwell in front of them, aided by the Keyblade as he was… The brunette did not want to consider it.

Lifting his head, he cast his gaze at the sky above. In the time they had spent in the virtual world, heavy clouds had gathered, foreshadowing a storm ahead. Just beyond those clouds, Riku and Kairi undoubtedly waited for him – the very people whose memories pushed him on, the goals he sought along the way of this long-winded, danger-filled journey.

But that still didn't mean he wanted to forsake the friends he had made along the way.

"Riku, Kairi, Char… give me a little more time, okay?" he murmured, almost not realizing he had spoken his thoughts aloud. The hand that wasn't covering his Keyblade's hilt went over his heart as it twinged inside his chest.

He could not see Donald and Goofy give silent starts behind him, then exchange a tentative glance. "Sora…" Goofy whispered, bringing a hand over the bottom half of his face and curling his fingers against his chin.

Donald, however, had a look that suggested he was weighing the possible outcomes of something. An instant later, the thoughtfulness transformed into fierce determination, and he and Goofy gave each other resolute nods. "Understood, Your Majesty!" Donald said to Mickey's back.

"We'll go look for Riku and Kairi!" Goofy added.

That got Sora's attention. He looked frantically from one animal to the other and back again. "Guys!" he cried.

"Right," Mickey said, his head moving as he scanned the area below for any Heartless that might decide to jump out at them. "Watch for danger!"

"You be careful, too," Donald advised.

"What's wrong with you?" Sora asked incredulously, turning to them and holding his arms out in an imploring manner. "You know we can't leave Char here!"

Donald's gaze flicked over to him, a shadow of sympathy in those dark eyes; however, it disappeared quickly in favor of exasperation. "Sora, do as you're told."

"You're comin' with us whether you want to or not!" Goofy ordered.

Sora glared from Donald to Goofy, not sure how to respond to their sudden, patronizing attitude toward him. It rankled him to no end, in much the same way that the Organization members' condescending words had annoyed both Sora and Roxas.

"C'mon, Sora, you gotta be good!" Donald said. Then he winked at the Keybearer with a tiny, secretive smile.

It was that gesture that made Sora catch on to the ruse. He briefly looked over his shoulder at Mickey; to his relief, the mouse still had his back to them. Then Sora looked back at his companions, who now both had encouraging smiles on their faces. "Gotcha," was all he said, unable to suppress a grin of his own.

"Well then, let's skedaddle!" Goofy chirped. The overly cheerful tone to his voice should have given them all away, but thankfully Mickey did not seem to notice.

Seeing the way Donald and Goofy were so willing to disobey their king for him – to forsake the goal _they_ had sought out with him – Sora felt a sudden surge of gratefulness toward them so strong that a lump materialized in his throat. Unable to speak, he simply mouthed "thank you" to them.

He turned to face the cliff-like drop that awaited before them. "Let's go!" Donald shouted, and the three of them rushed right past Mickey, who jolted with a start and stared in surprise at them.

Gripped by the sense of purposefulness that had taken over him, Sora eschewed running down the declivity connecting the bailey to the courtyard that led up to the ravine trail and the Great Maw. Instead, he chose to just leap, aided by the jumping abilities that the Valor Form had given him.

He landed on the broken bricks that preceded the square-shaped marking at the center of the clearing; the alighting was somewhat clumsy due to both his eagerness and the uneven surface, so he nearly stumbled before righting himself. "Sorry, Your Majesty!" he shouted breathlessly to the gaping monarch above, before running further into the courtyard area.

"Hope you can forgive us!" Goofy called contritely, tossing a salute over his shoulder as he followed with Donald at his side.

Mickey watched them go, an almost sad smile coming over his face. "I figured they would choose that," he mused to himself. He found himself unable to truly chide them, though, even in his mind.

"Your Majesty!" a feminine voice suddenly sounded.

The king in question turned in time to see Char skid to a hasty stop. Her chest heaved as she sucked in the breath she needed due to having sprinted from the corridors to here, and some of her more onerous wounds from the fight with Anxclof were twinging, but other than that, she looked relatively unexhausted.

"Have you seen Sora and the others?" she asked breathlessly.

Mickey nodded. "Yeah, they're just over there," he explained, nodding to the drop in front of him.

Char grinned, already dashing forward without hesitation toward where Sora had just vanished. She threw a quick "thank you" over her shoulder at Mickey, even as she leaped over the precipice.

He sighed and shook his head in a mock-reproving manner. "Be careful, you four."

* * *

Sora came to a halt at the center of the courtyard and turned just as Donald and Goofy caught up to him. An uncontrollable grin had taken hold of his countenance. "I can't believe you guys did that!"

"Well, we wanna help Leon and Yuffie and the others out too, a-hyuck," the dog said, looking a little embarrassed.

"Like we wouldn't help you," Donald huffed. "All for one and one for all, right?"

Sora shook his head and laughed to himself. "Just… thanks, guys," he said.

"Aw, this is getting too sappy," the duck grumbled, but a significant amount of trembling marked his own voice as he turned away. "Let's just keep going!"

"Yeah, uh… this leads to the Great Maw, doesn't it?" Goofy queried, scratching his head.

Donald rolled his eyes at the knight. "We were only here a little while ago," he pointed out.

Goofy lifted his hands in a placating gesture. Sora looked on with amusement at his allies' familiar banter.

Suddenly, a thud from behind him sounded, making him turn. He clutched his Keyblade in preparation for the source to be a Heartless lighting down in front of him.

What he saw, though, nearly made him drop the Photon Debugger in shock.

Donald and Goofy stopped arguing to look toward the source of the noise as well, their eyes widening when they took in both the newcomer and their leader's surprise.

"Don't stare at me like that," Char growled, stepping closer. Sora could only look on, gaping, as she came to a stop directly in front of him. "You'll catch flies that way," she went on more gently, her ice-blue eyes locking on his. (5)

"You… you beat Anxclof?" was all the brunette could say.

Char blinked. "Something like that," she admitted, lowering her head and staring almost ashamedly at the ground.

Letting out a small sound, Sora reached forward with his free hand, only to drop it back to his side as she lifted her face to him again. "Either way, though, she won't be bothering us for a while," she said, lifting her chin almost triumphantly.

Sora couldn't help but smile at the sight of her typical cockiness, and a wave of relief struck him so powerfully it made him weak-kneed. Char was here; she had made it out, even with Anxclof's fury aiding the Nobody in combat. And but for some blood stains on her jacket and what was visible of her white shirt beneath that jacket, she looked relatively unscathed.

Despite her show of smugness, though, a tiny tremble shook through her voice, and the feeling that had caused it intensified when she realized how close she had come to dying at Anxclof's blade. How close Anxclof had come to killing Sora.

How close Char had come to losing him.

The thought made something akin to terror form in her chest. It was idiotic – the threat had vanished, she told herself in an attempt at firmness, and that should have been that – and yet the emotion remained.

Sora had only a small murmur from her as warning before she collapsed onto him and he suddenly found himself supporting her.

His mind shut down, and his heart seemed to have decided to make up for the absence by kicking itself into overdrive. The Keybearer heard Donald and Goofy cry out in surprise behind him, but couldn't quite process the sounds.

In an instant, though, he realized he could feel something soaking into where her face had landed against his shoulder.

Immediately, his mind woke up enough to put a name to that moisture. And yet at the same time, he could not fathom it. Char had never cried at all on this journey; why she would do it now was beyond him.

Maybe it was because no one else could see it.

The thought almost coaxed tears of his own to his eyes. In the end, though, all he did was mentally order the Photon Debugger to vanish so he could bring up his hands to return her hold. One rested carefully against the middle of her back, while the other chose to place itself against the back of her neck only when she failed to pull away or admonish him. He could feel the section of her hair that swept over the back of her neck beneath the latter hand, and upon flexing his fingers could further feel the softness of the crimson strands.

Almost without realizing it, he murmured softly into her ear, waiting for the storm to calm. Inwardly, he reflected that while Char was strong, this was one moment of weakness that wouldn't occur again for a long while.

Under any other circumstances, this would cause no small amount of discomfort for him; he remembered when she had hugged him right after returning him to normal at Disney Castle as an example of that. Right now, though, he only felt warmth, and the desire to reassure her that had filled him during this entire visit to Hollow Bastion.

If he'd doubted his feelings for her before, then that skepticism had vanished entirely now.

Behind him, Donald and Goofy exchanged amused glances. Neither teen noticed the Disney residents' smugness in their embrace, but Sora did hear the whooshing sound behind him. He let go of Char just enough so he could turn and see what had caused it. Even as Donald squawked in surprise, though, Sora was startled enough to move out of Char's hold entirely.

Because the tendrils of darkness that were just disappearing revealed none other than the Organization member who had appeared to them in the Underworld.

Immediately, the part of Sora that remembered Roxas' past got to work identifying the Nobody. The mental search yielded the name Demyx, even as the mullet-haired young man made a noise of preparation and got into a pose of readiness.

Char stiffened on Sora's other side, instinctively bristling at the sight of the dark cloak that she was so unfortunately familiar with. "You know this guy?" she hissed into Sora's ear, her waning irritation toward herself at her prior moment of weakness dying down entirely in favor of wariness.

Sora nodded, not taking his eyes off Demyx. "Yeah, he was messing around in the Underworld," he explained in a low voice.

"Hey, you guys are looking lively!" the Nobody greeted cheerfully, putting a hand on his hip and waving to them.

"Scram!" Donald barked, brandishing his staff threateningly.

Demyx blinked in response, an almost hurt look coming over him. "That's not very nice," he said, folding his arms. "All I did was say hi. Speaking of which," he suddenly turned to Sora, and Char immediately stepped a little ways in front of the Keybearer, who looked too startled to speak, "Roxas, how have you been doing?"

Sora narrowed his eyes. "I thought we already had this conversation. My name's Sora."

"Right, right…" Demyx grinned sheepishly, though a glimmer of what looked like wistfulness crossed his gaze. (6) Belatedly, Sora remembered the days Roxas had spent teasing Demyx with Axel and Anxclof at his side.

He pushed the warmth and hesitation that were growing inside him aside, though, refusing to let memories of a life he had never lived cloud his judgment. "My question would have to be, how'd a wimp like you get into Organization XIII?"

Demyx reared back, waving his arms out in front of him in an odd gesture.

Sora folded his arms, refusing to let his guard down in front of the Organization member. "I bet you can't even fight," he taunted.

"Yeah," Char growled, "but we can."

Demyx brought a finger out in front of him and shook it reprovingly at them. "You shouldn't judge anyone by appearance."

"Really?" Donald asked, waving his staff. In tandem with his words, Sora, Goofy, and Char whipped out their respective weapons of Keyblade, shield, and dual blades.

The Nobody recoiled at the sight of the four of them, then turned away, drawing himself up in a deceptively determined gesture. He groaned to himself, propping one elbow up against his other arm so he could cover his face with the hand attached to that elbow. "I told them they were sending the wrong guy..."

Char raised one eyebrow, speaking what they all were thinking. "Who _is_ this kook?"

"Well, the Organization's made up of Nobodies," Goofy reminded her, taking her question a little too literally.

"Of course I know that; I grew up with their founders, remember?" Char returned her glare to Demyx, who still stood with his back to them. "Of course, none of the Organization have hearts anymore."

Her words seemed to have struck a nerve, for Demyx immediately pivoted back around to face them. "Oh, we do too have hearts!" he disagreed. "Don't be so mad."

Char huffed and rolled her eyes. "Oh, whatever," she scoffed. "I suppose that's why when you get torn open by Heartless, your _heart_ is the first thing they take."

"You can't trick us!" Donald spat, pointing accusingly with the hand that wasn't holding the broom staff.

A few moments of silence passed, during which Demyx remained eerily silent. When he turned to face them, however, Sora started at the complete disappearance of any of his prior amiableness. Instead, a dark look had come over him.

"Silence, traitor," he hissed, pointing right at Sora as he spoke.

_Traitor?_ Sora thought, confused. As far as he knew, Roxas hadn't done anything in particular to betray the Organization.

Char sucked in a sharp breath beside him, but before Sora could ask her why she had done that, Demyx lowered his arm. Multiple veils of water droplets swirled around him, and when he threw up one gloved hand, the veil expanded into a full-on, translucent barrier of water that shone white where his hand made contact with its zenith. The water that made up the barrier flew into Demyx's hand, eventually coalescing into a large, dark bubble. An instant later, the bubble stretched out into many, much lighter ones that eventually materialized into a blue, guitar-like weapon.

Demyx flipped the guitar into his hand and pointed at Sora again, this time with an almost playful grin covering his countenance. Recognizing the unspoken command to ready for battle, Sora got into his stance.

"I hope you guys are ready," he called over his shoulder at his allies.

He didn't get a chance to hear their replies, for in the next moment, Demyx began frantically waving his fingers over the strings on his weapon.

"Dance, water, dance!"

* * *

Cliffhangers, yay! -shot dead-

(1) Yeah, uh... this was Sora getting close to realizing Char loves him back. Of course, he's an idiot, so he doesn't even think about it.

(2) Now get the most epic music in your iTunes library and PLAY IT REPEATEDLY. Cuz it's about to be a WHAT? - GIRLFIGHT! -killed for shameless reference-

(3) YMMV as to what Anxclof said here. I think of it as something like "you'll never know how much you hurt me," but you can take it any way you want. Cuz I'm not saying it. :3

(4) LAWL RIKU OBLIVION SEE WHAT I DID THAR

(5) Yes, I made Char repeat insane!Anxclof's line in chapter 54 on purpose. Why, you ask? To further outline their similarities, of course.

(6) In light of what Demyx said in the Underworld about this ("Roxas?" "Excuse me?" "Oh, it's no use"), this might seem a bit OOC, but remember how scatterbrained Demmy is. He probably just forgot that calling Sora "Roxas" won't work. XD

Huge mass of A/N's for the loss.

Next chapter, Sora and crew kill the Nobody of Copperhead's brother! 8O


	59. Chapter LIX

Woot, chapter 59! Finally, right? My only defense is that I didn't realize how much I loved Demyx until I had to write about Sora and co. beating the crap out of him. ;_; And then the Goofy thing... let's just say I spent the better part of writing this chap in tears.

Anyway, yeah, this is one of my shorter ones, because I thought the endpoint would be a good place to stop. Don't kill me. -quivers-

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** I do not own Kingdom Hearts, just the characters and settings that are obviously not in the original games.

* * *

Immediately, Char sprang forward, blades at the ready, fully prepared to slice into the Nobody's currently-prone body. Other than darting his eyes fearfully in her direction, though, Demyx remained unmoving, strumming away at the strings like nothing was happening.

An instant later, though, she understood why he hadn't dodged her attack, a realization that came rather strongly in the form of an invisible barrier pushing her back.

"The hell?" she grunted, hastily steadying herself just before she could fall.

Just behind her, Donald shook his head irritably and made a movement that resembled rolling up one's sleeves. He lifted his staff as if to cast a spell, but the lightning bolt that dropped directly over the Nobody's head had no effect, either; the sparks puttered out uselessly, sloughing harmlessly off the barrier.

"What's going on?" the duck shouted, glaring at the miniature broom in his hand. Probably thinking this was a repeat of how his old weapon had shattered in Agrabah, Char assumed.

She refocused her glare on Demyx; this time, though, a sense of slight nervousness marred the anger that she typically felt around Nobodies. Although she had witnessed Roxas and Demyx train together in the pieces of Roxas' memories that she _had_ watched, she was unfamiliar with this aspect of the Melodious Nocturne's power.

_Because I _had_ to get bored and go get some ice cream,_ she recalled, feeling stinging shame at the memory of how she had acted, only six weeks ago.

Quickly, she shook the feeling off, knowing she couldn't afford to be distracted now. It wouldn't do to go and let herself get killed in the heat of battle, right after she had made it out of Anxclof's fury alive.

She looked up just in time to see a mass of transparent shapes coalesce in front of them. Immediately, she searched her memory for the name of these creatures; they weren't Demyx's lesser Nobodies, the Dancers, but something she had never seen before. The flame of nervousness inside of her leaped just slightly at the unfamiliarity.

"What _are_ these?" Sora asked, a little warily. He thought their shape looked familiar, and after a moment of mental digging, he realized they resembled music notes – fitting, in light of how Demyx was still playing away at his sitar and creating an almost-inaudible melody.

The Keybearer's mouth twisted wryly. _I guess those piano lessons Mom forced me to go to when I was little taught me _something.

Goofy just shrugged with an audible gulp.

"They haven't attacked us yet," Char pointed out, "so I don't –"

But then the beings, moving in one, eerie line, swept up around Demyx, their watery composition slightly distorting the view of his black Organization coat.

"Get out of the way!" Donald yelled. This time, his Thunder spell ripped through the watery shapes like a knife through hot butter, and some of them imploded with loud, multiple squelches. At first the duck blinked, startled; then a smug look came over his face and he nodded triumphantly.

"Hey, good idea, Donald," Goofy said, and lunged, shield-first, at the nearest creature.

Sora and Char joined the Disney residents, slashing away at the plethora of foes before them. Almost against his will, Sora found himself keeping an eye on Demyx, even as the Photon Debugger carved its way toward the dirty blond young man. Other than a newfound tremor in the way his fingers plucked the sitar's strings, and the occasional eye dart toward them, he played on, seemingly oblivious to the battle going on around him; Sora could even hear him humming along to the sound of his instrument.

The brunette tried not to think on that oddly human action too much. After all, these were supposed to be his – Sora's – enemies; Yen Sid had told them as much, and Char, who had had more contact with the Organization than any of Sora's group, had all but enforced that anathema.

_But she had a reason, right? She had to leave her home because of them._

Then again, he wouldn't have met her if she had not had to leave Hollow Bastion in the first place, and he couldn't exactly fault them for that.

He nearly groaned aloud, managing to rein it back in before it could escape and alarm any of the group, when he remembered that if he had never met Char, he wouldn't be undergoing the emotional confusion he had felt in the past couple of weeks. Kairi would pop up in his mind when he thought of the one he loved, and he wouldn't feel so much worry at remembering the secrets that others kept from him.

Thankfully, Char saved him from these headache-inducing thoughts. "New Keyblade?" she asked brusquely, clearly more focused on swerving to drive three beings away.

Sora blinked, before realizing she was referring to the Photon Debugger. "Uh, yeah," he said, looking over his shoulder at her even as he swung the Keyblade down on one of the music notes. It vanished with a satisfying sound that palliated his stress, if only for an instant. "I found it in the virtual world."

At this, Char swung her head up, staring at him with wide eyes. "No way," she gaped. "But how could you even get a Keychain –?"

She cut herself off right then and there when something distinctively squishy collided with her arm. Whirling toward it so she could properly punish the source, she thrust one sword toward it, snarling as the blunt hilt clobbered the watery creature that had run into her. It flew back at the impact…

…right into one of its fellows.

Both immediately exploded.

Sora stared, wide-eyed, before whipping around to face Donald and Goofy, who were having difficulty with a small group; though none of the enemies attacked, enough of them surrounded the two Disney residents to evoke claustrophobia, as evidenced by Goofy's uneasy countenance. "Guys, knock them into each other!" Sora called to them. "It takes them out faster!"

"Gotcha," Donald shouted back with a nod, and delivered a hefty swipe to the side of one music note, effectively pushing it into one of its comrades. The two of them almost seemed to merge for a moment before exploding with a splash that would have soaked Donald, had he not twisted out of the way with a startled quack. Goofy simply gave them a grateful nod before attacking with his shield.

Char gazed at the spot where the two enemies she had taken out had once been; then she turned back to the main group with a pleased smirk. "Well then," she said, "this ought to make things much easier."

Demyx cringed in Sora's periphery, but said nothing.

This was one of those rare times when Char didn't hate being right. Sora's rather strange idea of grabbing the beings by the tips of their music note-shaped forms and swinging them into each other, while seeming asinine at first, proved to facilitate matters immensely. Soon, they had eradicated the enemies entirely, and just as they turned to fix angry glares on Demyx, the shield that had protected the Organization member vanished, leaving him open for assault. "Uh-oh," he gulped, even as the four of them turned to fix angry glares on him.

"Not exactly what I was looking for," Sora said, gripping his Keyblade tighter, "but I'll take it." He charged, with Goofy and Char at his side.

They fell into their standard attacking pattern, while Donald furiously cast spells just behind them. Sora tried to focus only on striking with all the strength he had, instead of the guilt that flared within him at the yelps of pain that every blow induced. _Roxas is your Nobody, not you,_ he told himself.

He was even more confused at how half-hearted even his mental voice sounded.

Goofy, who was closest to him, seemed to notice their unspoken leader's conflict. "Sora, you okay?" he asked, gripping his shield close to his side as it returned to him.

"Yeah," Sora answered instinctively. "Just… a little tired, is all."

Well, he comforted himself, that wasn't exactly a lie. Between realizing – and eradicating – Donald and Goofy's suspicions of Char, along with going Twilight Town and the virtual world, so many events had packed themselves into today. Frankly, it was a wonder exhaustion was not weighing more heavily than it was on him.

He earned a doubtful look from the knight, but in the end, Goofy's politeness won out over his curiosity. "Well, if you need healin' or anything, just say so," he said, and resumed his onslaught on Demyx.

"Right…" Sora sighed, and got back to it.

Char heard the two of them, and craned her neck around Demyx's prone body to try and hear better. However, the attempt didn't succeed, and she felt a wave of frustration when Sora only let out a quite audible sigh and resumed his steady assault with the virtual world's Keyblade with a resigned, heavy expression.

Part of the frustration came from not knowing how to reassure Sora. The other came from remembering all too well the sight of Anxclof's blood. From the almost-maybe-unmistakable _guilt_ as every tremor that each blow to Demyx's prone body sent up her arms came in tandem with a squeal of pain from him.

_He's just a member of the Organization,_ she told herself firmly, _just another enemy. _

Still, though, it didn't help that these monsters had to look and act so damnably like _people._

At this point, Demyx had apparently had enough of letting them attack him, for he lashed out with his sitar, effectively throwing Sora, Goofy, and Char backward. Fortunately for Sora, weeks of journeying and training gave him the coordination to straighten in midair and land on his feet; it was only by the grace of good balance that the dog and the redhead managed not to tumble head over heels to the ground. Goofy did have a more difficult time due to the size of his weapon, though.

"Now what?" Donald hissed from behind them.

That question didn't ruminate in the group's minds for long. Demyx stroked his weapon's neck for a moment, almost as though making sure it hadn't sustained too much damage, before bringing it close to his body and playing his fingers along the strings again.

Remembering the result of the last time he had done that, Char raced forward again, bracing herself for her blades to slice into watery music notes, only to be thrust backward by the contact of something striking her middle. Immediately, harsh pain lanced through her belly; as she tried uselessly to get her breath back, she realized the Elixir Riku had given her hadn't gotten rid of the bruising from the battle with Anxclof.

She looked up just in time to see the bubbles Demyx had summoned push Sora and Donald, who had rushed forth to help her, away. The former put one hand to his stomach, breathing hard, while the latter simply fell on the ground, twitching, before he could right himself.

Char instinctively stepped forward to give him a Potion, before remembering she didn't have any healing items on her; the memory of how badly Anxclof had almost beaten her testified to that. Thankfully, Goofy took it upon himself to extend a helping hand to his comrade, and with a grudging grumble under his breath, Donald accepted the item.

"Sora, we need to be careful," she called over to the Keybearer, who immediately glanced over at her. "I'm out of healing items."

Sora's eyes widened. Before he could say anything along the lines of an apology or an offer to give her some of the Potions he had packed, Demyx came hurtling toward them on multiple cascades of water. Simultaneously, Sora and Char leaped out of the way, nearly crashing into each other in the process; but Goofy, who was straightening from having administered first aid to Donald, got the full brunt of the attack and was thrown into the air.

Sora could only watch, surprised, as the knight landed heavily on his feet. From what he – Roxas – remembered of Demyx, the mullet-haired Nobody was significantly less fierce than he was acting in this fight.

_Silence, traitor,_ Demyx had hissed just before the battle had begun, and Sora suppressed a shiver at the memory of that voice's coldness. The coldness that he knew was uncharacteristic, even then.

But then the waterfalls were twisting around in midair, and before the brunette could dodge again, the deluges had slammed into him full force and knocked him to the ground.

Sora barely caught himself with his hands before he could crash face-first. He half-expected the Nobody to call down an apology to him, with the name that wasn't his likely tacked on; but either Demyx had forgotten about his relation to Sora's Nobody in the heat of battle, or he just didn't care anymore.

From the looks of things, the latter seemed more likely.

"Sora, you okay?" Char shouted over to the Keybearer.

"Yeah," he called back, getting to his feet a little shakily. The stinging pain in his fingers told him that that was at least half a lie, but he didn't want to say anything for fear that his allies would immediately start throwing healing items at him. Even he knew they would need to conserve those.

"Stop!" Donald finally screamed, lifting his staff and casting a Thunder spell on their still-airborne opponent. The lightning bolt that the spell dropped on Demyx's head showed up as a barely-visible set of sparks to the four standing below, but clearly, it was enough to break his concentration. With a yelp, he dropped to the ground, landing on his feet by some miraculous feat of coordination.

"Now we've got you," Char hissed, and leaped forward, blades first. Donald let out a battle cry and followed her, waving his broom-staff all the way; clearly, he had forgotten how ridiculous he had found the weapon at first in his desire to finish this fight. Goofy got to his feet and, wincing at the blood that ran freely from a waterfall-inflicted injury on his flank, followed after him, albeit with a somewhat shaky grip on his shield.

Sora noted he would have to help the knight soon, before the blood loss became worse. For now, though, he merely tightened his battered fingers around the Photon Debugger's hilt and joined his friends.

It took a few more minutes of steady attacks – and Sora fighting off the contrition that was born anew every time the Keyblade made its mark – before Demyx flung them away again. This time, though, the bubbles or the contact of the sitar slicing into Sora's belly did not push him back; it was the distinctive feeling of something crashing down on his head and throwing him backward, instead of into the pavement.

In the split second it took him to register his comrades' cries of surprise and pain – clearly, they had gotten blasted by the same force – Sora realized the identity of the peculiar sensation on his shoulders: water rivulets, dripping from his hair down onto his clothes.

He also realized Demyx hadn't ceased in his attack, and was walking toward them, waterfalls offsetting his every step. With a taunt of "Like it?", he twirled in a way that caused his sitar to become barely more than a dark blue blur; every spin he made announced the arrival of more waterfalls whose impact on the ground the Keybearer could hear more than see.

Demyx's initial assault had thrown Donald and Goofy off to the side; the view of them trying to catch their breaths became distorted in the multiple curtains of water that still crashed down. However, Char, who had been trying to get closer to their opponent, caught the brunt of the blasts and was launched backward. Instinctively, Sora reached out to try and catch her, but she flew past him and landed heavily on the ground beside him.

Gaping in shock, Sora reached out with his hand already glowing green with mana; he knew she would probably be all right, but the fear that had overcome him after leaving her with Anxclof was impairing his better judgment and desire to conserve his healing capabilities. At a flicker of movement in his periphery, he turned just in time to see Demyx barely a few feet away from him. A shocked cry pulled itself out of Sora as he hastily brought up the Photon Debugger into a guarding position.

Thankfully, the gesture, born of instinct as it was, proved a valid one, as Demyx had thrust out with his sitar in the same instant Sora's arm had come up. They spent a few moments locked together by their weapons, and as his arms strained under the weight of the sitar and Demyx's strength, Sora was struck by the look in the Nobody's narrowed emerald eyes. Anger glowed at the forefront of his gaze, but beyond that…

The Keybearer almost would have had to do a double take, if distractions weren't potentially fatal.

Because he could see… _regret_,that made itself obvious even with the way Demyx had narrowed his eyes in effort.

How could that be, though, if Nobodies had no hearts to feel with?

Doubt rushed in on Sora with all the staggering capability of the waterfalls that had all but rendered Char unconscious. Again, he reflected on how much easier things had been when his enemies had all but lined themselves up in front of him and told him of their evil.

"Sora!"

Donald's shout from behind Demyx drew Sora's gaze, making him crane his neck to be able to see over his taller adversary's shoulder; the weight of Demyx's sitar all but pushing him down forced the brunette to move his body slightly upward to see. Even now, Donald and Goofy were charging toward them, ferocity twisting their faces.

In the same moment the knight tossed his shield, the mage snarled and thrust his staff upward. Sora felt more than saw the rough shield slam into Demyx's back. In response, the young man let out a squeal of pain and cringed, causing the sitar's pressure on the Keyblade to slacken.

Sora knew this was as good an opportunity as any, so he heaved upward with the Photon Debugger. Demyx stumbled backward…

…straight into the flames that Donald had just conjured.

Demyx cried out as the fire landed against his back, but somehow managed to string together the level of concentration necessary to launch a set of bubbles at Donald and Goofy. The Nobody's reaction reminded Sora uncomfortably of how Hades' flames had nearly crippled Char.

Thinking of the redhead, he suddenly gasped and whirled around, concern taking over his battle instincts. Relief rushed through him when he saw her rising to her feet, thankfully only a little unsteadily.

"You okay?" he asked.

He earned only a nod in response before she bounded off the outcropping of rock that she had crashed into and joined Goofy in attacking Demyx. As she became nothing more than a blur of crimson hair and silver blades in the ferocity of her onslaught, the Keybearer couldn't help but shiver. _Remind me never to get her that mad._

Still, the sight of her belligerence having returned still coaxed a tiny smile to his face, and he raced after his friends with Photon Debugger at the ready.

Having depleted the majority of Demyx's strength, the fight began to slowly but surely turn in the party's favor. The exhausted way in which Demyx swung his sitar at them – almost as though it had gained a couple of pounds – easily indicated his growing fatigue. Even the waterfalls that still assailed them every once in a while became smaller, losing their crippling capability in the process.

And yet, oddly enough, the expression of determination on the Nobody's face never once faltered, even as the number of blows raining down on him multiplied. At least no blood spattered the ground around him; the crimson liquid that did touch the castle courtyard belonged only to Sora and his companions.

The brunette found himself clinging to the fact that Demyx wasn't bleeding. If only to prove that these Nobodies – these all-but-humanoid Heartless – were exactly the same as he had first assumed: echoes of humans, only hollow forms of their prior selves.

"Sora, wake up!" Char roared, leaping back from her steady stream of attacks to cast an expectant glare at him.

Sora blinked a couple of times, the aftermath of her knocking him out of his reverie making him briefly sluggish. Then the adrenaline pumping through his veins in response to the requirements of battle hit him, and he gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry," he said, before charging back into the fray.

Char just rolled her eyes; inwardly, though, her mind was reeling, an unwelcome sensation to feel in the midst of battle. Despite the amount of injuries she and the others had undoubtedly inflicted on Demyx, no telltale crimson stained the tips of her blades. Ordinarily, she would have passed it off as his and the rest of his kind's lack of heart and left it at that…

But everything that had gone against her research and knowledge and turned them on their heads – Anxclof's love for Roxas and vice versa; Saïx's words in Twilight Town – all of that was severely undermining her assumptions.

She thought back to the battle with Anxclof, to what she had thought would be her very last sight in the living world. _Why would Anxclof bleed and Demyx not?_

With a huff, the redhead concentrated all of her annoyance into attacking, ignoring the way her bruised muscles screamed in protest at the exertion. Dammit, but falling down that hard had hurt.

Nonetheless, her mind kept wandering to the anomaly between numbers XIV and IX and wouldn't let go of the possible reasons why. Instead of dwelling on it, though, Char focused on putting as much power into every slash she delivered as possible. It wouldn't do, to succumb to confusion and doubt – not now that she had gotten this far.

On Char's other side, Donald looked slightly exasperated, but chose not to address Sora's lapse in favor of casting another fire spell. The multiple flames wove together in midair before crashing against Demyx's back and effectively dispelling the waterfalls that had been about to hit the party again.

Yelping, Demyx barely dodged the majority of Donald's spell, only to get caught on Goofy's shield, which knocked him backward.

"I think we're starting to get him," Donald said obviously. He hissed indignantly as the remnants of Demyx's waterfalls came showering down on his head and brought up his staff as a makeshift umbrella. Sora, Goofy, and Char weren't as quick, however, and quickly became soaked by the rain-like droplets; indeed, for a moment Char thought the clouds that had gathered over the course of the day had opened up and let some of their burden down on them.

Demyx leaped back, still keeping up a steady flow of bubbles at them despite the distinct tremble in his step. Goofy let out a startled, high-pitched scream as he slipped on the newly-slippery ground, water flying in all directions on his impact with the puddle. His shield flew off in the other direction as well.

"Watch it!" Char hissed, racing past him. "We're going to have to watch our step now."

Her words earned a smile from Demyx, at which she felt a newfound current of rage surge through her. Snarling, she batted his sitar away from his body with one sword – he still kept a death grip on the instrument, of course, and briefly looked shocked that she would dare ruin it – before lashing out with the other one. The smugness on his features disappeared at once as he recoiled, and he launched another series of bubbles at her.

Before they could hit her, however, a hoarse snarl was heard from behind her, and a well-aimed ice crystal shot through the bubbles, impaling and popping all of them at once.

Demyx gasped, momentarily halted in his assault by the unexpected turn of events. Char blinked – as far as she knew, Key-boy didn't have the Blizzard spell; or if he did he never used it in front of her – and turned to see Donald lowering his staff and giving her an expectant look.

"You're welcome," he said at her bemused look.

Behind her, Sora made as if to join the melee, only to stop in his tracks when he noticed the crimson tainting the puddle that Goofy had fallen into. Without hesitation, he put one glowing hand against the reopened injury on Goofy's side, at which the knight gasped in pain, and murmured, "Heal." The wound sealed itself shut, and Goofy gave his leader a grateful look before picking up his shield and charging after his friends, albeit at a more careful pace.

Dodging around the puddles to avoid Goofy's fate, Sora barreled into Demyx from the side, Keyblade out. This time, the Nobody didn't have time to block with his sitar, and thus got the full brunt of the blow.

He rose up, panting audibly, and even from here, Sora could see his fingers tighten around the sitar's neck. Wordlessly, the group surrounded him, weapons at the ready in case he tried anything. Donald tightened his grip on his staff and renewed his glower; Goofy just peered determinedly at Demyx over his shield; and Char…

"Why won't you just go down already?" the Keybearer heard Char mutter.

And maybe it was Roxas, but Sora suddenly wanted to turn and berate her for saying that.

He shook it off and focused on their opponent, who was surveying them now with wide, panicked green eyes. The Nobody's fear had a contagion about it, and even Char found herself tensing with how thick it was in the air.

And maybe it was her wavering resolve, but Char suddenly felt _sympathy_ for Demyx.

She could imagine that Xemnas had sent the poor boy here to finish Sora off, and Demyx had probably just figured he could play off the part of Sora that was Roxas and get him that way. Clearly, Demyx hadn't counted on Sora not remembering the past that he and his Nobody had shared.

Then again, though, it wasn't as though Sora hadn't known anything about Roxas at all. The memory of her revealing Roxas' identity came to Char's mind immediately and coaxed a cringe out of her, but she could also recall the day of the sultan's ball when she had overheard Sora ask the peddler about Roxas.

_Good job,_ she told herself, assuming that maybe having a dry tone, even in her thoughts, would restore some normalcy to the unbalanced confusion her mind had become. _Good job, Nightblaze; you tell Sora the truth in hopes of clearing his mind, and instead you just screw him over even more._

And yet she knew she could never feel completely guilty about telling most of the secrets between them; _most_ of the secrets, because she wasn't going to tell Sora she knew about Riku anytime soon.

_But why not?_ she wondered. _It would help Sora so much to know that his friend was okay. _She tried to pass it off on her promise with Riku – to come with Sora and guide him on her path to vengeance – having occurred before all this nonsense, but something didn't feel right about that.

She didn't get any more time to think about it, because suddenly Demyx drew himself up and began strumming away at his sitar.

"Uh-oh," Goofy gulped.

"We don't want him summoning any more of those things!" Donald hissed, clearly remembering the watery beings that this action had previously summoned.

Char nodded, knowing that if there was any time to finish him off, it was now. She took a step forward; but Sora beat her to it.

In a swift movement that fighting the Dusk Nobodies had perfected, he dipped behind Demyx and managed to deliver a powerful slash to Demyx's back. In response, the melody that had begun to peal out into the moist air came to a sudden, rather disarming halt. "Aww… booed again," Sora heard Demyx murmur, even as he crumpled and the sitar turned to bubbles in his grip.

Leaping back, chest heaving with exertion and the dying remnants of battle adrenaline, Sora watched, eyes wide, as the fact of the Nobody's loss seemed to sink in. Demyx stared at his now-empty hands, then up at Donald, Goofy, and Char, before settling them very briefly on Sora.

Then Demyx brought his hands to his head and let out a howl, so full of frustration and sorrow that even Char lowered her weapons, stunned into silence. He dropped to his knees, even as dark tendrils swept up from an invisible source beneath him and began to devour his form.

_So this is how Nobodies die,_ was all Char could think as the shadows swallowed their adversary entirely.

Forcing herself to push her instinctive logic away, she mentally whispered a command for her weapons to vanish. As they heeded her unspoken words, the darkness wreathing Demyx disappeared, revealing Sora, who had been standing behind Demyx as he had – for some reason she couldn't bring herself to think the word _died_.

Almost as soon as her eyes settled on him, though, she promptly wished they hadn't.

Because so much confusion and turmoil and _grief_ lurked in those sapphire eyes that she found herself fighting for breath with the lump that had suddenly settled itself in her throat.

_Focus,_ she told herself sternly, chasing away the blurriness plaguing her vision. _You can't go and cry every time Sora gets an emotional boo-boo. It's just Roxas making him feel that way, anyway._

The thought – so familiar from the ones she'd had of everything he did that surprised her at the start of this journey – failed to soothe her, predictably enough.

She tore her gaze away from him and assessed Donald and Goofy, focusing her mental energies on sizing up their injuries instead of her horribly gaping soft spot for that dork. For the most part, Donald seemed relatively unscathed but for a few shallow cuts on his body. Additionally, water gleamed on the feathers along his arms; vestiges of Demyx's waterfalls, Char assumed. The observation made her uncomfortably aware of the newfound heaviness of her jacket, and she grimaced slightly as she tried to shake some of the water out, to no avail. Her arms jolted in pain at the abrupt movement, but the way she saw it, bruising and a bit of bleeding weren't the worst things she could walk away with.

Goofy, in contrast to his comrades, had gotten more heavily wounded. Although the blood had stopped dripping from his more onerous injuries, they still looked red and angry, and he was almost swaying on his feet.

Yet the two animals' expressions had one thing in common: worry for the boy they called their leader. Char hesitated, before opening her mouth to speak, readying an inquiry as to his status on the tip of her tongue; he was unlikely to answer truthfully, but she figured she had to at least try.

But the brunette only drew himself up, Photon Debugger at the ready, and cast a newly venomous glare around the area, as though trying to draw out every shadow behind the rocks of the courtyard. "Anybody from the Organization who'd like to be next?" he demanded.

"Sora, don't antagonize them!" Donald berated him, glancing around as if he expected another Nobody to leap out and avenge its fallen friend.

"Seriously," Char added, barely concealing how badly his outburst had startled her. "Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but I'd think your friends' safety is more important right now." She threw a meaningful glance at Goofy before giving Sora a hard stare.

To his credit, he met her glower with a fair attempt of his own; in spite of his show of belligerence, the emotions she had detected earlier were still raw in his gaze. Char narrowed her eyes and held her ground, at the same time reflecting on how he could evenly match her glare now. Either she had gone too soft, or he'd toughened up more than she had thought.

Then he relented, and sighed. "Sorry," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. "Guess I got carried away." He began to move toward them. "Goofy, are you –"

Suddenly he let out a startled cry and stumbled. Before Donald or Char could do anything more than take an instinctive step forward, he had caught himself from where he'd slipped on one of the puddles.

"Oh yeah," Char said almost dismissively, "those were there, weren't they?"

Sora rolled his eyes, albeit with a bit of genuine annoyance mixed in with his playfulness. "That would've been nice to know…" As he spoke, he continued forward, keeping a careful eye on the ground below to avoid repeating that little mishap, and handed Goofy a Hi-Potion.

"Thanks, Sora," the knight rasped out gratefully. He ducked his head. "I'm just sorry I got hurt so bad."

Sora shook his head. "Don't be," he said with a smile. "We're just glad you're okay."

Looking on, Char realized the reassuring tone to his voice was genuine, not feigned or strained like she had anticipated. Folding her arms, she watched him and Goofy get to their feet.

"So," she began, "exactly how many healing items do we –?"

"There you are!"

Sora, Donald, and Goofy froze before slowly turning toward the source of the familiar voice, identical expressions of panic on their faces. It was almost comical, until Char pivoted around and saw the mouse king standing at the entrance to the courtyard, arms folded and one foot tapping reproachfully.

_Oh, great._

"Uh…" Sora stuttered.

"What did you guys do to piss him off?" Char muttered under her breath, so only the Keybearer and their other companions could hear.

"We kind of… disobeyed him," Sora explained in an equally low voice, and Char wondered what that exactly entailed.

"You three," Mickey suddenly addressed him and the other Disney residents. Said fighters immediately shot to attention, albeit with nervousness etched into every line of their faces. Goofy twiddled his thumbs, Sora stared at the ground, and even Donald looked abashed.

In spite of herself, Char avoided Mickey's gaze as well, slight unease making its way through her veins. Yet at the same time, she recalled the little smile she had seen on his face just before asking him where Sora and the others had gone, and couldn't help but wonder just how severely any punishment could be.

Sure enough, Mickey only surveyed them a moment longer before smiling and dropping his arms back to his sides. "You guys sure have lots of friends to help, don't you?"

At Mickey's relinquishing his austere pose, the trio had already relaxed, but at the king's words, they allowed small, tentative smiles to spread across their faces.

"You guys okay?" he asked, approaching them. "I heard the fighting coming from down here and I thought I'd check it out." His gaze lingered on the injuries that not even a good healing spell or elixir could fully eradicate. "Were there lots of Heartless or something?"

Sora shook his head. "No, Your Majesty. It…" He hesitated then, a fact that did not go unnoticed by either Mickey or his companions.

Seeing that his inner turmoil had not yet vanished, Char took it upon herself to step in and explain. "It was an Organization member," she said, at the same time giving Sora a look that she hoped conveyed both her concern and her annoyance. She understood that knowing at least a part of him had known their opponent had to be wearing on his resolve – a process she hadn't exactly helped, what with the whole Roxas-being-his-Nobody confession back in Ansem's study.

But at the same time, she also knew he needed to pull himself together long enough for them to help Leon and the rest of the Hollow Bastion crew. She thought of the scant potion she had deigned to give Aerith earlier today, and her fist clenched.

Mickey's eyes widened. "Not Xehanort's…?" he asked, trailing off, almost as though he dreaded the answer.

"Uh, I don't think so," Goofy answered. "I mean, he didn't look like An – uh, Xehanort's Heartless…"

Even as he spoke, his focus clearly floated above the mouse's head, hovering somewhere above the cliffs that made up one side of the courtyard. Char blinked, confusion overtaking her prior irritation at Sora, and tried to see what the dog was looking at. However, she couldn't see anything other than a vague gray shape moving toward an off-white one. _Maybe he's watching the Heartless fight the Nobodies?_ It was odd, considering the goal that the two creatures had in common – destroy the bearer of the Keyblade – but then again, so many other weird things had happened today that she didn't really think too much on it.

That was her first mistake: not dwelling on the sight. Her second mistake was looking back down at the others.

"No, that wasn't Xehanort's Nobody – just one of his cohorts," she explained.

Mickey nodded. "I see." He strode forward, his eyes narrowing in determination. "Well, I guess now that we're all here –"

An explosion sounded from above them, making them all jump. In the same instant, Goofy gasped, "Look out!" and barreled into Mickey, effectively knocking the smaller monarch to the ground. Just as Donald swerved to face Goofy – presumably to berate him for the action – a large blur came hurtling from the cliffs' direction and collided with the knight's head.

Goofy tumbled backward, bounced off one of the protruding rocks, and eventually came to a halt on the ground. "Goofy!" Sora cried, running toward his fallen teammate with Donald and Char hot on his heels. After a moment of shocked silence, Mickey rose as well and followed after them.

Donald and Sora fell to their knees on either side of Goofy, the former shaking his longtime friend urgently. "What're you doing?" he demanded, though his voice trembled audibly. "You're the King's captain! You gotta get up!"

"C'mon, wake up," Sora whispered, his heart beginning to pound. _No,_ his mind whispered, _we didn't get this far just to lose someone now, this can't be happening, no…_

And yet it _was_ happening; he was losing a friend, again. He tried not to blame it on himself, but once the idea had entered his mind, it refused to leave.

Char hung back, hardly daring to breathe. She heard Mickey whisper "No…" behind her, but it didn't matter. She knew she should have just dismissed this as just a casualty of battle, but it didn't matter.

Because she had _seen_ those two enemies fighting on the edge of that cliff, she should have anticipated they would knock some debris loose and _one_ of these idiots would want to take the blow for whoever would get hit.

And yet in that thought she felt like a hypocrite, because she had pulled the exact same stupid altruism not three weeks before for one of said idiots.

She felt her legs moving forward, and before long she had knelt beside Sora. He didn't even acknowledge her presence, just continued to stare numbly at his fallen comrade, as though just the power of his gaze could make the dog jump up and smile and laugh sheepishly and be chided by Donald again.

Char hated the tiny part of her that was saying _too bad, not even a Keyblade wielder has that much power._

"Goofy…?" Mickey tried, one more time. And suddenly Char wanted to damn all formalities and whirl around and scream at him to just shut up already, words weren't going to bring him back.

As it was, though, she only lowered her head, let her already-long bangs obscure her eyes and hope Sora and Donald couldn't see the way something had begun to brim there.

"Oh, Goofy…" Donald groaned, laying his head against the knight's chest.

"This is not happening," Sora told himself aloud, crawling toward Goofy on his hands and knees, almost to tell himself that if he got closer, he could see that Goofy was all right. Predictably, that didn't work. "It can't be happening," he repeated, finally just giving in to despair and hanging his head. "It can't…" Combined with the mixed feelings he had gotten on taking out Demyx, this was almost too much to bear.

He nearly reached forward to cast a healing spell, scooping together every bit of mana that whispered in his body for one last Cura. But something caught his hand, and he looked over to see Char shake her head, something like grief on her face. It took him a moment to register she had stopped his hand with hers.

He also realized he was getting very close to seeing her cry for the second time that day.

Movement flashed in his periphery, and he forced himself to care enough to tear his gaze away and look over. What he saw restored a tiny bit of hope to his drained heart: for the terror and sorrow that had never graced Mickey's gaze when Sora had seen him had lit out, replaced by a fire that rivaled that of the one Hades had nearly crippled Char with.

The mouse tightened his gloved hands into fists and whipped his head around to glare at the ravine trail that was visible just beyond here. "They'll pay for this," he hissed. There was no questioning who _they_ were: the Heartless and the Nobodies and the Organization, whose presence had weakened Goofy enough to have succumbed to the attack in the first place.

Almost as if realizing this, Mickey grasped the hem of his coat and whipped it away, revealing a dark red ensemble. A flash of light briefly rent the air to announce the golden Keyblade materializing in the king's hand, and he charged off to avenge his fallen knight.

Donald drew himself up, screeching in fury, and bolted after Mickey, ridiculous broom-staff brandished all the way. With some effort, Sora rose, staring after them. He looked down at Goofy's body once more, in a last-ditch effort for his hopes to make sense.

Nothing.

And with that, the final barrier of grief melted away from his heart, replaced by a slow, burning anger that mimicked that of his comrades.

He turned to Char, who had already gotten to her feet. A hard, blazing look had come into her eyes, and the trademark dual swords had already appeared in her hands.

"Let's go," was all she said.

* * *

Yeah, uh... everybody's pissed. And sad. And exhausted from NINE PAGES OF BOSS FIGHT DEAR GOD WHY DID I DO THAT.

Review, please!


	60. Chapter LX

Two months later...

No, but in all seriousness, getting a job and writer's block completely destroyed my ability to get this chapter done. At least it's here now? And with lots of hand-holding to make up for the wait!

...that, and the last Anxclof POV section of the fic. I know her final decision might seem a little odd, all things considered, but she's basically done with revenge and that's how I showed it. Anyway, yeah, this is the last bit of Roxas obsession we're getting (except for scenes with Axel, lulz), but she will reappear in the next arc, for reasons that will be made obvious later.

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** Don't own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

It was ironic that whenever Anxclof particularly hated herself, she ended up here.

She could hear every drop of the perennial driving rain battering against the awning that sheltered her, and tried to focus on that instead of the most obvious problem. When she had opened that dark portal back in Hollow Bastion, she hadn't really had a destination in mind – just somewhere, anywhere, that was distinctively removed from the corridor where she had fought and defeated Char.

Even more ironic, then, that this place – the main haven of the man who had endeavored to escape Hollow Bastion with his followers; the place that she, in turn, had strived so hard to leave behind – had popped into her mind at the last possible second and led her here.

Which brought her back to the here and now: Anxclof had walked out of the portal into the center of the deserted town and charged straight for the nearest haven from the rain, as the downpour had soaked her within seconds.

It reminded her all too strongly of that night after she had brought Roxas back, only to lose him again to Char's dogged desire to keep Sora alive; when Anxclof had lost herself to grief and sought shelter in Twilight Town's Sunset Terrace. Although her clothes and hair had dried by this point, leaving only an uncomfortable sensation where the fabric met her skin, Anxclof still couldn't hold back a tiny shiver and clutch her jacket more closely around herself at the memory. There were so many disturbing parallels between then and now she would have screamed, had she less common sense.

Both times, though, she had failed to subdue Char in time; nigh on three weeks had passed between then and now – three weeks of plotting and worrying and reminiscing and stewing in the heat of her own anger – and _nothing had changed._

A part of Anxclof understood that she should feel even the slightest hint of triumph at having at least brought Char down. At having had the satisfaction, just for an instant, of seeing those ice-colored eyes lowered in surrender and the glint of the ceiling lights on Anxclof's Keyblade as she raised it to deliver the final blow.

And yet…

She winced, a sound that straddled the border between a whimper and a snarl escaping her. It hurt to remember, but she knew she had to do it if she wanted to get to the crux of the matter: why she had let Char go in the first place.

_I can't just chalk it up to Riku showing up and increasing Char's odds of winning; I know that much. _Anxclof narrowed her eyes and clenched her fist, ignoring the way the shallow scratches on her palm protested at the contact.

So close… she had gotten so damn close. Once Anxclof had let her desire to avenge the boy she loved tug her along and pull the strings of her powers into visibility, a rush of pure energy had come over her. That reaction always came when she used her powers, a fact that had worried her during her early days in the Organization, but that she knew was normal; Roxas had had it happen to him more than once whenever he used his own powers of light, so she figured Nobodies always had that happen to them.

This time, though, something had changed. The liquid adrenaline that had seemed to rush through her veins carried not only the typical determination, but a certain fury as well. She couldn't explain it, but it reminded her of a prowling wolf she had once seen in her Organization days, when Xemnas had sent her on a mission to Beast's Castle. Focused, furious, concentrating only on the task at hand and how it would fulfill her. In the wolf's case, it was food; in her case, it was vengeance.

_Vengeance… but for what?_ That, she supposed, lay at the heart of all this. Those emotions – those emotions that, according to Char, Anxclof couldn't even have – had overtaken her with all the force of a person with a heart, with all the strength of someone bent on revenge. The realization that this particular feeling – more of a hunger than anything else, really – must have come from Falcon's desire to avenge her parents flickered across the back of Anxclof's mind.

She was so sick of that. Of the fact that everything she felt, everything she experienced, derived from that source.

Roxas and Axel and her friendship with them had been the only things she could call her own.

She didn't even have those anymore, though, did she? Axel had left, driven away by her ferocity and single-minded devotion to Roxas. Aloud, Anxclof scoffed; like he was even one to talk, considering he had actually gone through with kidnapping Kairi to lure Sora.

_Of course, killing two people isn't exactly saintly, either._

When she thought about it, though, her methods didn't stray too far from Axel's. Either way, the end took the form of Sora's death and Roxas' revival.

Suddenly cold again, Anxclof stiffened against the shudder that rippled up her spine. Maybe she and Axel weren't so different after all. Odd, considering that she and Axel had next to nothing else in common. The only thing that had drawn the trio together and kept them that way was Roxas. Roxas, the boy she had loved – still _did,_ she reminded herself with a sudden sense of heaviness – had been the common thread among the three friends. Really, it only stood to reason that with him ripped out of the proverbial cloth of Axel and Anxclof's lives, the rest of their friendship had nothing left but to unravel.

And even if Roxas came back, Anxclof doubted anything would ever be the same between the three of them ever again.

That was a topic she had avoided until now. Predictably, confronting it didn't make her feel any better; if anything, it only strengthened the burden that was growing on her shoulders and inside her chest.

Unbidden, the thought of the feral anger that had flared within her during the battle with Char returned to her mind. Thinking of it now sent an unpleasant shiver down her spine, and gave her a feeling of something oddly like _shame,_ that she had succumbed to those feelings. It was strange; most people who had such fits of insanity – she figured she may as well call it that, since the moniker fit her behavior so well – could only recall said fits as blurry afterthoughts, but to her, the memory of her fight with Char played quite vividly in her mind.

In particular, the single injury the redhead had inflicted between dodging all of Anxclof's attacks and looking panicked rose to the forefront of the brunette's thoughts. As if on cue, her lower back began to sting fiercely, and with a grimace, she brought one hand to the afflicted area. Mentally, she scraped together her mana to use the one meager healing spell that she had bothered to master during her first few months of existence. Out of the corner of her eye, a green glow briefly appeared before it vanished, bringing with it a small sense of relief from the pain.

"Probably going to bruise," she muttered aloud, placing her hand back down on the ground. That would just be perfect retribution, wouldn't it? For failing to take down the girl that had taken Roxas away?

The female Nobody groaned, dropping her face into an outstretched palm. Now she was thinking in circles. Great. Perfect.

Then again, the fact that her mental process kept looping back to _why_ in the _hell _she had spared Char was probably more relevant than the little stupid things it kept bouncing off of. Like the way she had felt during the fight, or how she had yielded to a mixture of both her powers and darkness, even though she was supposed to be immune to the deadly influence of both.

"All right, then," she muttered wearily. "Why couldn't you do it?"

The sound of the rain drumming against the pavement served as her only response.

It should have come so easily. Everything else had – the bloodlust, the hysteria, the way she had completely and utterly yielded to the dark anger her love had built up within her for so long…

She frowned and lifted her head to stare out at the rain again. The feeling of something being out of place had gone through her again at the very latter part, in much the same way it had as she had stood poised over Char with her Keyblade directed at her throat. Just like before, frustration surged throughout her entire body at the strangeness of feeling that way. After all, only her love for Roxas had kept her going on this seemingly-pointless quest for vengeance in the first place; only the promise of his eyes and his smile warming her life again had kept her from doing anything she would regret.

Why, then, did the reaffirmation of her emotions feel like a lie?

Anxclof glared at the ground and let out a huff, stirring the ends of her hair. _Might as well prove Char right with that doubt,_ she thought sardonically.

Something stirred at the very edges of her hearing – something that differentiated drastically from the rain spattering the ground just beyond where she sat – and Anxclof jolted upward, alert at once. Her fingers groped unsteadily for her Keychain in much the same way they had at Riku's appearance back at Hollow Bastion, though this time the slight tremble to her grip arose from dread, not incredulity.

The noise came again. This time, her senses had pinpointed it closely enough to identify it as a shoe landing against the rain-slicked concrete. More specifically, the type of shoe that the Organization members typically wore.

Briefly, the female brunette chided herself at that overly-specific elaboration – only the Organization members would be here right now, after all – but then the footsteps came a third time and her fingers closed around the chain to her Keyblade. She hissed under her breath, wondering how long the other Nobody had been here before her grief-addled senses had picked it up. _Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ she thought, with more bitterness than would have normally marked those words.

Then the footsteps halted. It took her a few moments of tense silence to realize the presence had gone.

She relaxed with her entire body, the bated breath oozing out of her and her eyes slipping closed as her fingers uncoiled stiffly around her Keychain. For some reason, when she thought of whose presence she had so dreaded, Axel's fiery red hair and acidic green eyes appeared in her mind, instead of the stormy gray and Heartless-like amber of Xemnas'. It made no sense, because Axel was at Hollow Bastion, for some reason she hadn't bothered to find out. If Anxclof knew him, though, Number VIII had gone there not to take out Sora, as she would have, but to tell the Keybearer he had kidnapped his precious princess and taken her here, to the World That Never Was. So Heartless could finish the job for them.

Axel's plans aside, though, Anxclof couldn't understand why such fear had gripped her at the thought of his appearance. _Yeah, I kind of failed in the job I nearly went insane trying to do, and couldn't get our friend back… but I still don't get why I'm blaming him for getting so scared._

_ Blame…_

A gasp tore itself out of her throat. Suddenly, she understood why she had spared Char.

The part of her that had known killing Char wouldn't solve anything had been right all along. Anxclof had been so desperate to find something – some_one_ – to take the brunt of her anger and sorrow and love, that she had locked onto Char as Roxas' main tormentor and stayed there until everything had culminated in that battle in the corridors.

When that battle had come to a decisive end – Char kneeling on the ground, Anxclof eyeing her with barely disguised anticipation and excitement, the insanity clouding every fiber of her judgment – that part of her had risen again, pushing her from the darkness that lay beyond her murder.

_Killing Char won't bring him back._

And for the first time, Anxclof realized, _Nothing is going to bring him back._

Maybe that, in the end, was what did it: the catalyst that wove through the cracks in the already-crumbling walls of her determination and struck the weak point beneath; the hammer that shattered the floodgates and let every ounce of restrained fury and grief flow forth. In a bitter echo of her Other's action at the top of the Shadowed Desert's citadel at finding her world shattered, Anxclof found herself using only her elbows and knees for support, having had every other mental and emotional pillar of support yanked out from under her.

All she could think was, _he's not coming back._

The thought – gods, you idiot, you may as well be honest and call it a _fact_ – sent a probing thorn of anguish into her heart so sharp she actually gasped aloud. With that gasp came the first tear, which she obliged with a second, and a third, and a fourth, until the ground beneath the awning was becoming as dark with water as its counterpart just beyond.

_"I take it that promise's still intact?"_

_ "You're lucky. I had to figure this out on my own."_

_ "I just want to know everything's gonna be okay, is all."_

_ "We'll be fine. I promise."_

_ "You guys sure have a strange way of doing 'favors'…"_

_ "You can have this, if you want."_

_ "I hate having to be subjected to what _they_ want us to do. I hate not being allowed to feel, just because we're not 'supposed' to. I hate getting reprimanded for having friends."_

_ "So what makes you think you're leaving without me?"_

_ "I… I think I love you. Okay? That's all I wanted to say."_

_ "_I_ will be the one to save Roxas."_

Roxas – the very reason she fought… She could never bring him back. Even if she did, like before, someone else would step in and make sure Sora was the Keyblade wielder who emerged alive; after all, a person with a heart made a much better savior of the worlds than a Nobody ever would.

Way back in their Organization days, she and Roxas had made an important promise to each other. They had sworn to leave together and go find their respective Others; while Roxas had known only Sora's name, Anxclof had had next to nothing to go on, and so, in his typical way, the blond had offered to go with her to help her. Recalling that fateful day, particularly how stupidly _naïve _they had both been, Anxclof felt her throat close up and a new bout of tears begin to swell behind her eyes.

She closed her eyes, ignoring how the action made said impending tears complete their journey onto one cheek, at knowing how deeply she had broken both parts of that promise. In the end, she had left by herself, for reasons she cringed even now to think of. The independent mask she had donned to hide her true feelings was a paltry disguise when she recalled how deeply _petrified_ she had been of their mission's outcome. They would escape the Organization's talons, yes, but as far as they had known, meeting their Others would have been suicide.

Just the thought of losing Roxas that way – to a person, back then a _concept _really, who took the shape of a shadow in their minds – had terrified Anxclof. So she had panicked, and left on her own.

In that latter action, she had failed to adhere to the second half of their promise, though not for lack of trying. She had wandered around for what felt like ages, but what really must have amounted to a couple of weeks or so, bouncing from world to world but not finding anyone whose name resembled hers.

A chill rippled down present Anxclof's spine; she knew how this particular tale ended: sometime after she had left, Char and Riku had arrived and taken Roxas away, stripping him of his memories, his Keyblade, and his dignity, to force him to fulfill the role Anxclof herself had shied away from. By the time she had arrived back at the World That Never Was to see the boy she loved again, Sora was awake and equipped with both his entire heart and a certain nosy redhead.

The icy feeling appeared on the female Nobody's back again, though whether the feeling arose from anger or the dampness of her shirt, she didn't know. All she knew – the only epiphany that assailed her in the middle of that raging tempest – was that the feeling of obligation to fulfill her promise to Roxas had never diminished.

She thought of Falcon, her Other, whose sacrifice had gone to naught, and every emotion that the dark-haired girl had provided her with. Anger, amusement, pleasure, sadness, happiness, grief, love, and everything in between; so much emotion that she suddenly felt like a conduit about to run over with the force of the water held within. For a moment, Anxclof had the almost-traitorous thought, one that she knew the Superior would take umbrage at, that not having a heart was almost _better_ than having to sustain every damned feeling in the world.

Roxas' presence, though, reminded her that feeling something was better than nothing at all.

Anxclof closed her eyes, then opened them again. Lifted her gaze to the cloud-darkened sky and held it there. Somewhere beyond, she knew, lay the Shadowed Desert, the world that her Other hailed from and likely still lived in, if the Heartless hadn't completely devoured it by now. Even though a year had passed from that last horrid memory of Falcon and Copperhead and his bloody betrayal, Anxclof somehow couldn't think the Shadowed Desert was gone. Falcon was more resilient than that.

She had to be. She had to.

Because Anxclof would find her, and take her place as the other half of the girl's heart.

For Roxas, if nothing else.

Oddly, as Number XIV rose to her feet, nothing resembling fear or sorrow or even annoyance at letting all this end so easily skittered across her consciousness and made that heart-shaped emptiness in her chest clench. No, she only felt a sense of serene readiness, one that she had never experienced before. It should have made her balk, made her wonder who the hell had kidnapped _her_ original self and wiped it away for a virtual world – but even that thought carried far less vitriol than it normally would have.

The feeling that she had finally, at long last found a path she could be happy with took over any acrimony at accepting her fate so easily.

Anxclof wondered what Roxas would say if he could see her now, if he knew of this decision. The mental image pulled a mildly self-deprecating chuckle out of her, because she knew he probably wouldn't like it. Like the day she had left the Organization alone, he would more than likely demand why she thought she could do this without him.

Really, though, he had already fulfilled his end of the promise; Sora walking alive and well could testify to that. It was long past Anxclof's turn to do the same.

"Goodbye, Roxas," she whispered, and with the affirmation of her love clinging to the tip of her tongue, she opened a dark portal and stepped through it.

* * *

By the time Sora and Char caught up with Donald and the King, the Heartless that had seemed like a swarm of black, blade-wielding locusts from the castle bailey had swept in in full force.

Sora lashed out with his Keyblade, wincing as his sore muscles complained at the movement, and succeeded in eliminating several shadow Heartless in doing so. "Char!" he shouted hoarsely, over the battle cries of Cloud, who had leapt down to join them in this segment of the fight. In response, the redhead only spared him a jerk of the head to let him know she had heard, as she was too occupied with beating back a Heartless that resembled a spiky ball. "I think we can go on through!"

A silvery blur swung down, annihilating most of the robot Heartless who had abandoned the blur's owner to go after the Keyblade wielder. In his exhaustion, the brunette actually felt a burst of panic that one of his foes had just attacked; but then Cloud's stoic face and unruly blond hair appeared behind the flash of light created by his blade, and Sora allowed himself to relax, if only slightly. "Go on," Cloud grunted, pulling his massive sword out of the ground. "I can hold these guys off." Those dark blue eyes flickered toward the jagged crevice in the seemingly-impregnable wall of rock, before returning to the battle before him.

Guilt flashed in Sora's heart for a moment – these days, it seemed like he was always leaving his friends to fight a battle they couldn't win – but he just gave a single, determined nod. "Thanks, Cloud!" he called over his shoulder, hefting the Photon Debugger across the back of his neck and racing into the cleft.

He didn't stop running until the plain blue of the rocks that marked this area of Hollow Bastion began to clear out, making way for shining crystals that were normally reserved for areas much farther below ground. Under any other circumstances, he would have registered the beauty of the crystals embedded in the walls around him, but for now, he only summoned the Photon Debugger back to its chain form.

As he pushed the Keychain into his pocket, he found himself gulping in air with the fervor of a dying man and leaning down with his hands on his knees. Only then did he register the sound of slowing footsteps behind him.

Despite himself, he cringed inwardly. _Way to almost leave Char behind._

Yet when he turned, he saw no annoyance or reproach on her face; only the same exhaustion that, undoubtedly, marked him. "Dammit," she swore under her breath. Due to the newly lit pallor of the area, the light that flashed in response to her swords vanishing illuminated the sweat on her face and the dust in her hair that much more prominently. "I… _hate…_ Heartless."

Sora would have laughed, had he not agreed so strongly with that sentiment. "I hear ya," he sighed, allowing even his neck muscles to go somewhat slack and hanging his head.

He heard her sigh. "At least Leon and the others managed to get the townspeople inside before the real crap started. Can you imagine how much more difficult this would have been if we'd had civilians running around everywhere?"

A chuckle bubbled up inside him, but he held it down in time. With her phrasing, this whole situation almost resembled an episode of the superhero shows Sora had loved to watch when he was young.

Ironic, then, that now that he was one of those superheroes, he only wanted to go home.

His melancholia must have shown even with his hair obscuring his face, because when she failed to respond, he looked up to see her giving him an odd look. "You okay there?" she asked.

Watching her, Sora felt a pang of frustration that they had gone through so much together, and yet he still couldn't decipher her when she got like this. While he hadn't exactly known her as long as his other close friends, he had still fought at her side and spent enough time with her to know her little nuances; so why he couldn't figure out the emotions that lurked on her face and in her gaze now was beyond him. Worry he could discern there, yes, but beyond that… an emotion he couldn't name.

He abruptly realized she was still waiting for a response, as evidenced by her slightly arched eyebrow and tapping foot, and hastened to heed that unspoken expectation. "Uh, yeah," he said.

Char blinked a couple of times and opened her mouth to say something, when a loud squawk came from up ahead. Together, they glanced over in time to see Donald racing up to them, with Mickey trailing behind. "There you two are!" the duck huffed, putting his feathered hands on his hips. "We had to wait for you."

Char narrowed her eyes, but said nothing, which Sora thought was a little strange; she had never had any issue with rebuffing Donald's jibes in the past. It probably had nothing to do with the halfhearted little smile that stole briefly across Mickey's face, either. Still, the Keybearer didn't point out Donald's unnatural haughtiness either. "Well, it would've been easier if you'd stayed," he said. "Fighting all those Heartless was a lot harder without you and…"

His voice trailed off, but Char's elbow harshly driving itself into his ribs would have silenced him anyway. Immediately, every trace of aggravation vanished from Donald, and his shoulders slumped with all the gracelessness of a deflating balloon. "Oh, Goofy…" he murmured, shaking his head.

"Yeah," Char sighed, folding her arms. Only at that moment did Sora realize that Donald's exaggerated annoyance had only been an attempt to cover up his grief.

Ashamed at himself for not understanding sooner – how long had he known Donald, after all? – he turned away, suddenly fighting back the newfound heat that stirred behind his eyes. Even now, after the adrenaline of battle had all but wiped out his sorrow, said sorrow came rushing back in full force, much in the way a river finally pushed back its restraints.

"Are you two okay?" Mickey asked, clearly trying to change the subject. Sora looked over and saw that even the King's eyes seemed a little bloodshot. It made sense; Goofy had been one of Mickey's most trusted friends and knights, after all.

The breath caught in the brunette's throat. _Had been,_he had to start referring to Goofy in the past tense now, didn't he?

"Yeah, we're fine," Char said, in a fairly steady voice. Sora couldn't hold back his surprise as he swung his head to face her. After all of this, after they had lost one of their companions, he could not fathom for the life of him how she could still remain rational, especially after she had almost cried over Goofy's body earlier.

Yet now, just like earlier, he swore he saw a hint of something brimming in those icy eyes.

"Are you two hurt at all?" the mouse gently pressed.

Char shrugged and glanced away; Sora heard her mumble "not physically," and suddenly he wanted to cry all over again.

"Hey, fellas!"

The sound of the voice none of them thought they'd ever hear again startled them all so badly that even Char had to actually grip one of the protruding crystals to keep herself upright. Sora whirled around just in time to see Goofy himself standing at the cavern entrance, waving and grinning, like he _hadn't_ just almost died not half an hour before.

"Goofy!" Donald and Mickey cried.

The knight had already run forward to meet them, and as he halted, he rubbed the back of his head. "Y'know, that really hurt."

"Aw, Goofy," the mouse laughed, leaping forward and embracing his friend.

Clearly, the force of the blow he had taken still affected him, because Goofy actually staggered back a ways. "Gawrsh, Your Majesty, I get bumped on the head all the time," he said, pointing at his head as he spoke.

Sora chuckled, more out of relief than anything else. He glanced over at Donald and Char to see their reactions. Char was still staring at the dog as though he had grown two extra heads instead of all but returning from the dead; the fingers that gripped the small outcrop of crystal didn't look like they would let up anytime soon, and her eyebrows had all but vanished into her bangs. He couldn't hold back the smile that spread across his face at how oddly _cute_ she looked right now, a thought that skittered across the surface of his consciousness without a bemused denial right on its tail.

On the other hand, Donald seemed to have recovered from his shock and was marching forward, staff at the ready. Goofy watched curiously, clearly not having any idea why his comrade would bring his weapon forward; Mickey, however, picked up on the mage's intent and drew back just long enough to say "Donald…" in a warning voice.

But it was too late; Donald swung his weapon back, much in the same way as a baseball bat, and struck Goofy's leg with all the force his short arms could muster, broom handle first. The pain ripped a yelp out of him and his hands flew to the injured area. "That hurt, too," he whimpered, giving Donald an imploring look that should have mollified him.

However, Donald only drew himself up with a long, drawn-out growl. Goofy covered his head, bracing himself for another blow, but the duck only huffed, as though nothing he could say would convey his irritation. "Don't you ever do that again!" he shouted, shaking his free fist at the dog.

Goofy only nodded rapidly with a few mutters of acquiescence. Sora exchanged a smile with Mickey before looking back at their companions. "We're just glad you're okay, Goofy," the Keybearer said.

Behind him, Char snorted, pushing off the crystal to come toward them; as she moved into his field of vision, Sora saw she had carefully wiped every trace of shock from her face in the interim between his picking up on that and now. "As much as I hate to agree with duck boy… yeah, I agree with duck boy. Don't _ever_ do that again."

Although her threat had no blades behind it – not at the moment, anyway – the low snarl that had embedded itself in her voice on the last part still coaxed a shiver out of Goofy. "Sorry, guys," he mumbled.

Donald rolled his eyes and continued berating his friend, while Mickey sidled up to join them. For some reason, Sora hung back a little, not wanting to interrupt the reunion of monarch and followers; their longtime friendship gave them more of a right to this than anything else. _Now I kind of know how Char feels whenever we go to a world and see someone we already met._

At the thought of Char, he found his gaze drawn back over to her. She was looking on, arms folded, with what might have been a smile quirking her lips upward. When she saw him watching her, though, her arms immediately dropped to her sides and she jerked her head away from the scene. Sora frowned, thought he saw one hand making its way into her jacket pocket, but decided not to think on it too much; probably just embarrassment at his having caught her smiling, after all.

He turned away and gazed out just beyond this brightly-lit cavern, where the Great Maw lay. Even from here, he could see the swarms of Heartless permeating the clearing and giving it the illusion of a trembling gray floor. In the past, Leon had taken Sora, Donald, and Goofy out patrolling in the stark valley, but they had never taken this route to get there; even when Sora and the others had made the perilous journey to Maleficent's castle, they had simply descended the scarps at the edge of the courtyard where they had just fought Demyx to reach her castle. This route was unfamiliar to Sora, but the towers of Maleficent's castle in the distance told him they stood close to old territory.

While he and his companions had sought the meaning to the DTD and fought their way through the Heartless on the ravine trail, the sun had abandoned its position at the apex of the sky and begun to sink. Although the rain clouds high above still had not released their burden, a tiny gap between the impregnable gray blanket told Sora that late afternoon was upon Hollow Bastion.

Thinking of all the events of today – visiting Twilight Town; the virtual world; learning Char's secrets and her connection to Organization XIII; almost losing Goofy and getting him back again – Sora found himself wavering a little on his feet. After all, he could barely remember a day when he had done so much fighting, except when navigating through the End of the World in his last journey.

A light touch on his shoulder made him turn. Char stood there, her fingers slightly hovering where they had just tapped him. "We going out there?" she asked brusquely.

Even though her tone seemed determined enough, Sora could see the very small, nigh undetectable tremor in her fingers. _She's scared, too._ The thought comforted him, if only for a moment. "Yeah," he answered. Before his desire to keep his limbs intact could remind him not to, he found himself reaching up and gently clenching her fingers. "It's just Heartless, though – nothing we haven't handled before."

Surprisingly – or maybe not so surprisingly; she had let him hug her in the past, after all, a testament to her unpredictability about things like this – Char only stiffened briefly at the contact before relaxing. "That's what I'm worried about," she murmured, so quietly he had to strain to hear.

"Char?" he asked, almost afraid to hear what she had to say. The connection between her and Organization XIII's leader returned to the forefront of his thoughts, and he realized she had a right to be nervous. If one Nobody had appeared to take them on, nothing stopped any of the other Organization members – more specifically, the ones who had grown up with Char and knew exactly how to strike her mental weak points – from joining the fight as well.

_That wouldn't be good… it's bad enough that all these Heartless are here. _Although it didn't help matters that the Organization was sending these Heartless here in the first place, for a reason they still didn't even know…

"Are you two ready?" Mickey's quiet inquiry made both teens look down. The mouse stood there with his wizard and knight behind him, golden Keyblade already summoned to his side. Sora had a brief moment to reflect on the irony that Mickey and Anxclof wielded the same color Keyblade before Donald spoke up.

"We're gonna have to go out there, aren't we?" the mage asked, although his eyes were on Char and Sora's twined fingers. He narrowed one eye in amusement, and Sora quickly dropped his hand from the redhead's, not daring to look over at her expression.

Heat burned in his cheeks, but the brunette still mustered up a reply. "If we want to help Hollow Bastion, yeah. Leon and the others are still fighting the Heartless out there," he gestured in the ravine trail's general direction, "so it's up to us."

Goofy shivered visibly. "Y'think we'll be okay?"

Mickey opened his mouth to say something, but strangely, it was Char who spoke up. "We'll be fine," she said. "We've still got plenty of healing items, and if an Organization member shows up, we can always ask them about Kairi and Riku." These last words, she directed at Sora.

The Keybearer blinked. "Oh yeah, I forgot about that." If anything, maybe the one who had kidnapped Kairi would show his face. The notion made anger strengthen Sora's heartbeat and fill his veins. When that guy showed up… he would make sure to give him both a piece of his mind and his Keyblade.

Resolute, he looked at his companions. "Let's go, guys."

* * *

The five of them raced from the cavern and out into the Great Maw, weapons at the ready. When they weren't immediately assaulted by the sword-wielding robots, however, they skidded to a confused stop.

"What's with them?" Sora murmured, and Mickey let out a sound of agreement.

Char glanced around warily, muscles tensed, hating not knowing why the masses of Heartless she had seen from the crystal-filled cave had come to such an eerie standstill. _Something tells me they're not just taking a coffee break,_ she thought wryly.

Something was wrong – if not wrong, then at least off.

Rows upon rows of them stood there, blade-arms lowered, with a new set of laser-like Heartless at their side. The lack of movement from the enemies that always seemed to be running about and attacking chilled her to the bone and traced a shudder up her spine.

"What's going on?" Donald hissed, clearly as apprehensive as the rest of them.

Char glanced over, only to whip her head back around when Goofy suddenly shouted, "Hey!" and pointed upward. She followed his gaze to the very top of the cliff face, wondering what had distracted him – and froze.

For the vestiges of the darkness that had just coalesced atop the precipice had vanished, to reveal a dark-clad, hooded figure. One gloved hand reached up and almost sinuously plucked away the hood, and the face that appeared effectively dashed all of Char's hopes of an easy victory.

Dark gray hair swayed in the wind as the Nobody looked at them below, and preternatural amber eyes that were visible even against the cloudy sky surveyed them in detached amusement.

_Xemnas._

"It's the guy who's _not_ Ansem!" Donald shouted.

"You mean his Nobody," Char corrected automatically, not taking her glower off the man on the cliff top. "That, my friends, is the Organization leader himself. Xehanort's Nobody. Xemnas."

She hadn't meant to sound dramatic – her clenched teeth would ruin that anyway – but Mickey nonetheless augmented it with a gasp. "Now I remember where I met Xehanort! I was visiting Ansem the Wise for advice on the gates that had recently started appearing… the doors that the Heartless were using to get from world to world. Ansem was afraid his research had caused everything. Then Xehanort came in, begging to carry out an experiment on the heart of all worlds. Ansem stopped him just in time."

"But he still _did_ carry it out," Char spat. "As his Nobody, at least."

Maybe it was her hatred-enhanced senses playing tricks on her, but she swore she saw Xemnas' lips curl upward in a smirk. _Excellently done, Charisa,_ she could almost hear him say, _a brilliant deduction indeed._

Then, in a swirl of darkness, Xemnas had turned and stalked off, moving downward. Char followed his form with narrowed blue eyes, keeping her gaze on the apex of the cliff even after he disappeared farther below.

"He must be headed for the Dark Depths," Mickey said, tightening his grip on his Keyblade. "Let's go!" Without waiting for a response, he charged ahead, leaping from cliff side to cliff side to get around all the Heartless. Sunlight drifted in briefly from a gap in the clouds above, bathing his crimson-bedizened form in light and causing his Keyblade to cast a glare, before the clouds closed up again and Mickey vanished behind the crowd of gray and gold.

Evading the Heartless had been a clever move on Mickey's part. Gods only knew where Xemnas could vanish to if they wasted time taking out all these Heartless. "C'mon," Char called to the others instinctively, without waiting for Sora's confirmation. She caught Donald and Goofy exchanging skeptical glances, but refused to let them sting her pride.

If Sora noticed the two Disney residents' doubt in her display of leadership, though, he chose not to say anything about it. He just nodded, brows drawing down over his eyes in determination, and swung his Keyblade forward. "Got it!"

He made as if to take his place at the front of the group, only to halt in his tracks with a cry of surprise. As if on some kind of inaudible signal, the Heartless had jolted up from their stillness and moved to surround them; the sound of steel clanking was almost deafening.

Like so many times before, the four of them moved to stand back to back, weapons at the ready. As she shifted the hilt of one sword in her hands, Char felt a coil of actual dread begin to twitch in her gut. She tried to tell herself she had faced worse – fighting her way through a Heartless-filled Disney Castle sans Keybearer came to mind – and yet the nausea-inducing fear would not leave.

She understood the reasons behind it. Never before had she seen so many of them congregated in one place; the way she could feel Goofy's elbow trembling against her back from where he had bent his arm to accommodate his shield's weight told her that none of the others had, either. That thought terrified her more than anything else: that even the trio who had faced down the End of the World, even the veterans of battle, felt fear at this sight. Not even craning her neck to see over the hordes of Heartless before them gave her any view of the Dark Depths beyond, a fact that sent panic thrumming through her veins.

On Char's other side, Sora shivered, but he didn't let any trepidation show in his voice. "Move it!" he shouted at the rows and rows of Heartless.

"We can't let Xemnas get away!" Donald agreed, shaking his staff angrily.

"Right," Char muttered. Tamping down her fear, she risked a glance at the others. Sora, too, seemed to have had the same idea; he had already turned his head to look over his shoulder, and their eyes met for an instant.

"Hey," Goofy said, making them both look over. As one, he and Donald gave them thumbs-ups, and although even their smiles appeared strained, Char relaxed nonetheless. _We'll be okay,_ she told herself with a firm nod that was more for herself than her allies. The thought hadn't been heard by the others, but she swore she heard Donald give a "Yeah!" before the duck and dog split up, racing toward separate sections of the swarm, which had already leaped up to meet them.

As lightning flashes and grunts of effort permeated the air, Char spared Sora one last glance. He was already looking at her, and even though it was only for an instant, she immediately picked up on the desperation in his eyes.

_Please tell me we're going to get through this,_ the expression seemed to plead, and she felt every ounce of fear in her body drain out.

She had faced down an Organization member alone and lived; the least she could do was at least put up a strong front for his sake. For the boy who always had to don a mask of blithe determination, even when the very notion exhausted him.

She simply lifted one hand, uncoiled two fingers from the hilt of her sword, and saluted him with it.

Turning, she faced down the Heartless before her, readied her blades, and charged.

Sora found a grin spreading across his face, then whirled around and did the same.

* * *

Very quickly, the battle turned into an all-out melee. Into the sound of steel clashing repeatedly with steel; multiple pink hearts flying up in all directions as their holders fell; bright light flashing every time Sora managed to pin down one of the laser Heartless and control its deadly ray; the feeling of soreness beginning to build up in overworked muscles; already-formed bruises aching; sparks of magic shooting out where Donald, and occasionally Sora's, spells connected.

Above all, though, the knowledge of their king waiting just beyond – and, more than likely, taking on their main adversary all alone – hovered at the forefront of every exhausted mind and drove them onward in spite of their fatigue.

Char barely dodged one of the robot's swords, dancing back and practically into another Heartless' onslaught. She whirled to counterstrike; sweat dripped into her eyes and all but blinded her, but she still managed to attack in the right direction, as evidenced by the rather satisfying feeling of armor yielding to the pressure of her blades. She had a split second to flick her bangs out of her face and evacuate the sweat from her vision, to see her efforts had succeeded, before the Heartless she had been trying to evade landed against the small of her back.

Thankfully, its blade had remained at its side, so she avoided being impaled; nonetheless, it still served to piss her off. A growl of annoyance tore itself out of her as she lashed out with both swords. Struck by a sudden idea, she spun in a circle, blades still outstretched. The shockwaves created by the weapons colliding with every Heartless surrounding her made her arms tremble and threatened to make her drop her swords, but fortunately, she managed to maintain her grip.

Leaping back, she assessed the damage she had just done. Her assault hadn't done much beside make her a little dizzy – the Heartless still dashed toward her without a sign of slowing up – but at least she had eradicated the ones in the immediate area.

The one at the forefront of the pack reached her first and struck out with its blade, which she barely managed to block with one of hers. The free sword went into goring the robot in the middle. It stumbled backward, into one of its comrades, then suddenly jerked upward before vanishing.

Confused, Char looked up, just in time to see Goofy standing there, shield at the ready. A few shallow injuries littered his body, but some were remnants from the battle with Demyx. The moment she returned the dog's encouraging smile, he suddenly yelped and swung his weapon forward, free arm flying over his eyes as he looked away. The gesture proved a valid one, as an instant later, multiple Heartless slammed into his shield.

Recognizing her chance, Char raced forward, blades out in front, to help him. In spite of her muscles screaming in protest, multiple robots still yielded to her attack, and before long she had carved a swath forward. The empty space she left behind her was quickly filled again, but she forced herself to ignore that for now and instead slashed the crowd of robots that now lay slumped against Goofy's shield.

They vanished, their heart-shaped burdens floating up into the cloudy sky. Char took that moment to shout, "Are you okay?"

Goofy nodded hastily, already launching himself back into battle. He managed to mow down an entire column of Heartless before turning back to her. "Uh, what about you?"

"Fine," she called back – grunted, really, because three of them had chosen that moment to jump on her. One of them sliced shallowly into her upper arm with its blade, tearing the fabric of her sleeve. Snarling, she shook it off, laying into it with both swords when it fell on its back on the ground.

"There's no end to these things!" she finally screamed, once she had destroyed all of her assailants.

More nods came from the knight's direction, even as he pushed one of the robots into the ground with the edge of his shield. Apparently it was sharper than it appeared, because the Heartless' squirming soon stopped as it exploded.

"Where are Sora and Donald?" Char asked, inwardly shivering at the strange ruthlessness of Goofy's attack. She parried a Heartless' blow and slammed the hilt of one sword into its face when it failed to provide a counterattack, which surprisingly finished it off.

Goofy shrugged. "Further up, I think," he replied, pointing vaguely back toward the crystal fissure. Suddenly, he squealed again, bringing up his shield to block an attacking enemy. Char could just see his wide eyes over the top of his shield before he swung it to the side; as the Heartless had practically attacked itself to the brightly-colored weapon, it fell in the same direction, right into Char's blades.

She wiped it out with a few well-placed blows before shouting a hasty thanks in Goofy's direction and beginning to work her way up in the horde, back toward the cavern. The tiniest fear for the knight's safety flared in her heart before her common sense kicked in and lit it out; Goofy could fend for himself, head injury notwithstanding. His previous comment about getting bumped on the head all the time came into her mind, and she heard herself snort aloud at the memory, amused despite the situation. _Somehow that doesn't surprise me at all._

Shaking the feeling off, Char narrowed her eyes against the moving mass of gray that had become her world; even the rain-heavy clouds were gray. Gray, gray, gray. Still, she reasoned, that should make it relatively easy to pick out the spiky brown head – or snowy white feathers; she did not care which – she sought.

Not so shockingly, the former appeared first. Distracted by her search for her other two friends as she was, the sight of a distinctively gold shape whipping out in front of her startled her badly. She staggered back, her eyes twinging at the abrupt change in scenery, but recovered long enough to strike it down. Once the laser Heartless had been taken out, she spotted a metallic-blue shape moving just beyond.

_The Photon Debugger,_ she thought, and started forward again with new fervor.

"Sora!" she called before she could stop herself. That, predictably, turned out to be a mistake, as the rows of Heartless in front of her turned and lunged as one. However, what felt like ages of dealing with these creatures facilitated her effectively disposing of them; even though the empty space she left in her wake was rapidly filled by more Heartless, she ignored them in favor of proceeding toward that glimmer of blue at a steady pace.

She batted two Heartless on either side of her away with her blades and, at last, saw Sora. His form was currently cloaked in bright orange as he leaped up high in the air and blazed down again, ripping through at least ten Heartless in seconds before turning to another group and repeating the move.

Although he had mastered the attack on the way to Ansem's study, Char still blinked. _Guess I shouldn't be surprised that he's doing so well, but still… _He still looked relatively fresh, while soreness permeated her body so deeply that she was finding difficulty just in standing still.

When he ran out of the energy necessary to perform the fiery onslaught, Sora lighted down on the ground and glanced over, presumably to find more Heartless to take out, only for his eyes to widen. "Char!"

Said redhead tried to push aside the warmth that simmered inside her at the pure happiness in his voice as he said her name. "Hey, Key-boy," she greeted. Due to a robot suddenly deciding it had to slice her open, though, the words turned into a grunt of exertion as she blocked its blade. "Where's Donald?"

Sora shrugged, getting into his battle stance. "With Goofy, I guess."

Char shook her head. "No," she muttered around clenched teeth, "no, he's not. I guess he's fine, though."

Another shrug served as the Keybearer's answer, though the hesitation in the seemingly-careless gesture suggested she had given him something new to think about. "Yeah. Hey," he suddenly said, eyes on the Heartless that still had its blade against both of Char's, "I've got this. Hold it still?"

Char nodded, muttering a "hurry up" around clenched teeth at her tired arms beginning to shake under the weight of the Heartless' heavy sword. Dryly, she reflected that she really must be fading fast, if just one of them exhausted her like this.

An instant later, however, all of that fatigue flew out of her mind as a bright orange, glowing form shot past not six inches from her face. Thankfully, she managed not to fall completely onto her back in her surprise, but she did stumble back.

She blinked a couple of times, the visual residue of Sora's attack sending spots across her vision. "A warning would have been nice!" she roared, running back into the fray beside him.

Infuriatingly, the brunette only laughed in response.

Together, they swept through the Heartless in their path. Mostly, Char drew them together, and both teens took turns finishing their enemies off. At some point – maybe when she was knocking one Heartless away, in order to properly turn her attention to a small group that was advancing on her – it hit her that only a few weeks ago, she would have been overwhelmed by so many foes piling in at once. Only a few weeks ago, multiple enemies had presented such a huge issue for her that practically the moment the group had stepped into a battle at Hollow Bastion, she had had so much trouble. Yet now, perhaps because of her new strength and commitment to helping Sora win his battles, she had relatively little qualms with defending herself against so many Heartless at once.

Once the mass of adversaries had thinned out a bit, Char voiced as much to Sora. "You know," she said, slashing into a robot's steely hide and whirling to rend it with the other sword when it staggered, "when this whole thing started, I would've gotten my ass kicked in this battle."

Sora tilted his head at her over his shoulder. "Oh yeah," he said with a blink, "you weren't that good against multiple enemies. I remember that." He leaped up into the air, using the herculean lower body strength that constant practice with the Valor Form had provided him, to catch one of the laser Heartless and drag it down in midair. The next instant, bright light rent the air, and a startled yelp tore out of Char as she was forced to duck down to avoid the resulting blast.

When the light cleared, she dared to look up. Most of the Heartless around them had been cleared, leaving a streak of blue in the mass of gray-and-gold, and Sora was tossing the laser-firing machine out into the air. With a well-aimed Fira, he had finished it off.

He turned back to her; for some reason an idiotic grin had plastered itself on his face after his display of power, but that smile faded immediately at her annoyed expression. "Uh…" he began.

But Char cut his impending apology off with a muttered, "Save it," before turning and charging back into the fray. Already, the Heartless had thinned out considerably, and she found she had to expend less effort on keeping all of their blades off her at once. _Good; we're almost done here, so we can go find Xemnas. The last thing we need is for that bastard to get away. _Mickey was probably distracting the Nobody, yes, but that would only last for so long. Char wondered if the mouse had managed to detain the Organization leader with combat or with words – more than likely the latter, because even in the old days it had been just like Xehanort to –

_No. _She suddenly had to fight to breathe around a lump in her throat. _Xehanort is dead, remember? Him and Braig, and Dilan, Even, Aeleus, and –_

Dammit, but she couldn't even think the last name anymore.

Someone was shouting her name, she abruptly realized. Jerkily, she looked around for the source of the voice; before long, she found the bright white feathers and blue ensemble. At the moment, the duck was successfully keeping the Heartless around him at bay, casting well-aimed spells that managed to strike down several of them at a time, but his dark eyes were still fixed rather expectantly on her. The frown on his beak all but nullified the irony of his seeking her out, and not Sora or Goofy.

"Hey, duck boy," she shouted, not knowing whether or not to approach him to help. He would probably need it eventually, but he definitely would not accept her suddenly barging in the middle of his fight. Turning around brought her her answer to that quandary, as doing so brought her forehead practically pressed against that of a robot Heartless. An indignant hiss issued out of her into the heavy air as she sliced down with every ounce of strength she had left. Her opponent convulsed briefly in a caricature of death throes before disappearing, and she had to blink against the bright light of the pink heart that floated out of it and up to Kingdom Hearts.

"I think we're almost there!" This was Sora, who had apparently fought his way around the perimeter of the valley and defeated most of the Heartless hiding near the cliff walls. Looking around, Char realized he was right; the multitude that had seemed so daunting half an hour ago had shrunk down to all but nothing, as evidenced by the fact that the blue of Hollow Bastion's rock now usurped the gray that had been prevalent earlier.

She took that moment of respite to see who all had congregated here. Sora, Donald, and herself. Where had Goofy gone off to? In spite of her prior assessment that he could take care of himself, worry still spiked her heartbeat, as she could still recall all too vividly her oft-experienced grief at thinking he had died.

Then she spotted the knight's familiar orange-clad form weaving his way through the crowd, looking a little more scraped up than when they had fought side by side, but still full of energy. "Hey, fellas!" he called to them. Even from here, Char could see him set his shoulders and squint determinedly, just before his face all but vanished behind his shield and he dashed forward, effectively destroying the enemies in his path with one charge.

Sora laughed, while Donald let out a "hmph" and folded his arms across his chest. "You'd think almost dying would slow him down a little," he grumbled.

"That's Goofy for ya," the Keybearer chortled. Although he put up a good façade of amusement, Char picked up on the relief in his voice.

"You sound jealous, Donald," she commented.

"Jealous?" Donald snorted. "Why would I be jealous of that big palooka?"

At this point, Goofy had joined them and heard that last comment. "Gawrsh, Donald, you don't have to be mean about it," he mumbled, lowering his shield and rubbing his nose with one finger.

While Donald spluttered furiously and tried to amend his previous comment, Char exchanged a glance with Sora. He gave her a smile that was apparently supposed to encourage her, but she could practically see pieces of his mask cracking free and crashing down. She couldn't blame him for feeling that way, like every part of everything he had known was crumbling apart; she knew that particular sensation all too well. Saïx all but telling Sora that Riku had succumbed to darkness; learning their enemy wasn't who they thought he was; finding one of the people he and his friends sought, but not his best friend… and above all, Char herself telling Sora about Roxas, about his having known – for all intents and purposes, having _been_ – one of the very monsters they were supposed to fight.

Spread out, these revelations might have had less of a negative impact on Sora's resolve. Thrown together into one day, they all but threw stones at it, shattering its glass surface a tiny bit at a time.

For that – she would have loved to think it was for nothing else, but she was done deluding herself and she knew it – Char made one sword vanish so she had a free hand and recreated the gesture she had made back in Ansem's study.

To his credit, Sora only spent about half a second staring down at her hand on his before glancing up at her again. She could only give him what she hoped was a gently calming look and pray he took the hint.

After all, she wanted to get a move on as much as he did.

He gave her a nod and a little smile before moving away. "Let's go take down a Nobody, guys."

Donald and Goofy nodded, hefting their weapons closer to their side. Exhaustion may have permeated their every movement earlier, but the promise of fighting alongside their king – maybe even of ending this arduous series of journeys – wiped every trace of that exhaustion from them, leaving only determination.

Sora gave them a thumbs-up and a grin before turning and starting toward the Dark Depths at a steady run. Char could only perfunctorily take her place at the back of the group, mentally whisper for the other sword to reappear.

_You're being stupid. This is _nothing_ to be worried about,_ she told herself firmly. And yet the feeling of something hollow yawning in her chest persisted.

Bemusement – and, gods damn her, _worry_ – that Sora hadn't returned her hold.

The name _Kairi_ darted across Char's mind then, with all the infamously fear-invoking tendency of a wild animal racing through the shadows. And it had much the same effect on Char; all of her well-buried fear about Sora never falling out of love with Kairi rose immediately to the forefront of her mind and made her clutch more desperately at the Oathkeeper Keychain in her pocket than ever.

She shook it off and refocused on the journey ahead. Her dedication to him and his cause still terrified her, in all honesty; having fought and almost died for him more than once didn't change that.

But it was all she had right now, and she would follow it.

* * *

Not too much to say here, except I feel like my writing style's getting progressively worse. D:

Review?


	61. Chapter LXI

Hey guys!

We're going to have a double update special this time, so put on some headphones and get comfortable. The real awesome happens at the end of next chapter; but the exposition and plottiness in this chap kind of leads up to that.

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** Don't own KH.

* * *

Sora sent a silent thanks up to whatever deity happened to be watching over them right now that Mickey had somehow managed to keep Xemnas busy while they had been fighting. The mouse stood before them with his Keyblade at the ready, and even from behind, Sora could see Mickey's tensed shoulders. Clearly, the king was prepared for Xemnas to do anything. Right now, though, the Organization leader only stood there, gazing out at the grotesque mossy skulls that surrounded Maleficent's castle and letting the paltry breeze stir his cloak and gray hair.

Appraising Xemnas, Sora narrowed his eyes and unconsciously clenched his fingers tighter around his Keyblade. Char's words from earlier about interrogating Xemnas on Riku and Kairi's whereabouts floated back into the brunette's mind, and he felt his heartbeat kick up with the force of how powerfully he wanted to know the answer. How badly he needed to know that his friends were still all right, that he still had something to fight for. Gods only knew where Kairi had disappeared to after that Organization member had kidnapped her in Twilight Town; and Riku…

_Don't be so reckless. Do you want to end up like Riku? _

"Your Majesty!" Donald cried as they ran up.

At once, Mickey whirled around to face them. "Everyone!" he said, eyes wide.

"Sorry we're late," Char said, stopping next to Goofy. "Those Heartless all jumped us right after we left." Even though she clearly addressed Mickey, her glower had honed in right on Xemnas. Sora recalled what she had said about the Organization sending Heartless into the worlds, and guessed she was even more furious at Xemnas for having sent all those robots to attack at once.

"None of you are hurt, are you?" Mickey's dark eyes were filled with concern.

"No." Donald shook his head and folded his arms. "It was a huge pain, though."

The king gave them a single, relieved nod, before the affection faded out of his countenance and he turned back to Xemnas. "Xehanort," he growled.

In response, the Nobody only chuckled, a low, oozing sound that made Sora shudder. "How long has it been since I abandoned that name?" he murmured.

"A little over a year, but who's counting?" Char hissed.

Sora glanced over at her, startled; he knew she didn't exactly like the Organization very much, but never before had he picked up so much pure _venom_ in her voice. Then again, he had never exactly discussed the Organization in detail with her. Now that he knew her past with them, her anger toward them was a fitting reaction, after everything they had done.

Sora would have liked to think he wouldn't have felt the same, that his loyalty to his friends would keep him from hating them, but memories of his last journey and fighting Riku testified as to otherwise. He remembered feeling bemused and horrified and desperate to just get his best friend back from the vast gulf that had divided them and their means; remembered thinking that if he could just get Riku to work with him and Donald and Goofy, then they could get Kairi back together and go home.

But then Xehanort's Heartless had appeared, and made Sora realize this was so much bigger than just him and his two best friends.

Char had probably felt betrayed as well, and had a similar, jarring epiphany regarding her fellow apprentices when they had begun sending Heartless to the worlds. Sora fought back a wince; when he thought of it that way, it was no wonder she had been so reluctant to get close to him at first.

Xemnas actually deigned to turn and face them at the sound of Char's voice, a tiny smile settling on his face as he did so. "Charisa," he greeted in an almost cordial tone. "An unexpected pleasure, indeed."

"Oh, shut up," Char spat, pointing one sword at him. "Don't give me that 'unexpected pleasure' crap when you _know_ what all you've taken from me. From _us,"_ she added pointedly, glancing over at Sora and the others.

Xemnas shook his head reprovingly. "'Us?' Never in my wildest dreams did I believe you would include yourself with the Keyblade wielder." His amber eyes settled on Sora, and the brunette forced himself to meet those gleaming orbs with a defiant glare of his own.

"Yeah, well, your dreams don't exactly reach very far, now do they?" Char lowered her sword, narrowing her eyes until they were little more than glittering ice-blue slits. "I promised someone I would stay with Sora."

Although she sounded determined enough, her voice trembled a little on the last part, almost as if she hesitated to say even this much. Sora had an instant to wonder why she would hesitate – she had basically told them everything they needed to know back in Ansem's study, after all – but then she shook her head and fixed a newly furious stare back on Xemnas. "Anyway, that's not the point. You guys have two of Sora's friends, don't you?"

Confused as Char's tentativeness had made him, her bringing up Riku and Kairi made Sora snap back to reality at once: their true enemy stood before them, more than likely with all the knowledge he would need to save his two closest friends. "Yeah," he said belligerently, summoning the Photon Debugger with a flash of light. "Where's Kairi? And where's Riku?"

Xemnas cocked his head to the side, one corner of his lips lifting upward in a mocking smile. "I know nothing of any Kairi," he replied.

"What…?" Sora got into his battle stance, fully ready to strike out. Clearly, the Nobody was lying. "Don't lie!" he shouted, but even with the knee-jerk false bravado controlling his every move he could hear himself falter. Hayner had _told_ him a guy in a black cloak had taken Kairi from Twilight Town; surely there was no other place for him to take her but to the Organization's stronghold…?

_Not a very organized Organization,_ he remembered scoffing back in Twilight Town, and suppressed a shiver when he realized that might be more accurate than he had first assumed.

As if Sora had never spoken, Xemnas continued, with that invisible puppeteer now moving to the other side of his face to complete his smirk. "As for Riku… Perhaps you should ask your King? Or maybe," he added suddenly, "the girl you seem to hold so dear?" His eyes locked right on Char as he spoke.

The response from both parties came almost instantaneously. Sora's eyes widened, and the arms that held his Keyblade lowered, making the Photon Debugger sag and drag against the blue dirt, before his concentration disappeared completely and the Keyblade with it; Char's eyebrows jumped before knitting together above icy eyes that had lost their glare, replaced only by pure fear that made her all but drop her swords.

_Don't let him get to you, it's just a trick,_ Sora tried to tell himself. The words should have succeeded in palliating his fears and calming his roaring heartbeat – after all, Roxas' memories from the Organization told him of Xemnas' manipulative personality – but thinking of his other self having known and worked with this monster induced more nausea in him than anything else.

That, and Char's reaction revealed the truth more than words ever could have.

He glanced fearfully from her to Mickey and back again, only to give a start as the mouse suddenly shouted "Stop!" and induced a squawk of surprise from Donald. The brunette's surprise came just as much from the mouse's outburst as Donald's; in the heat of things, he had all but forgotten Donald and Goofy were still here.

However, these thoughts all but petered off when he followed Mickey's now-moving form and watched him barrel into the dark portal Xemnas had just summoned.

"Sora!" Goofy cried. "Hurry and jump –"

But the dog's words came too late; the swirling conglomeration of black and purple tendrils had vanished, taking both Nobody and monarch with it.

"…in," the knight finished pathetically.

Sora could only stare at where Xemnas had just stood, reaching out lamely with one hand as if Roxas would suddenly take over and open another door for them to follow. For a moment – just that tiny, infinitesimal sliver of an instant – the Keybearer allowed his desperation to take over his better judgment and strain for his Nobody's presence, for the power of the very adversary they were supposed to defeat.

Predictably, it didn't work.

"He's gone…" the Keybearer whispered, feeling something inside him break. Immediately, he felt himself try to cheer himself up – this wasn't exactly the last chance he would ever get to confront the jerk who had started all of this, after all – but that, too, sadly failed.

Maybe that was what knocked Sora's legs out from under him, forced him to the ground and pushed blurriness into his vision and made him pound his fist against the dirt like a child robbed of their favorite toy. Either way, the shadow of a tantrum ebbed when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

He looked up, fist still hanging in midair, half expecting Char to be standing there with her palm pushed against his shoulder, even though this hand was much too large to be hers and wore full white gloves instead of half-gloved green. Goofy stared down at him, dark eyes shadowed with sympathy and pain for his friend. In the background, Char stood numbly, eyes fixed on the ground.

"Sora, Goofy…" Donald murmured. He seemed to have forgotten that Xemnas had accused Char of keeping still more secrets – something that he normally would have instantly jumped on and analyzed endlessly – in his sorrow.

Char didn't know whether to be grateful or terrified.

She continued to stare at the ground, as if she could find her salvation and not condemnation in the blue dirt whose shade so resembled Sora's eyes. Xemnas' words had caught her badly off guard; she hadn't thought that he would have known about Riku's little condition. The only way she could think of that Xemnas would already know was if Axel had somehow gone and told him about it. He might have realized what was going on when Riku had given Number VIII Namine to look after, as the silver-haired teen had told Char he would do before passing her off to Sora.

Char didn't think Axel carried that much loyalty to the Superior anymore, though, if he ever had. That had sputtered to a hasty stop when Xemnas had allowed Roxas to reunite with Sora.

_So how…? _

She dared look up, past the trio who currently stood huddled together in grief; even Donald had pushed aside any pretense of prickliness to stand on Sora's other side. Beyond that, though…

Surprise – and suspicious bemusement – seized her then, and made her step forward. "Guys, look," she said, pointing out to the clearing surrounding Maleficent's castle.

None of them turned in response to her words; she counted that as a blessing, considering the accusation, accompanied in Sora's case by sorrow, that she would likely find on their faces. However, they did stand as one, Goofy's hand sliding off Sora's shoulder in the process.

Sora surveyed the newfound emptiness around Maleficent's castle; before, Heartless and Nobodies had swarmed the valley and made it resemble little more than a trembling gray-and-white mass. Now, they had all vanished. The silence was a bit unnerving, really. Maybe Leon and the others had succeeded in wiping out the enemies in their town, but somehow, Sora couldn't believe that.

"What's goin' on?" Donald spoke what they all were thinking.

Coming up to stand beside them, Char shrugged helplessly.

"Way to fall right into their trap."

The arrogant masculine voice sounding from behind them made them all turn. Standing there, leaning against the cliff wall with his arms crossed, the very image of blasé, stood Axel, the man who, in another time, had been one of Roxas' best friends. Although his expression remained carefully neutral, his voice was filled with scathing, sarcastic approval.

"Especially you, Char," he continued, pushing off the rock face and striding toward them, an action that had the others bringing out their weapons in an instant. "I thought for sure you'd at least be smart enough to have figured it out."

"Figured what out?" Char asked, before remembering that was exactly what he had expected her to say and letting out a soft growl.

Axel sighed and shook his head in rebuke. "C'mon, this whole thing was set up by Organization XIII. Xemnas is using you –" here he fluttered four of his fingers at the group – "to destroy the Heartless. That's his big master plan."

"And why should we believe you?" Donald snarled.

That earned him an eye roll from the Flurry of Dancing Flames. "What could I possibly have to gain from lying to you?" he queried.

The duck opened his mouth, then closed it, as if realizing he was outmatched. With a grumble, he turned away, arms folded in a way that made the broom staff stick out from his chest.

Axel gave a slightly gratified nod before looking back to Sora. Those acid green eyes locked on his face, and the brunette fought back a shiver at how achingly _familiar_ that gaze was. So many memories rushed into his mind at just seeing the man's face, and suddenly, Sora wasn't in Hollow Bastion, facing the possibility of never seeing his friends again. Suddenly, he was in a bright white castle, laughing and shoving Axel's shoulder; suddenly, he was at the top of Twilight Town's clock tower, eating sea-salt ice cream and reading the stick before throwing it away with vocal disappointment; suddenly, he was beating back Heartless with Axel and Anxclof at his side, smiling and making jokes at their fellow Nobodies' expense.

Suddenly, he was everywhere at once, and yet the next time he blinked, he was Sora again: Sora the savior, Sora the hero, Sora the breaking boy.

He realized, belatedly, that he could see many emotions flashing through Axel's face. Affection, anger, bitterness; but above all an aching longing so powerful that it seemed to stretch its fingers through the dirt and move from heartless being to human and permeate Sora from the inside out.

An instant later, though, Axel broke the spell by tearing his gaze away and moving past them. "But don't get me wrong," he said, turning as he finished speaking and smirking at the way he had fully captured the group's attention – especially Char, who had her brows furrowed not in horror now, but in thought. "It's not like the Organization wants to get rid of the Heartless."

"Uh, so what _do_ they want to do?" Goofy asked, scratching his head with his free hand.

_Good question,_ Sora thought, now more confused than ever. Char had already told him the Organization was sending Heartless into the worlds; what Axel was saying now turned every possible theory on its head. Sora had to laugh inwardly then, because the thought of theories was so similar to what probably ran through Char's mind right now; however, the amusement went away almost as quickly as it had come. If the Nobodies didn't want the Heartless gone, then what _did_ they want?

Axel sighed. "Man, you're slow." He pointed to the Photon Debugger, which was still clenched in Sora's hands; Donald and Goofy followed his gaze, while Char continued to stare at Axel. "Every Heartless slain with that Keyblade releases a captive heart. That is what the Organization is after."

"What they're after?" Char murmured, slowly, digesting. Axel said nothing, only appraised her with an anticipatory air. Sure enough, within moments, a strangled gasp wrenched itself free from her, and her hand actually flew over her mouth with the force of her shock.

_They're using us to feed Kingdom Hearts,_ she thought, the only words that even her mind could squeeze out around the weight of panic that had occupied it. _That's why they've been sending all these Heartless out. They wanted Sora to kill them so we could help the process along. We've been playing into their hands the whole time._

"Char?" Sora asked, fear creeping into him at how pale she had gotten.

"I guess she's figured it out." Axel smirked. "Glad there's something else Ansem didn't tell you about, huh?"

That roused her; she jolted, let the hand over her mouth drop back to her side, glared at Axel. "That's a lie," she protested, though even now, the venom sounded more than a little forced. Frankly, it didn't surprise her that Ansem had already surmised the Organization's plans; he had seemed to know just about everything else to know about the Nobodies.

What surprised her was how much the fact of his withheld knowledge _hurt,_ even more than seeing the virtual world he had developed had.

"So what _are_ they going to do with the hearts?" Donald growled at Char.

She glanced over at the three of them, from duck to dog to boy. Impatient expectation; nervous curiosity; fear-filled dread. And irritatingly enough, just like always, Sora's hurt the most.

Suddenly unable to speak through the choked feeling in her throat, she only turned away, hearing Sora's startled murmur and Axel's chuckle. "Guess you're just going to have to find out for yourself, aren't you?"

Sora swerved around to glare at the Nobody; at that moment, though, something hit him with the force of a Heartless' talons. Fiery red hair, bright green eyes, teardrop tattoos…

He wanted to smack himself then, for letting Roxas' nostalgia cloud his own memories; because this man was exactly as Hayner had described him.

"You… you're the one who kidnapped Kairi!" Sora accused.

"Bingo," Axel purred. "The name's Axel. Got it memorized?"

Sora had to remind himself that the tall man probably didn't realize his name was more familiar than the brunette would have liked. Instead, he chose to renew his glower. "Where _is_ Kairi?" he demanded.

Unexpectedly, the smug look dropped completely from Axel's face. Normally Sora would have welcomed that, except for the lack of verbal response that came with it.

At the sight of the usually-confident Nobody scratching his head and staring hesitantly at the ground – almost as if, he realized with a thrill of dread, he was trying to think of how best to word his answer – something broke inside Sora. Perhaps his pride, perhaps his strength; he only knew he just wanted his best friend back. "Please," he begged, "just _tell_ me."

Behind him, Donald and Goofy exchanged a helpless glance. Char could only stare at the boy in front of her, listen to the raw despair in his voice, and fight back the urge to touch the Oathkeeper's Keychain still in her pocket. Suddenly, though, the desire wasn't born of jealousy or vexation; now, she only wanted to fling it at him, shake the stupid smiley-faced star charm in his face. Show him that Kairi was still here, if only spiritually.

Show him that he could still fight for the girl he loved.

The thought ushered in a rush of more agony than before – more than watching her friends die; more than being sympathetic toward Riku and Namine; more than finding out Ansem hadn't told her, his most trusted apprentice, everything; more than realizing the Organization's ultimate goal.

And right then and there, even though no one was watching, she had to crook her wrist over her eyes, pretend to be pinching the bridge of her nose, to hide the infuriating, abrupt, completely _justified_ tears beginning to pile up at the back of her eyes.

Axel put his hands on his hips. Sighed, looked up at the sky, lowered his eyes again. "Look," he said, "about Kairi… I'm sorry. I was going to keep her safe, but then Saïx –"

"Axel!"

Immediately, Number VIII gave a start. "Uh-oh; there he is," he hissed, and a dark portal opened beneath him and swallowed him up.

Sora barreled forward heedlessly, but was immediately blocked by the newcomer's black-clad arm. Long blue hair swung as the Organization member from Twilight Town turned his head, fixing feral ochre eyes on them. "We'll ensure he receives the maximum punishment," he said.

"I don't care about any of that!" Sora cried, and Char's heart broke a little more at how he didn't even try to put up a determined front for his foe. "Just let me into the realm of darkness, okay?"

Saïx actually pivoted fully around at Sora's words. "If it's Kairi you're worried about," he said, spreading his arms with a flicker of a smile, "don't. We're taking very good care of her."

"Are you, really?" Donald muttered, but a look from Goofy silenced him.

Sora stared at the blue-haired man, breathing a little hard from the speed of his racing heartbeat. "Take me to her," he begged. "I need to see that she's okay."

Char's mind made a pitiful attempt at chalking the longing in his voice up to his strong friendship with Kairi before sputtering out and giving in to despondence.

Fine blue eyebrows went up over golden eyes. "Is she that important to you?"

"Of course she is!" Sora said, and the look on his face made Char press her wrist even harder over her streaming eyes. "She's one of my best friends!"

"Then show me how much," Saïx said without batting an eye.

Something inside Char twisted then, because she had had quite a similar thought earlier on board the Gummi ship. Briefly, the bitter irony of her thinking the same as Saïx – the man who, if she thought about it, was her possible Nobody's replacement in the Organization – moved across what rational thought hadn't been torn apart by grief.

Sora blinked. Looked down at the ground, then back up at Saïx. Even though Char stood a ways away from him, she swore she heard him let out a soft sigh.

Then he knelt down on his hands and knees in front of the blue-haired bastard.

"Sora!" Donald and Goofy cried simultaneously.

"The hell do you think you're…?" Char managed.

What was visible of that spiky brown head tilted a little to the side, as if acknowledging their disbelief, before returning to its original position.

"Please," Sora repeated, quietly, pleadingly. Sorrowfully.

Char didn't think she could hurt any more if she had fought a thousand more of those Heartless.

Saïx watched the boy in front of him, amber eyes glinting and head tilted a bit to the side. It almost made Char wonder if he was remembering having felt this exact same dedication toward someone. Somehow, she doubted it, but it was a nice thought.

"So," he said at last, "you really do care for her. In that case…"

Sora's fingers clenched into fists against the ground, every ounce of his mind praying fervently, painfully, that Saïx would give in.

"…the answer is no."

His hope collapsed then, replaced by a fiery anger that filled his veins and made him leap up at once. "You rotten –!" he shouted, unable to think of an insult that fully encapsulated all he felt.

"What's the matter with you?" Donald spat, shaking his staff, apparently too angry to muster the concentration necessary to cast. Goofy said nothing, but his eyes were narrowed and the hand on his shield had clenched so tightly that his veins showed even through his bright white glove.

Char managed to pull herself together long enough to allow fury on Sora's behalf to seep into her. Her wrist fell back down to her side, and although she knew the effect was dulled by her wet cheeks and overly bright eyes – a fact that made her cringe inwardly – she fixed a watery glare on Saïx nonetheless. "Bastard," was all she could get out, but it more than conveyed how she felt.

Saïx raised his eyebrows. "Are you angry? Do you hate me?"

_That's the general idea here,_ Char thought, but said nothing.

"Then take that rage," he went on, "and direct it at the Heartless." He snapped his fingers; in the next instant, a circle of the robot Heartless dropped down from the translucent orbs that heralded their appearance.

Instinctively, Sora went into his battle stance, before remembering that fighting the Heartless would only be helping the man who had so coldly denied him. Wavering, he looked from one robot to another, suddenly completely lost.

Thankfully, though, the Heartless did nothing, only stood there swaying back and forth around the man who had summoned them. Saïx spread his arms again and stared up at the cloudy sky.

"Pitiful Heartless," he reflected, "mindlessly collecting hearts. And yet they know not the true power of what they hold. The rage of the Keyblade releases those hearts. They gather in darkness, masterless and free… until they weave together to make Kingdom Hearts."

He lowered his head and gazed at Sora, whose face had suddenly lit up with the same realization that Char had had earlier. "And when that time comes," the Nobody said, "we can truly, finally exist."  
"Exist?" Sora whispered.

"What in the world do you think you're prattling on about?"

Both brunette and redhead alike turned just in time to see the blaze of emerald flame fade and reveal Maleficent, who gave Saïx a scornful look. "Kingdom Hearts belongs to me," she hissed. "The heart of all kingdoms, the heart of all that lives… A dominion fit to be called Kingdom Hearts must be _my_ dominion!" As she finished, a smirk covered her face and she spread her arms wide.

Quickly recognizing what she was about to do, Char demanded, "Don't do that! Don't summon any more Heartless!"

Maleficent took one look at her – _I must be looking pretty pathetic right about now,_ Char realized with a surge of self-deprecation – and snorted. "Fool. I do not take orders from a sniveling child like you."

The moniker surprised Sora, and he turned to exchange a glance with Char. However, he did not expect the sight that greeted him: tear-stained cheeks, icy eyes stained a shade that all but rivaled his own…

"Are you okay?" he asked, confused. It was a stupid question, but he couldn't think of anything else to say, as he couldn't fathom why she would cry now of all times.

To her credit, Char actually managed to lock eyes with him for all of two seconds before looking away. Humiliation at his seeing her like this – the very thing she was trying to avoid – pounded along her spine and spurred her into recovering more quickly from her little moment of heartbreak.

She only got an instant to dwell on it before movement in Saïx's direction made her glance over. True to her word, Maleficent had summoned a group of small, armor-clad Heartless around Saïx.

"Uh-oh," Goofy gulped, while Donald just gripped his staff with a tight-knuckled hand.

Saïx glanced around at the armored Heartless in light amusement. "Fool." With another snap of his fingers, he summoned forth a group of Dusks, which slid forward and sliced the Heartless in half with one stroke of their oddly-sharp feet.

No pink hearts floated upward from where the Heartless had been, Sora noted with a sinking heart. _So… the Keyblade really does release those hearts after all._

His resignation quickly turned to dread when the Dusks turned their sights toward him. Before they could attack, however, a burst of bright green fire announced Maleficent's appearance in front of Sora and his companions.

The witch put both hands on her staff and lifted it high; her entire body glowed with her trademark green flame before she spread both arms in the air. With a loud noise, a wall of emerald and black fire rose up, dividing her and Saïx from Sora's group.

"Maleficent!" Donald shouted.

"While I keep these creatures at bay," she said, not even looking at them, "you four devise a way to vanquish them – forever!"

Sora blinked, but before he could say anything, the Dusks leaped upon her. Through the wall of fire, the Keybearer could discern the off-white of the Nobodies all but enveloping the witch's dark frame, and shuddered at the memory of how just brushing against one Dusk offered an uncomfortable, rubbery texture.

"Do not misunderstand me," Maleficent went on. "I shall have my revenge on you yet."

Char raised one eyebrow. "How nice."

"Leave! Now!" the witch barked, even as more Nobodies stretched themselves over her.

Sora narrowed his eyes. "I don't take orders from you!" he mocked, but the repetition of the line was lost on Maleficent. The wall of green fire faded, fully revealing the sight of all the Dusks piled on top of each other with no witch beneath. Somehow, though, Sora couldn't bring himself to think they had just smothered her; she had probably teleported somewhere at the last second, when their forms could stifle the fire that announced her arrival and departure.

Apparently, Saïx didn't share the brunette's convictions, because he merely gave a subdued smile. "Now then, where were we? Oh yes." With another snap of his fingers, the Dusks had vanished, and more robot Heartless had taken their place.

The four of them fell into their typical formation, looking uncertainly around at all the Heartless. Char noted that none of them had attacked yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time until Saïx stopped controlling them long enough for them to follow their instincts. Nervously, she shifted her blades in her hands; just the thought of helping the Organization nauseated her, but if they didn't fight back…

She swore under her breath in a way that made Goofy look over in mild alarm. It was just like Xemnas, to play off Sora's desire to save all the worlds from the Heartless in order to fill their Kingdom Hearts and accomplish their goals. "Truly and finally existing" aside, filling the worlds with Heartless led to more harm than good, and revenge aside, she knew she hated the Nobodies for Sora's sake as well.

Of course, that led to thinking of everything else she had done for his sake, for a boy who likely would never feel the same way, and that led to a whole mess of self-loathing, hormone-forsaking thoughts. So she did what she did best and left it alone.

"Whose side are you guys on, anyway?" Donald yelled.

Saïx shrugged. "The Heartless ally with whoever's the strongest."

He swept out his hand, and at the signal, two of the robots leaped forward. Without thinking, Sora lashed out with the Photon Debugger, striking down both of them and sending their bright pink burdens floating up into the clouds.

"Sora!" Donald and Goofy cried.

"I'm sorry!" Sora protested. "Force of habit, is all."

His heart sank as he watched the two hearts float up, up, up, before disappearing into the blanket of clouds above. As though they were some sort of stimulus, the rain that had been contained all day began to fall, and Sora shivered at the cold, wet drops that landed on his head.

Saïx ignored the weather change, and only watched the sky with a triumphant smile. "Yes, Sora; extract more hearts," he purred.

Sora whirled to give the Nobody a piece of his mind; but, like Axel before, darkness swallowed him up, leaving the group alone with the Heartless.

The four of them moved closer together, backs eventually brushing as the Heartless charged in from all sides. Bitter déjà vu flashed through Sora's mind – this was the battle with all those Heartless all over again – but he managed to push it aside to block one robot's blade.

He stared into those preternatural golden eyes and tried not to shiver. In the past, he would have batted these Heartless aside without a second thought; he had always been under the impression that the Keyblade had come to him for that very purpose, after all.

But now…

_The rage of the Keyblade releases those hearts._

_ Xemnas is using you to destroy the Heartless._

_ They weave together to make Kingdom Hearts._

And even though Sora knew his despair was the last thing his companions' precarious resolve needed, his thoughts still spilled forth nonetheless, unable to be contained within the conduit of his mind.

"Maybe everything we've done… maybe it was all for nothing," he murmured.

"What?" Donald gasped, arms trembling violently under the weight of a robot's blade against his brittle staff. Even the one word was wrought with frustration; knowing he couldn't fight back had to be incredibly vexing for the duck.

"Don't ever say that!" Char shouted. "Even with what you learned today, think of everyone else you've helped. Think of all the people who would've died if you'd just let the Heartless go!"

Sora shook his head, even as a brand new bolt of alarm shook through him. Even on his last journey… Had he been helping the Organization unwittingly even then? Even before he had been aware of their very existence?

"But…" He trailed off, shoving the robot Heartless back; it stumbled away, but didn't falter in the slightest, instead charging at Goofy. The knight could only hide behind his shield, and the edge of the Heartless' blade buried itself into the bright green shell.

"What am I supposed to do if I can't use the Keyblade?" Sora wondered, but the words came out in a broken whisper.

He looked around at all his friends, who were doing an admirable job of keeping the Heartless at bay. But he knew they couldn't just parry blows and dodge attacks forever.

And exhausted as they all were already…

"Imbeciles!" Maleficent's voice snarled, startling them all badly. The brunette jerked his head up from where it had started to hang on his shoulders, looking around for the source of her voice; Donald let out a "wak!" and glanced about; Char's eyes widened; even Goofy peeked up from behind his shield. Try as they did, though, they could not find where the witch's voice originated; it seemed to reverberate all around them. "You can't be trusted to do anything right!"

"Huh?" Sora looked down just in time to see a puddle of darkness open up beneath them. The same moment he registered surprise at the sight of it, he began to feel the darkness sucking at his feet.

He had just enough time to hear the others' startled cries before the darkness pulled them all under.

* * *

When Sora opened his eyes, he briefly had the notion that he'd gone blind. Only darkness permeated his vision, but when he looked down, he could see the Keyblade had vanished.

He stood and surveyed the area, spotting his three companions walking toward him in an instant. "Good thing you woke up," Goofy said.

Sora acknowledged the dog's grateful words with a nod, then asked, "What _is_ this place?"

Char shrugged. "Don't know. I just remember Maleficent talking, and then falling down here…"

Her voice trailed off, and Sora could almost hear her mentally deducing that Maleficent must have taken them here.

"It must be the realm of darkness," he realized. Frantically, he glanced about. "Kairi? Riku?"

"Your Majesty?" Goofy added tentatively.

"Well if it _is_ the realm of darkness," Char said irritably, "yell a little louder, why don't you? I don't think the Organization heard you."

For some reason the abrasiveness in her voice struck a chord of annoyance within Sora, especially in light of what Xemnas had said about her possibly knowing Riku's fate. The brunette folded his arms and opened his mouth to speak, but then Donald suddenly cried out and pointed.

"Who's there?" the mage shouted. Following the duck's gaze, Sora caught sight of silvery chains and saw a dark-cloaked Organization member standing there, holding a white box.

"Told you," Char muttered.

When she spoke, the Nobody tilted its hooded head to the side; and was it just Sora, or did a small, breathed chuckle, audible only due to the dead silence of this place, come from its direction?

Then the figure leaned down and placed the white box on the ground, before backing away and lifting one arm. "Stop!" Donald squawked, already dashing toward the figure; but a current of dark blue fire had already sprung up from the ground and swallowed the dark-clad person.

Char stared at where they had been, slightly confused. She doubted that any of the Organization members would leave without at least taunting her a little bit; it was an aggravating fact of life, but it still remained a fact, and this Nobody had left without saying anything. In fact, she could have sworn it had _laughed _at her before…

Her head angled slightly downward, allowing her hair to obscure the side of her face, and she allowed a small smile to twitch at her features as the pieces fell into place. _Riku._ Of course. This wouldn't be the first time he had appeared to her today, she thought – and her bruises from the battle with Anxclof began to ache anew at the memory – why would it be the last?

Which begged the question as to what was in that box he had left…

Almost against her better judgment, she strode forward and picked up the box. "Uh," Goofy began bemusedly, "are you sure you wanna open…"

But it was too late; Char had already lifted the lid and tossed it on the ground. Sora's eyes jumped from the bright white lid's trajectory back up to her again when she let out a surprised murmur.

Curious, he moved closer, trying to ignore the way his nose practically brushed against her hair as he looked over her shoulder. _This is not the time for that,_ he had to remind himself, especially when that cinnamon scent wafted across his senses.

"Let me see; let me see!" Donald squawked from below, even as Goofy walked up on Char's other side and peered into the box. On top lay a photograph of the group from Twilight Town – the virtual one, at least, Char recognized.

She didn't know how Riku had found a picture that still had Roxas in it, but there it was: Hayner, Pence, Olette, and Roxas, standing in front of the Twilight Town mansion. Seeing the four of them together, along with the place where she had lived for a year, sent a rush of powerful nostalgia flowing so powerfully through her it almost staggered her. So much had changed, since that week Roxas had spent running around in his cage and facilitating Sora's return.

First and foremost being that he had reunited with his Other, and that the boy Char loved stood beside her instead of having just vanished.

"Hey look, it's the gang from Twilight Town!" Goofy said. "There's Hayner, Pence, Olette, and, uh…" He trailed off, clearly recognizing the hairstyle from the brief time he had spent with the blonde boy in the Pride Lands, but saying nothing.

"Roxas," Sora finished quietly. _My Nobody. _

Roxas looked so happy in this picture, he saw; a genuine smile had embedded itself on the blonde's features, a sight Sora had only ever witnessed in his recollections of Roxas' days with Axel and Anxclof. He didn't understand why Hayner and the others had never mentioned being with Roxas to him, though; surely Sora's similarity to his Nobody was something they would have brought up at some point? Still, at least it explained the longing feeling Sora always felt around the Twilight Town trio – longing and nostalgia and a tentative sense of affection, as though the part of him that was Roxas knew that he could never see the hot-headed boy and easygoing girl and photo-loving boy again.

Those feelings rose up within Sora now, seeming to cry out and claw at the fetters that chained him to Sora's heart alone until Sora swore he could feel the weight of his spiky hair lessening and becoming more gelled. With some difficulty, he shook the sensation off.

Char looked over her shoulder at Sora, her heart only stuttering for an instant at how she almost brushed noses with him in the process. "Hey…" she began, the hand that didn't hold the box already groping for his.

Hating that she didn't know what else to say, she met his gaze just as her fingers brushed against the fabric of his half glove. Before she could shift her grip downward to twine with his fingers, though, he beat her to it. They stared at each other for a moment, but before anything could happen other than Char's heartbeat ramping up to an uncontrollable state, the box suddenly shifted in her hand.

She looked over just in time to see Donald getting down from his tip-toes with the other gift inside the box in hand. Just the sight of the bright blue sea-salt ice cream bar made mild nausea roar through her stomach; spending a year in Twilight Town had given her enough of those to last her a lifetime.

"Ice cream?" Donald muttered, and took a bite out of the top.

"Are you sure you wanna eat… that?" Goofy finished lamely.

The duck smacked his bill for a moment, eyes widening. "Salty…" he said, only to frown and stare at the ice cream bar. "No…"

"Sweet," Char finished. "Right?"

Donald gave her a slightly grudging look. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"I had a ton of these back when I lived in Twilight Town," Char explained. "It's sort of a local delicacy."

Sora gave an "oh," at the same time noticing they had never let go of each other's hands. He didn't mind it, though; even though every fiber of his being was screaming _she probably knows about Riku, she didn't tell you the whole truth, let go of her,_ surprisingly, no thoughts of Kairi plagued him.

A bright light suddenly rent the air, nearly blinding all four of them; Char dropped the box, causing the photograph of Roxas and his friends to fall to the ground, in order to shield her eyes properly. When their eyes grew accustomed to the new light, however, they all saw it was coming from the half-eaten ice cream bar.

Donald let out a disappointed sound – clearly he had wanted to eat the rest of the bar – while Char raised an eyebrow. "Okay, my sea-salt ice cream bars never did that." She glanced over at Sora. "Key-boy? I think that's your cue."

With a start, Sora realized she was right; this was typical of every other time he had opened a gate to new worlds. Relief washed over him, because if he could open a gate even here, then that meant they could retrieve the Gummi ship from where it waited in that alley in the marketplace and get out of here.

He stepped out of Char's hold and lifted his Keyblade. In response to some unspoken command, a beam of light shot out and made contact with the ice cream in midair; the meeting lights swirled together to create a Keyhole-shaped rip in the darkness above, revealing the clouds of the world between worlds just beyond.

Sora glanced over at Donald a little sheepishly, lowering the Photon Debugger as he did so. "Uh, Donald? Do you think maybe you could… bring the Gummi ship back here?"

"I'm on it," the duck grunted, lifting his staff with a look of mild doubt on his face, as if he didn't believe this measly broom could accomplish it. Char blinked, wondering how just his magic alone could summon the Gummi ship; then again, he had already turned them into animals and given the original trio the ability to swim and breathe underwater, so this wasn't that much of a stretch.

She laughed mentally; every nuance of this journey was definitely rubbing off on her more than she had first assumed. When she had made that fateful promise to Riku, she had certainly never anticipated all this changing her as much as it had.

But it had. And the stranger thing was that she had managed to work with it.

True to Donald's word, soon an overly bright vessel floated through the Keyhole-shaped space, just barely managing to squeeze through. Sora cheered and let out an "All right!" while Donald just looked surprised, then triumphant. "I told you I could do it," he said smugly.

"C'mon, let's go," Goofy said.

Sora nodded. "Right. Riku and Kairi are waiting for us."

The words carried more conviction than he would have thought. But it was the only hope he had left, and he would cling to it, Nobodies or not.

Donald and Goofy gave their own nods in return before moving toward the Gummi ship, which had already lighted down. Sora watched the duck strain to reach the button that would lower the ship's ramp before Goofy helped out and pressed it; the two Disney residents started up the ramp and into the ship.  
Before he followed, though, he looked at Char, who still stood there staring out at the impregnable darkness. "Char?" he called out to her.

She jumped visibly and turned to face him, the remnants of a contemplative expression sluicing off her face. "Sorry," she said quickly. "I just… I was looking for Riku and Kairi a little more, is all."

"Oh." Sora stopped, not knowing what else to say.

_As for Riku,_ Xemnas whispered in the back of his mind, _ perhaps you should ask your King. Or maybe the girl you seem to hold so dear?_

No. Sora pushed the thought aside, the thought _she's still lying she still has secrets you need to know you need to know. _Xemnas had been lying, trying to work his way into the newly-repaired trust between them and cut the formerly-frayed friendship apart. It was a lie; that was it.

Still…

_Riku,_ the redhead had whispered in her sleep that day. Sora was sure of it.

He looked up, only to recoil slightly when he found said redhead standing only a foot or so in front of him. "What?" he asked.

Char huffed and rolled her eyes. "I said, take it." She poked his stomach with the photograph of Hayner, Pence, Olette, and Roxas. "Maybe later down the road we can bring this to Twilight Town and ask about it."

Although her words sounded firm enough, a shadow crossed her eyes as she spoke, as though she didn't quite believe what she was saying. Nevertheless, Sora bobbed his head up and down in acquiescence, taking the photo and placing it in the pocket with his Keychains. A moment later, he realized he was still holding the Photon Debugger, and quickly brought it back down to Keychain form so he could pocket that as well.

"Thanks," he said, smiling. "Let's go."

Char gave a brisk nod, but her lips were quirked upward as well. "Right."

For a moment, right then and there, things seemed to have gone back to normal between them: just a boy and a girl, brunette and redhead, Keybearer and dual wielder, savior and seventh apprentice, close friends journeying for truth. And at that moment, watching her having let her walls down, Sora could forget that she probably still withheld some of said truth from him. Char seemed to have the same thought; he could practically see her heart trying to burst out of her chest, and her mouth had actually opened a little to get more air in.

Just when they had both started leaning in, though, Donald's voice jarred them rather unceremoniously out of their shared trance. "Hey! Get in here or we're leaving you two!"

Sora blinked a couple of times; the bright blue of her eyes left spots on his vision that flashed every time his eyelashes met. His heartbeat still rutted a hard, staccato beat in his chest – heck, _everywhere_ – but he still found it in himself to turn around. The duck stood there at the entrance to the Gummi ship, looking very annoyed indeed.

"Sorry!" the Keybearer called back. He pivoted back to Char. "Uh, we should probably go…"

"Yeah," the redhead said hastily.

Awkwardly, Sora gave another nod before turning on his heel and walking toward the Gummi ship, nearly tripping over his own feet.

Char stood there for a few more moments, waiting only until Donald had shifted his attention to Sora alone before gulping in a few deep breaths. Still breathing deeply to try and recover her composure, she ran a hand through her bangs, pushing them briefly off her forehead before they fell back into place again.

A flicker of movement from nearby caught her eye, and she glanced over to see a figure in a black cloak standing there, only the silver chains on the coat keeping it from melting into the shadows. Her first instinct was to summon her swords, which had somehow vanished between her fall down here and waking up, but something told her this was no Nobody.

Just Riku, again, standing there.

Waiting for something.

She angled her head in silent greeting to him, and he did the same, although she swore his gesture was tinged with something like anticipation. For a single, mildly frustrating instant, she wondered what exactly he could be anticipating, before it hit her, both mentally and physically at once: the memory of Anxclof's Keyblade about to plunge into her, before a swirl of dark flame had collided with the hesitating Nobody's back.

Even though Char was sure Anxclof wouldn't have killed her anyway – a fact that resurrected the confusion that the events of the day had buried so well all over again – the fact remained that Riku had saved her sorry ass. Giving her the Elixir to heal most of her less onerous wounds had helped as well.

So she fixed her gaze on the hollow dark space between the top of the hood and where it tapered into the top of the Organization cloak – where she was sure Riku's gold-green-gold eyes were – and mouthed two simple words.

_Thank you._

Riku nodded, before disappearing like a wraith of blue fire.

She turned, hollered an obligatory response to Donald's aggravated squawk for her to hurry up, and stepped into the Gummi ship.

* * *

...yeah, I've got nothing here. XD

Part two should come pretty soon!


	62. Chapter LXII

Part deux of the double update special!

And it's here, you guys. The moment you've all been waiting for. After over sixty chapters of UST/beating around the bush/guilt trips over Kairi and revenge, it's finally happening. I feel like I didn't too well writing the actual thing, but in light of all the weight that's carried behind this one scene, I doubt it will matter. Seriously, guys - so epic I was actually shaking as I was typing it.

Enjoy. As I know you will. ;)

**_Disclaimer-_** Don't own KH.

* * *

After entering the Gummi ship, Donald had settled into the pilot's seat – as the chair was still pushed close to the controls from when he'd piloted the ship here – and Goofy had made a beeline to the refrigerator to see what they had, since they had spent so long in Hollow Bastion and dinner was now upon them. Settling into one of the chairs at the table, Sora agreed with his two original companions that having spent the entire afternoon fighting with only a scant bowl of peaches for sustenance wasn't exactly smart.

Once they had soared through the rip in the realm of darkness and reached the world between worlds, Char had left for the bathroom, saying that after everything that had happened, she needed a shower more than anything else. Sora had never understood how just standing up with water running around him could clear his head, but he supposed for some people it seemed to work just fine.

He watched the dark brown of her jacket vanish behind the door so subtly labeled 'BATHROOM' before turning back to his companions. "I don't know how she could do that now," he remarked with a sigh. "I'm so tired I don't think I could stand up long enough to shower."

Goofy, who was still rummaging through the refrigerator, glanced over his shoulder at the brunette. "But you two _were_ fighting a lot longer than us two, right?"

"Yeah," Donald called from the pilot's seat, "because someone decided to get hit in the head with a giant rock and almost die."

The pointed reminder made the knight chuckle sheepishly and run a finger under his nose before he returned to his task. A beat, during which Sora heard the water begin running in the bathroom, then Goofy said, "Hey, d'you guys want pasta or hamburgers?"

"I don't care," Sora said with a shrug. "I'm so hungry I could eat a Heartless."

As it turned out, the comparison, playful as it was, was entirely the wrong one to speak aloud, since it brought up the memory of all the revelations of today. The virtual world; Xemnas' identity; having almost found Kairi only to lose her again; Saïx taunting Sora about Riku; the group's destroying Heartless actually helping the Organization rather than hindering it…

And above all, the possibility of Char knowing more about Riku's fate than she let on.

Despite the trust in her that crowded in on Sora's doubt and insisted on believing her over Xemnas, the skepticism outmatched the part of him that denied Xemnas' words. Unconsciously, the brunette brought up his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them, staring out the window to the green clouds floating beyond.

Donald flicked a switch, causing the Gummi ship to shift slightly before calming down, and hopped off the pilot seat. "There we go," he said as he trotted up to the table, "putting it in autopilot should keep us here for the night, so –"

He halted abruptly then, as he had leaped into the chair next to Sora and seen the look on his leader's face. "Sora, are you okay?" he asked, brusqueness replaced by worry.

Lifting his head, Sora blinked a couple of times before his better judgment kicked in and told him to stay strong. "Yeah," he replied. "Just… thinking about what Saïx told us today. About Kingdom Hearts, and the Keyblade…"

He had to stop then, because just thinking about it was making his heart hurt.

The words that desperation had pushed out of him earlier floated up to the forefront of his mind, buoyed by the current of melancholia that ran through his entire body. _Maybe everything we've done… maybe it was all for nothing._

He could almost hear Char snorting _you don't really believe that, do you?_ and suddenly wanted to cry.

"Oh yeah," Donald murmured, oddly subdued. Even Goofy stopped in his movement of placing a fourth hamburger patty on the grill; his shoulders slumped visibly, and he placed his hands at the very edge of the counter.

"Y'don't really believe that, do you, Sora?" the dog asked, so softly that the Keybearer had to strain to hear.

He shrugged, not knowing what else to do, before remembering that Goofy couldn't see the gesture and speaking aloud. "I don't know, Goofy. What am I supposed to believe anymore? I mean, it makes sense…"

"And then there's that thing Xemnas said about Char," Donald commented, an uncharacteristic hint of hesitation in his voice, as though he knew the pain that bringing up any suspicion on Char would cause Sora.

Sure enough, that induced a visible flinch from the boy, who fought the mighty urge to bury his face in his upraised knees and never look back up again. _Right after we started to trust her again and everything… _"Yeah," was all he said.

"Do you mean about Riku?" Goofy queried, turning the dial on the side of the grill that would turn it on.

"Yeah," Sora repeated, this time even more quietly than before.

Donald folded his arms. "I bet you anything that guy was just trying to get to us. How could Char know anything about Riku?"

_Because she knew about Roxas, and the Organization, and everything in between, _Sora wanted to say, but remained silent.

"Guess you're right," Goofy said after a moment. "Still, uh, shouldn't we ask Char about it when she gets back?"

And there it was: the crux of the matter, the reason why Sora had avoided speaking up till now. Because he _knew_ he would have to do that eventually, but he didn't want to shatter the newfound peace that had come about between the four of them, the peace that had lasted barely a day. He didn't want to resurrect the suspicion and distrust and paranoia that had surrounded them since their return from the Pride Lands, the feelings whose impetus had been Roxas' untimely appearance.

Sora didn't want the return of that tension to be Riku's fault as well.

And yet – every bit of sorrow and uncertainty had already been caused by Riku, at least indirectly, right? Sora blinked at the odd turn his thoughts had taken, but did not try to fight the truth of them. If Riku had wanted to be found, he probably would have shown up already, Sora realized that much; but the knowledge didn't stop the disappointment every time he approached a new world's native and asked about Riku, only to get a shaken head and bemused response.

He surfaced from his reverie long enough to hear Donald say, "Maybe we shouldn't."

That made the brunette turn a surprised gaze to the duck. "Donald?"

"Well," the mage said hastily, "obviously there's one of two things happening here. One, Xemnas is lying, which is probably what's going on. Two, Char knows what happened to Riku. If she wanted to tell us, she would have, right?" When only silence greeted his words, he jumped up to stand on his chair and stomped his foot. "What?" he demanded.

"Gawrsh, Donald, you never give Char the benefit of the doubt," Goofy said, surprised.

"Yeah," Sora added, a bit of genuine playfulness making its way into his voice. "You're not going soft on us, now are you, Donald?"

"Of course not," Donald grumbled.

Sora and Goofy shared a few moments of amusement at Donald's expense, but even that too soon faded, leaving Sora alone with his thoughts again. "Anyway, though…" He sighed, ignoring the way his stomach growled at the delicious smell of cooking burgers that the inhalation brought to his nose. "I can't keep using the Keyblade; that would only help the Organization."

"But Sora," Goofy said, "I think you _have_ to keep using it. If you don't, the Heartless'll keep on hurtin' folks."

He was right, of course; that didn't stop the bolt of hesitation that shot across Sora's consciousness before he replied. "I guess you're right," he conceded; but remembering the two hearts that had floated up from the Dark Depths, and Saïx's triumphant smile right afterward made him more uncertain.

Sensing they were badly in need of a subject change, Donald quickly spoke up, plopping back down onto the chair as he did so. "So what do you guys think of that box we got?" he asked.

_Box…? _Sora's confusion petered off instantly when the duck gave him an expectant glare, and he abruptly recalled the photograph still in his pocket. "I don't know," he said, grateful for the chance to not think about Riku and Char and the Organization. Reaching into his pocket, he quickly found the photo – it was easily distinguishable by its smooth texture – and placed it on the table.

"Who d'you guys think left it?" Goofy wondered, flipping one of the burgers.

Donald shrugged. "The guy was wearing an Organization cloak," he remembered.

"But why would a Nobody want us to see a picture of another Nobody?" the knight pointed out.

"And give us ice cream, too?" Donald smacked his bill, a blissful look coming across his face as he remembered the taste of the ice cream bar before it had become the key to leaving the dark realm. "Yeah, you're right. It probably wasn't one of the Organization."

"Then, uh, who _was_ it?" Goofy mused, leaning over the burgers before giving an appreciative nod and flipping another one.

"Like _I_ know!"

While the two Disney residents talked, Sora continued staring at the photograph on the table. Now that the danger had mostly left, he allowed himself to spend more time examining the picture of his Nobody and the Twilight Town trio. Again, he wondered at the genuine, albeit subdued, smile on Roxas' face; it seemed that only being with friends could bring out that side of him.

Which again begged the question: when had Roxas ever met and befriended Hayner, Pence, and Olette? Char's suggestion about asking the trio about Roxas the next time they got to Twilight Town came back to Sora again, but at the rate they'd been going, it could be another three weeks before he returned to there.

Straightening, he allowed his legs to slide out from under him and return to swinging under the table in order to get a better look at the photograph. He put a finger against Roxas' face and traced the outline of the boy's silhouette on the photograph thoughtfully. For some reason, Sora had the feeling that the last time he had seen this picture, Roxas had been conspicuously absent.

"Hey, Sora!"

He glanced up, only to let out a surprised cry and nearly fall backward out of his chair when white feathers and dark eyes filled his vision. "Don't _do_ that, Donald!" he panted.

Rolling his eyes, the mage sat back in his chair. "Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "But what do you think?" At Sora's blank expression, he huffed loudly and elaborated. "About who gave us this picture?"

Sora shrugged. "Riku?"

That made Donald blink. "You think?"

"Well, who else would've showed up and then vanished?"

"Maybe you're right," Goofy said from in front of the grill. "Just wonderin', though: why would Riku be dressed like an Organization member?"

Sora opened his mouth, then remembered he knew nothing about that and sighing. "I don't know. It's… just a feeling I have."

"What's going on out here?"

Char's voice from the entrance to the bathroom made the others turn and look. She stepped out into the kitchen area, still tousling her damp hair with one hand and appraising them with an interested expression. Although she looked slightly exhausted and scratches still littered her arms, the shower seemed to have facilitated her recovering her energy; her eyes were fairly bright – though not near to the extent as they had been at the Dark Depths, which Sora still wondered about – and her voice sounded level enough. However, his thankfulness about that ebbed when he remembered what Xemnas had said, and he turned away without saying anything.

"A feeling about what?" she pressed, walking over to sit on Sora's other side. She leaned over the table to try and get a glimpse of the brunette's expression, but he didn't look over. Char thought she understood why; after what Xemnas had said…

_It's not like it's a lie – but I can't let Sora know. No matter how badly I want to._

"Sora thinks Riku's the one who left us the picture of Roxas," Goofy explained, pivoting around with a plate of freshly-cooked hamburgers.

Char's eyes widened at seeing the food; immediately, upon absorbing both the sight and scent of the meat, her stomach began crying out and begging for sustenance in a way that the adrenaline-filled battles of the day had suppressed. "Those look amazing, Goofy," she said with an uncontrollable smile.

Sora risked peeking over his shoulder and saw her happiness at dinner was genuine. In spite of himself, he felt a stab of guilty relief; she hadn't meant to change the subject, but it had happened nonetheless.

Dinner was a fairly silent affair. Char was intensely grateful that the others constantly shoving food down their throats kept them from discussing the events of the day, especially the events of the last hour or so; just thinking of the revelations that had occurred in the Dark Depths made both her head and heart hurt.

Mostly, though, she was just angry that she had not figured out Xemnas' intentions sooner. Every ounce of her – _their_ – research in the past had all but revolved around hearts; the fact that she had conveniently forgotten where Heartless' burdens went upon being destroyed by a Keyblade nagged at her, gnawed at her pride in the steady way a termite would upon the supporting beams of a house, continuing until the house crumbled.

She focused on cutting her patty; in his hurry to get dinner together, Goofy had forgotten all about getting buns and condiments, but she didn't quite feel up to pointing out his error. Come to think of it, she realized, she wouldn't mind if they just stayed silent about this day for however long the journey lasted. If ignorance was bliss, then she would've loved to be happy.

It looked like that would not happen anytime soon, though. Especially in light of the two other main blows to her relationship with Sora, both of which ironically involved Riku and Kairi. Char genuinely respected both of Sora's best friends – Riku because of their time spent together, and Kairi because it took serious courage to stand up to an Organization member like Axel the way she had – but now she found herself cursing both of them. It was idiotic, and Char knew she should be able to push the resentment aside; but the feeling remained and refused to leave.

Xemnas knew she knew about Riku; and then there was Kairi. The Oathkeeper Keychain still lay heavy in her pocket, the only thing there since she had used all the healing items she had packed earlier today. Remembering Sora crouching down in front of Saïx, forsaking all his pride and begging the very man he should hate the most just to get Kairi back, Char had to fight with every muscle in her body from just excusing herself right then and there to run to her room and cry.

Fortunately for her, though, Sora saved her from having to battle her own damnable vulnerability any longer. "I'm full," he announced, pushing his empty plate toward the center of the table.

Goofy gazed at him with worried eyes, which was a valid gesture, considering that not only would Sora be chatting at mealtime, he would also clean his plate and then ask for more. "Are you sure?" the dog asked.

Sora nodded. "Yeah. I'm going to go shower and then get some sleep." He threw in the first part mostly for Char's benefit, because somehow he got the feeling only mentioning going to sleep without cleansing himself would disgust her beyond words.

Char, however, was more focused on quickly taking that opportunity to follow suit. "Think I'm gonna go, too," she said, with a fairly convincing yawn. "It's… been kind of a long day." Everyone flinched at the massive understatement. Now that she had given her body permission to just go to sleep, her muscles were crying out for rest, but Char forced herself to try and be polite anyway. "Do you need help cleaning the table?" she asked, inclining her head to Goofy.

Sora blinked; inwardly chided himself for not thinking that far ahead. But Goofy only shook his head. "Don't worry about it, guys. I guess I owe ya for almost dyin' earlier."

"Darn right you do," Donald said, though his voice sounded tight, as though he were holding back more emotion than he was letting on. Char allowed a tiny smirk to cross her face and risked exchanging a glance with Sora. For once, she thought, she was the one who so desperately wanted absolution, to forget about whatever had caused a rift between them, however temporary.

However, the brunette only returned her smile with a rather pathetic one of his own. "Okay," he said, standing, "I'm off."

As soon as the door closed behind him, he let out a soft sigh and looked in the mirror. Predictably, exhaustion and sorrow and conflict was written all over his face and in his bloodshot blue eyes, and his normally-unruly spiky hair had a thin layer of sweat and dust to it.

He turned to the tub and sighed. _Last thing before you go to bed,_ he told himself.

The words sounded so completely like something Char would say – complete with motherly annoyance – that he wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time.

* * *

Char left the table not long after Sora, when Donald's accusing stare and Goofy's nervously dodging around the question that still hung in the air – _how do you know about Riku _how? – became too much to bear. She rapidly excused herself and made a beeline for her room. Almost as soon as she stepped over the threshold, she flopped down on her back on her bed, dimly noting how she had failed to align the pillows when she had made it this morning. _Fish nets are on the floor, too,_ she noted, spotting the vestiges of her Halloween Town outfit lying not too far from beneath the bed.

She knew she should probably get up and start cleaning while she was thinking about it, but her fatigue took over her better judgment and desire for order and whined for her to just stay and wait for sleep. A chuckle escaped her as she stretched out on the bed, pushing the heel of her hand into one eye and gazing at the ceiling with the other. Either Sora's messiness was rubbing off on her, or she was more tired than she thought.

To distract herself from Sora and his love for a girl that wasn't her, the redhead listened to Donald and Goofy talking just down the hall. At least Goofy was making an effort to speak in a more hushed tone; Donald's squawk was just as rambunctious as ever, though at one point, when Goofy's rumble carried a reproving tone, Donald toned himself down considerably. Hearing that made a smile dart across Char's face.

Almost against her will, she found herself reaching into her pocket and taking out the Oathkeeper Keychain. Lifting it up and holding it up to the light, she frowned and examined it. Strange, she mused, how such an innocent object filled her with so much fear and heartbreak all at once.

_Is she that important to you?_

_ Of course she is! She's one of my best friends!_

Aloud, Char snorted. _Friends._ Right. The last time she checked, friends didn't almost kill themselves just to help their other friend. She should know; she had almost sacrificed herself for Sora more than once, and although at first she had only done that out of obligation to Riku's promise – her scarred leg could testify to that – gradually, as love had crept on her, it had turned into a duty, almost.

Char sighed, lowering the arm that held the Oathkeeper, and closed her eyes, lashes brushing against the hand still over one eye. _Sleep._ That was the best thing for her right now. Unfortunately, now that she had begun contemplating Sora's feelings, sleep eluded her more frustratingly than ever.

She didn't know how long she lay there, staring at the darkness on the inside of her eyelids; hell, for all she knew, she may have fallen asleep. However, she did know that the next thing she knew, footsteps growing closer outside her door made her open her eyes and turn her head to look out the door. Just as she realized she had forgotten to close the door, a familiar black-clad form walked by her door, fingers teasing damp brown spikes as he passed.

_Sora?_

Char sat up, staring after him. It occurred to her that if she really wanted to talk to him and find out exactly how he felt about Kairi – if she still had a chance – no other better time would ever come.

_I can't,_ she thought fleetingly, her heartbeat already spiking to almost dangerous levels, _he's tired, we're both tired,_ but the prideful part of her kept nagging at her and telling her to stop making excuses until she finally just got up and pocketed the Oathkeeper Keychain and left her room.

* * *

Sora closed the door to his room behind him and walked over to his bed, nearly tripping over the haphazardly-scattered pillow lying right by the entrance in the process. Picking up the offending object, he gave it a half-hearted glare before sighing and taking it with him across the room to his bed.

As he rolled onto the mussed covers, he reached up around his neck to unhook the crown necklace he always wore. Unfortunately for him, after placing it on the nightstand next to the bed, he'd run out of trivial obligations to distract him from the heart of the matter: that he had been unintentionally helping his enemies this entire time.

He tried to keep the despair from flooding his mind as best he could, but what with Char and Riku and Kairi and everything else, it proved more difficult than it seemed. Sooner than he would have liked, the despondency slipped into his heart with all the deadly causticity of a poisonous fog, filling the nooks and making him unable to feel much else.

His fingers reached into his pocket and pulled out the Keychain for the Photon Debugger. Then the Circle of Life, then the Hero's Crest, and on and on, until the Kingdom Key that always accompanied him lay with its fellows scattered on the bed next to him.

Sitting up, Sora lightly fingered the flame-shaped charm of the Hidden Dragon before pushing it together with the Star Seeker's crescent moon. The memories of all he had experienced before acquiring these Keychains – meeting Mulan and Yen Sid; watching the mountain village burn and learning about the Nobodies; Char's rage at Ryou's death and the fairies handing Sora a crimson orb – rushed through Sora's mind at just feeling the smooth texture of the charms beneath the pads of his fingers. The same nostalgia assailed him when he brought the other Keychains together: he remembered Phil and Hercules; Jack Sparrow and Will Turner; Simba and Nala.

This journey – and his last one, as well – had taken Sora to so many places, made him strong. And yet now he couldn't help but wonder if he really deserved the massive power granted to him just by virtue of holding the Keyblade.

_You hold the mightiest weapon of all,_ the voice had whispered to him, way back then on that stained-glass platform in his dreams. Back then Sora had dismissed the oddness of the dream as just a product of too much salt in the air; his parents were always telling him spending too much time playing on the shore could have that effect on him, after all.

But then the Heartless had come, and Sora didn't even know if he still had parents left to chide him about staying out well after hours.

Quickly, he scooped the Keychains together and shoved them back into their respective pocket. For some reason, though, it felt like something was missing from his growing collection, a feeling that Sora couldn't understand.

A knock at the door roused him from his thoughts, making him glance up. The thought of not answering flitted across his mind – or maybe just pretending he was asleep – but he knew he couldn't exactly ignore whoever stood just outside now. Not after everything that had happened today. Of course they would be concerned and want to know he was still okay.

So the Keybearer stifled a sigh and called out, "Come in. It's open."

In hindsight, he supposed he should have expected the door swinging open to reveal the girl who had followed him this far. But seeing her standing there, leaning slightly to one side in what was almost an uncertain stance, still elicited mild surprise from him.

"Hey, Char," he greeted.

"Hi," Char answered quietly.

Sora hesitated, fidgeted a little bit with the hand that lay behind his back on the bed. Not knowing what else to say, he blustered, "Uh, so what's up?"

He cringed at how stupid he sounded, but oddly, Char chose not to comment on his haste to get to the point. Guilty as the notion made him feel, Sora knew why her presence produced so much nervousness on his part. Aside from the obvious context of having the girl he was in love with alone in his room, Xemnas' indictment about her and Riku hung thickly in the forefront of the brunette's thoughts.

_Ask her now,_ he urged himself, _now's as good a time as any,_ but he did what he had always done regarding her personal boundaries and waited for her to speak first.

It took her a few moments to process his question; she blinked a couple of times before answering. "Not much," she said with a shrug. "Just… wondering how you are. After today."

The visible tensing of her shoulders right after saying that told Sora she was probably mentally berating herself for sounding so inarticulate; the thought almost amused him, knowing she still hadn't changed in that regard. "Oh," he said, looking away at one of the other pillows his sleeping habits had thrown on the floor. Suddenly self-conscious, he leaned down and picked it up. He found himself hugging it to his chest like a teddy bear before he could stop himself, gleaning a rather embarrassing amount of comfort from the soft fabric against his bare collarbone.

Char must have seen his childish gesture, because the corners of her lips actually lifted a bit. "Cuddling a pillow, Key-boy?" she commented dryly, moving to sit beside him on the bed.

Sora couldn't think of a good retort; he was really just glad she had recovered her typical sarcasm, however briefly. So he just mumbled an obligatory _shut up_ and watched her settle beside him. It occurred to him, with a rush of heat along his spine, that his bed was much less wide than it was long, and with her next to him like this, it would take a relatively small amount of effort to just reach over and –

_Déjà vu,_ he thought, _this happened the last time she was in here. _

Last time, though, she hadn't been as visibly distraught; last time, she had just come to apologize about her behavior in Halloween Town. Somehow, Sora couldn't bring himself to think she was apologizing again.

_It'd definitely be nice, though. Especially with what she's hiding about Ri –_

"How do you think Leon and the others are doing now?" Char inquired, cutting into his thoughts.

With a jolt, Sora looked back at her. Strangely, only the slightest hint of her wanting to just change the subject lurked in her eyes and in her occasional shifting on the bed; she seemed genuinely concerned about the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee.

"I don't know," he admitted, gazing down at his lap. "We didn't exactly stay long enough to find out." The fact sent a fresh wave of guilt flowing through him.

Char shrugged. "Well, in our defense, we really couldn't have."

"True." After a beat, Sora continued, "They're probably fine. All the Heartless and Nobodies were gone even before we left."

"Yeah," Char nodded, "and I doubt Saïx or Xemnas had time to put more Nobodies in Hollow Bastion right before they left…"

Her voice trailed off as the realization that she had unintentionally brought up the very causes of this entire dilemma, and she jerked her head away, so quickly that her hair swung to cover the side of her face, effectively concealing her reaction. Sora tried to peer beyond her hair to see her, but predictably, the effort to find either redemption or condemnation in her eyes failed.

With a soft sigh, he gazed up at the ceiling, thinking back on everything he had learned, both about Char and about the Organization. _And about myself, too,_ he thought, remembering Roxas and Anxclof's true identities. At least he wouldn't have to worry about the latter anymore, according to Char; he thought about asking her about it, but before he could, Char spoke, still not looking at him.

"I didn't know anything about it, you know."

"Huh?" Sora asked intelligently, swinging his head back down to at least look at the curtain of dark red hair.

"About the Organization's intentions for you, I mean," the redhead affirmed, so quietly he had to strain to hear. Once he caught it, though, he could not suppress a murmur of surprise; was that a _tremble_ he detected in her voice? "I didn't put together the whole thing about Kingdom Hearts until Axel practically spelled it out for us."

Remembering the ineffable shock that had taken over her at Axel's revelation, Sora realized he believed her. "So you didn't know about it?" he asked, just for confirmation.

Char huffed, a spark of her old self returning, if only for an instant. "Don't you think I would have told you if I did? I told you just about everything else."

While her words sounded firm enough, the distinctive tremor in her voice intensified ever so slightly at the last part, as if she didn't quite believe what she was saying. And Sora felt his eyes widen and something in his heart give way.

Because while before all this – before _today_ – he would have just dismissed her hesitation as her desire to keep some secrets and left it at that, in light of Xemnas' words and Char's little sleep-talking back in Port Royal, just the shaking of her voice, just that slight hesitation, practically served as a red flag, telling him she wasn't telling the whole truth.

She was keeping secrets, even after he'd established she could trust him with every part of her.

Char looked over at the flicker of movement in her periphery, only to give a start when she saw Sora had risen to his feet and was eyeing her with a suspicious glare. "Sora…?"  
"You didn't tell us everything. Did you?" He didn't intend for so much poison to ooze from the lacunae in his heart and into his voice, and knew he should calm down before Donald and Goofy came in wondering what was going on; but somehow he couldn't quite summon up the energy to care.

Char narrowed her eyes, beginning to stand as well. "Of course I –"

"No!" Sora cut her off, so abruptly that she actually fell back onto the bed, staring at him in undisguised bemusement. Although she wasn't exactly one to be cowed by simple shouting to begin with, Sora still felt his anger intensify at her lack of proper acknowledgment to his raised voice, and it showed as he barreled on, heedless. "Didn't you hear what Xemnas said?" he went on, voice rising to a crescendo he hadn't used since Riku had dropped a water balloon on his head in fifth grade. "He said you knew something about Riku. That you know where he is. So why haven't you told us?"

By the end of his little tirade, Sora was breathing hard from the force of his fury, and as a result, could barely get in enough air to so much as whisper the next part. "Why haven't you told _me?"_ he asked in what almost sounded like a whimper.

Char stared at him, her own chest heaving even though she hadn't been shouting. Meeting her gaze, Sora realized he could detect a desperate longing there, longing for him to just understand.

He would have continued speaking, but she beat him to it.

"Don't act like you're the only one who's done something wrong," she hissed, rising to her feet. And even though they stood at the same height, even though the remains of his anger still crackled like dying flames in the air, Sora found himself leaning away just a bit as she stepped right up to him and let her rage-filled blue eyes glare into his. "Like today. With Saïx, about Kairi. I just _loved_ how you tried to hide your feelings behind the whole 'she's my best friend!' bullcrap," she snarled, punctuating the words Sora had spoken by raising her voice a couple of octaves.

In spite of her own ire proving to drastically outmatch his – ire that had, it hit Sora with a pang, obviously percolated within her since that moment he had fallen to his knees in front of Saïx – the brunette frowned. "I don't sound like that," he protested.

Ignoring him, Char blazed on. "Well, guess what, Sora? No one's falling for that. Not even me. _Especially_ not me," she added in a ragged snarl. "After everything you've done for me on this stupid, _stupid_ journey – all the hugs and almost-kisses and _making _me want to kiss you, of all the damned things – after all that…" She gulped in a couple of desperate breaths. "You can't just lead me on like that and then do what you did."

Sora's eyes widened as the ceiling light glanced off the intense brightness of her eyes. "Char…"

"Don't speak!" she shrieked, jabbing a finger so fiercely into his chest that he actually felt the shockwaves reverberate from where they made contact. "Just… just shut up and listen. You know what hurts the most?" She let out a bitter, self-deprecating chuckle, so broken in timbre – so _unnatural,_ hearing it in her voice – that it made hot tears itch at the back of Sora's eyes as well. "Knowing we've been through so much together, and yet today, I realized you would never get on your knees like that for me."

If the embers in the wake of Sora's anger had smoldered conspicuously, they paled in comparison to Char's. He could almost see the fraying rope of her trust and friendship toward him dissolving under the heat and strength of the fires evoked by her feelings – and, at the same time, of the feelings her words were producing in him. Unnatural as her vulnerability was, it also made his heart pound and his mouth open slightly to get more air in as the pieces fell into place.

Char fixed her glower back on him, and even though she made no move to cover or wipe away the tears flowing freely down her face, her next words came out so torn by tears that he barely understood them.

"Which kind of sucks, you know? Because I've protected you – fought for you, almost gotten _crippled_ for you, protected you every time so much as a freaking wadded-up spitball from the Heartless comes flying your way. And yet…"

She took a deep, shaky breath, before saying the words that sent every part of what Sora thought he knew about her feelings toward him tumbling into blessed, blissful orbit.

"You're the reason I fight," she finished, "and you don't even seem to notice."

For Sora, it was like another red flag flew up in his mind. Except this one didn't encourage him to prod her and push at her for the truth; it was telling him something different entirely.

"You can have this," she spat, reaching into her pocket and throwing something at him. "I've been keeping it safe for you." She said the last part almost mockingly, even as Sora leaned down and picked up the object.

It was the Oathkeeper Keychain.

She was just turning and making for the door – had placed one hand on the knob, actually – when he cried out, "Wait!" without actually expecting her to stop.

If she was contemplating just leaving, though, Sora could not tell; either way, she froze with her fingers splayed over the knob, then slowly pivoted back around. In light of her outburst, the lack of anger on her face now was almost jarring; now, the brunette thought, she just looked drained. Exhausted.

"What?" she asked, simply.

Sora hesitated, before it hit him that nothing he did would probably change things. Even if he was wrong and he lost a limb at doing what he so badly wanted to do next, he figured it wouldn't hurt near as much as having her scream at him and all but losing any ounce of respect she may have felt for him.

So, feeling strangely free, he stepped forward. Naturally, Char responded by moving away, until her back met the door and she couldn't escape. The hand on the doorknob flexed for a moment before falling uselessly back down to her side, and the notion crossed Sora's mind that maybe escape was the last thing on her mind.

He could see her trembling all over, especially when he halted and gazed at her, taking her in: the tired eyes, the way her mouth had half-opened to draw in more air, and above all, the tears that still made their steady way down her face and left tracks in their wake. The sight of the latter distressed him, and he found himself reaching up and precluding the tears in their tracks with his thumb on her cheekbone. The touch lingered, and her tremors intensified even more, if possible.

He thought he saw her open her mouth to say something, and quickly leaned in before she could complete the process.

Contrary to what the romance novels he had stolen from Kairi advertised, the kiss didn't send fires and supernovas and volcano eruptions thrilling through Sora's blood. If anything, it was a chaste, inexperienced process, and clearly Char had forgotten to breathe through her nose at first, if her mouth shifting against his briefly before relaxing was any indication.

But it was sweet, and warm, and no matter how awkward, he could practically feel her melting against him. Just that – and the thought that she'd been waiting for this almost as long as he had – left a soft, tingling sensation moving lazily all over Sora's body. That feeling intensified when he felt Char tentatively bring up her hands to press against his chest, and when her fingers brushed over his collarbone.

All he could think, as he inhaled her cinnamon scent and let it steal all his air and opened his eyes long enough to see to place his other hand against the side of her neck, was that this brought him a kind of content he had never experienced before.

All too soon, though, the two of them remembered reality. Char pulled back first, though hindered significantly by the fact that the back of her head was already pushed against the door. Reluctantly, Sora followed suit.

Right then and there, it hit him, what he had done: he'd given away his first kiss to a girl he'd barely known a month, whereas he'd always pictured it would be Kairi first. Moreover, he had enjoyed kissing someone who wasn't Kairi a little too much.

Quickly, he turned his head away, hating the guilt that rose up within him at the champagne-like bubbling that was just now starting to die down. "I –" he began, then stopped. "We –" he tried again, then stopped with a groan. This wasn't going well at all.

"Right," Char muttered, pushing her hair out of her face and staring determinedly at the ground. "That… right."

They stood there for a few more moments, during which Sora fidgeted openly and Char tried very hard not to do the schoolgirl-ish thing and brush her fingers against her lips. Then, with a herculean effort, Char looked back at him.

"I'm tired," she announced abruptly. "Going to, uh… go to bed. That was nice," she added quickly, hoping the words didn't sound too much like an afterthought. Because she meant every word. It wasn't exactly romance novel-worthy – if anything, just thinking of how she had barely kept herself from just giving in and opening her mouth against his made her cringe inwardly – but at least he had gotten her mouth on the first try, which was more than she could say for Ienzo when they were both ten.

And _why_ was she thinking of Ienzo at a time like this, when the boy she loved and who loved her back – the thought buoyed her up far more than she would have liked, but it was a half-hearted annoyance that greeted that thought – was standing here, warm and alive and _real,_ in front of her?

Sora blinked, taking in her words; then a breathless grin spread across his face. "I, um… Thanks."

Char nodded briskly, then nodded again, as if to reassure herself. _At least there's no doubt about him and Kairi now. _"Good night," she said, and turned to leave. Sora stood there a few more moments before grinning even more impossibly widely and calling after her, "Night!"

His voice made her stop at the door, hand on the doorknob again, and turn to face him. For some reason her hormones chose then to kick in and hope desperately that he would repeat what he had done the last time she was in this situation and just kiss her again, but she pushed those aside and appraised him.

"Wipe that grin off your face," she said at last, yet with a smile of her own.

She opened the door and left, only allowing her smile to broaden once the door had swung shut behind her. It occurred to her, as she readied herself for bed in her room, that Donald and Goofy had likely heard everything and would want to know what had happened tomorrow morning; that Sora's suspicions would likely return instantly when sleep had all but wiped away most of the bliss of tonight…

But for now, she found herself not caring.

And despite how idiotic she would have once found the gesture, Charisa Nightblaze fell asleep with a tiny secret smile on her lips.

* * *

Ah, the OOC at the end. On both parts. Lol, whatever. At least this scene is done.

Now I'm going to go to bed because it's almost midnight where I am and I have to be at work at 8:30 tomorrow morning.

Review please!


	63. Chapter LXIII

Hey all! Sorry this chapter took over a month; I was working almost every single day in July and didn't have time to write. Getting ready for college hasn't helped, either. Buuut since I leave on Thursday, I took the time to finish this chapter today.

I'll just say you'll all probably hate me for what I do to Sora at the end, though. I cried writing it. D:

O-on the bright side, moar Riku?

**_Disclaimer- _**I do not own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

Consciousness came to Char in a haze. Even though the sun did not affect the light of the world between worlds, she swore that the watery green glow streaming in through the Gummi ship's window to her room seemed brighter, and she found herself groaning aloud and squeezing her bleary eyes shut against it.

Eventually, though, her desire to keep alert won out over any lingering exhaustion and she ended up pushing the pillows off her face to sit up. All at once, the events from yesterday washed over her, bringing a multitude of mixed emotions that assailed her with the force of a Heartless' blow. Finding out Axel had kidnapped Kairi, only to lose her to that Saïx guy; learning the Organization was using Sora to feed Kingdom Hearts; realizing Xemnas knew more about what Char knew than she had thought; visiting the virtual world of Ansem's computer; telling Sora all about Roxas and the Organization and her connection to them…

Above all, though, one particular memory buoyed itself to the top of her thoughts, as much due to the happiness it brought her then and now as the fact that it was the most vivid. With the peculiar sensation of her heart lightening within her chest – a sensation that she once would have denounced as nothing but the hormonal wishes of a lonely schoolgirl – Char found herself remembering Sora's fingers against her cheek, against the side of her neck; the way just feeling him so close had all but shattered every ounce of self-control she had left. An unconscious smile stretched across her face at the memory.

Fast on the heels of her content at finally knowing how Sora felt – at knowing he kept her close to his heart after all – came the recollection of the argument that had led up to the kiss in the first place. And even though Char knew she shouldn't dwell on the negative things, she still couldn't help but groan aloud and fall back on the pillows.

Yes, the kiss had distracted Sora from the truth she still withheld from him. But today, now that they had both had a well-deserved night's sleep to dull the edge of bliss that filled both of them, suspicion would, more likely than not, begin to leak through and stain that bliss for them. Again. Char's chest hurt at the very thought of repeating the powerful, albeit short-lived, reactions that Sora and the others' paranoia of her had inflicted on her yesterday.

While the knowledge that she shouldn't have even become friends with these dorks in the first place remained, she knew that thinking of them as such was tinged with affection and not contempt. That having the closest friends she'd ever had look upon her with wariness pained her more than she enjoyed admitting.

_Then again, Riku's my close friend, too, and it's not like he'd be suspicious of me. _Unexpectedly, Char felt a surge of wistfulness that rivaled those she had experienced at the very beginning of this journey, when her heart still belonged to Riku and she had regarded Sora, Donald, and Goofy with barely-disguised disdain. She hadn't dwelled too much on it in the heat and rush of traveling with Sora and fighting with him, but she did still miss Riku, if only in the way one might long for an older sibling.

"Char?" Goofy called tentatively from outside. "Uh, breakfast's ready, if you're awake."

His voice trailed off at the last part, as though even he knew how uncertain he sounded. Belatedly, Char realized he had knocked before speaking, and wondered just how long he had been standing outside.

Combing her fingers quickly through her hair, she replied, "Yeah, I'm awake. Just give me a little bit to get ready."

A beat; then Goofy uttered a hasty word of acknowledgment. Char heard him moving off and chuckled to herself; he had probably nodded before realizing she couldn't see him do it.

After donning her jacket and giving her hair an obligatory once-over, Char stepped outside her room and wandered down the hall to where the others waited. Goofy had returned to his spot at the table and was currently offering a forkful of pale yellow scrambled egg to Donald, who was shaking his head fervently. Scanning the room further, she spotted the brunette sitting at the table shoveling scrambled eggs down his throat with all the force of a dying man; the sight made her raise an eyebrow, half reprovingly and half amusedly. After all, it was odd when he was awake before her.

"Any chance you've got some left for me?" she queried, walking around the table to sit next to Sora.

The sound of her voice made the Keybearer surface from his meal and glance over at her. Almost immediately, his eyes seemed to soften and he actually deigned to swallow his mouthful of food before responding. "Good morning, Char," he greeted with a smile. Although he carried the same degree of friendliness that normally marked him, Char picked up on the tenderness in his gaze and felt a surge of warmth… yet discomfort at the same time.

She tried to shake off the latter and gave him a nod of response. "Morning," she answered, reaching for the empty plate on the table and starting to gather some eggs onto it. Not her favorite breakfast, but she would take it. They never knew where their next meal would be coming from, after all.

Sora's smile widened a little, and after pushing more food into his mouth and swallowing, he spoke again. "Did you sleep well last night?"

Char knew his innocent question had no hidden meaning behind it, but she still couldn't help remembering what had happened. Her laying her heart bare before him, and then…

Gods, just the thought of it sent her into that idiotically happy stupor all over again.

She forced herself to just shrug in response. "Yeah, I guess."

"Good," Donald said brusquely. "We're going to need all our strength if we're going to stop the Organization."

He sounded so much like Char's old self that the redhead felt a smirk twitching over her lips. She knew he was right, though; if they had any hope of eradicating all the danger from the worlds without inadvertently assisting their enemies – as well as finding Sora's friends again – their best bet was to find the Organization and take them down.

"What are you smirking at?" the duck growled suddenly. Clearly, he had picked up on the subtle amusement on Char's features.

"Nothing, nothing," she chuckled, focusing on eating the eggs on her plate. Goofy's reputation as a good cook made itself clear no matter what he produced, she reflected with a satisfied smile.

Donald narrowed his eyes, but chose to ignore her in favor of looking back at Sora and Goofy. "Don't you guys agree, though?" he prompted.

Goofy nodded. "Of course you're right, Donald, but… uh, how're we gonna do that?" he finished, ducking his head as he did so.

"Good question." Sora sighed; he had finished eating while the three had been talking, and now he pushed his empty plate away and fixed doubt-filled blue eyes on his comrades. "The Organization is in the realm of darkness, right?"

"I think so," Goofy said, lifting his gaze to Sora's. "That's what that Xemnas fella said."

Char flinched. _Xemnas said a lot of other things, too._

To her immense relief, though, Sora seemed to have forgotten all about Xemnas accusing her about Riku, and guilt washed over her at knowing last night's kiss had probably played a part in the Keybearer's convenient amnesia. "Yeah," Sora said with a nod. "But how do we get there? That's what I want to know." His brow furrowed with a mix of thoughtfulness – a rare emotion for him – and desperation.

Donald opened his mouth to speak, only to close it again when his mind caught up and realized he had no real answer. The duck stared down at his still-empty plate, while Goofy looked just as lost.

Char frowned to herself, thinking. As far as she knew, only portals of darkness could take someone even anywhere close to the Organization's world; then again, the only time she had been to the World That Never Was, she had accompanied Riku there to help him subdue Roxas, and she hadn't been there since. For all she knew, maybe another means of entering that dark, stormy place existed.

"Maybe there's another way," she murmured aloud.

"Huh?" Sora perked up instantly, looking over at her hopefully.

She lifted her gaze to his, and the desire to know just what she was thinking blazed so strongly in his wide eyes it almost hurt to look. "I might be wrong," she said, a little embarrassed at having to disclaim her theory, "but maybe there's a way to get into that world… from another world we've already been to."

When the others donned confused expressions, Char sighed irritably and elaborated. "I'm saying that if there's a way in, we haven't found it yet. It's out there, more than likely; not even the Organization could think so far ahead as to completely block out every rip and seam they've left in the worlds they've been to. I know," she added dryly, "I worked with some of them for eleven years."

"So… you're saying if we visit the worlds on the map again, we might find a way?" Gradual understanding brightened Sora's features as he paraphrased her words.

"Pretty much, yeah. I could be wrong, though," she hastily said, because his happiness was almost too much to take.

"We should probably go visit the others anyway, right?" Goofy asked. He counted off on his fingers the various inhabitants of the worlds they had already seen on this journey. "There's Mulan, Beast, Belle…"

"That's actually a good idea," Donald conceded grudgingly.

Char narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. "Well, thank you. I do try to say something useful every once in a while."

Sora laughed, a sound that induced a smile on Char's face as well. "You're right. And it'll be nice to see the others again."

_And…_ His thoughts took a much more serious turn as he remembered what Axel had said, about Saix having "caught" Kairi. That probably meant the Organization was holding Kairi hostage, and in all likelihood, if Riku wasn't in the other worlds Sora had visited already, the silver-haired young man waited in the realm of darkness as well.

Without knowing it, Sora's fist clenched beneath the table. Because therein lay the real problem here, the issue he had avoided thinking about ever since he had awoken this morning. Between the groggy mist that rolled over his thoughts, he had remembered her kiss from the night before, only to have the happiness that that memory heralded dissipate at once when he had remembered exactly _what_ had led to it.

He knew he should be more suspicious of Char, in light of what Xemnas had said yesterday about her and Riku. But just remembering the doubt that had surfaced as a result of the Organization leader's accusation – and, Sora recalled with a pang of guilty warmth, the way his doubt had come pouring out of him last night – made his heart clench in his chest. No matter how he looked at her keeping this bit of information from him, the fact remained that Sora wanted to trust Char fully; he wanted it so badly it almost hurt.

So as much as his conscience cried out against the idea, Sora had chosen right then and there, as he'd lay there staring up at the ceiling and remembering everything she had done to prove her loyalty in the past, not to bring up what Xemnas had said. Not only was the Nobody probably lying – twisting the truth in order to push the group apart again – but he never wanted to see his friend in the amount of pain that yesterday had caused her ever again.

"Sora?" Donald waved a feathered hand in the brunette's face, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Sora jolted and looked around at the others: at Goofy's mildly amused smile, one that he immediately tried to stifle with a hand over his mouth; at Donald's impatient stare; at Char's expectant gaze on him. He lingered on that last one; unbidden, the memory of her tears against his finger floated back into his mind, and the way she had flinched before giving in to his touch.

_No,_ Sora scolded himself, _this is _not _the time._ That didn't banish his thoughts at all, though, much to his frustration.

"Sorry, guys," he said with a reassuring smile. "Where do you think we should go first?"

Donald still looked dubious, but he answered readily enough. "Let me check," he called, hopping off his chair and waddling over to the control panel. As he peered into the screen that showed the map, Sora risked a glance at Char and saw her meet his eyes briefly before even that proved too much and she tore her gaze away, staring down at her lap with a slight hint of red on her cheeks.

The sight made his lips curl upward a little. He had wholeheartedly believed every word she had said last night about fighting for his sake – her roundabout way of saying how she felt – but all the same, it was still kind of nice to see her reinforce that fact.

"The Land of Dragons is closest," Donald said from the control panel, turning his head from where he had knelt in the pilot's seat to look at his companions. "We can go there first."

"Sounds good, a-hyuck." Goofy bobbed his head up and down in acquiescence.

"Yeah," Sora agreed.

He stood, fingers inching toward his empty plate to take it to the sink, only to have something seize his wrist in the process. Confused, he looked down and saw a green-gloved hand against his arm.

A distinct sense of curiosity infused him as he followed the path of her arm up to her face. Those icy eyes were appraising him with a kind of expectant hardness to them, as though she had something she needed to say. In spite of his prior vow against considering the possibility, Sora felt a fleeting flare of hope that maybe she had decided to tell the truth about Riku.

He shook the feeling off and just tilted his head to the side at her. "Char, you okay?"

To his bemusement, she did not answer his question. "Sora," she said, "can I talk to you? In private?" Even as she spoke, she was already dragging him over to the hallway leading to their respective rooms.

"Uh, okay," Sora said, blinking. He tossed a "be right back, guys" at Donald and Goofy over his shoulder for good measure.

Char steered him to an unsteady halt right in front of his room, jerking his wrist in a way that made him cry out in surprise. "Are you okay?" he repeated, more confused than ever at the – what was that, _dread_ that had replaced her previous annoyance?

After a few moments, during which Sora was suddenly reminded of just what had happened in the room that lay just beyond where they stood, she suddenly spoke. "About, um… about last night…" She trailed off, tearing her gaze away and staring at the ground. A flicker of movement from further down announced her fingers beginning to tap against her leg nervously.

_Last night._ Of course. Sora's heartbeat began to spike to almost unhealthy levels, to the point where he had to fight to breathe, at just the phantom memory of her lips on his and her hair sweeping over his fingers on her neck. "Oh, yeah," was all he could murmur, his wrist tingling as it hung limply at his side.

"We're…" Char hesitated, then steeled herself to lift her head to his. "We're not going to pretend it didn't happen, are we?"

Her attempt at a brusque tone made Sora wince, because he _knew_ that façade belied how she really felt. The frustrating part was that he had no clue how to respond: not just to placate her, but to soothe his own doubts as well. Yes, he had kissed her; yes, he had enjoyed it, despite the fact that she very clearly was not Kairi. Yet his heart had made it almost agonizingly clear that it had moved from his maroon-haired best friend to the girl in front of him.

_So what's the problem?_ he almost thought, before remembering he knew very well what the "problem" was. After all, as far as he knew, one couldn't just quit loving someone one had harbored ten years of feelings for.

At the same time, though, Sora couldn't bring himself so far as to think something was wrong with him.

The sound of a hoarse squawking from the pilot's seat could be heard then, and Sora clenched his fists, dread filling him. Donald and Goofy would more than likely have something to say about this new development as well. Even in the past, Sora had done a rather poor job of hiding his budding love for Char – and, he suddenly realized, she had, too; the epiphany was aided by having the fact pushed right in front of his face, but it came nonetheless – so now that he knew it was mutual…

He forced himself to stop thinking about that, even as the voice of reason in the back of his mind piped up and asked what would be so terrible about the Disney residents knowing about this. Because Char was still watching him with an air of undisguised desperation, her eyes searching his face for something.

_Does she think I have the last word on this?_ The idea hit Sora with a force that almost made him physically stagger. Odd, considering her unabashed confidence and tendency to take over situations herself. The visit to the Land of Dragons, with Shan-Yu and Ryou, came to Sora's mind first, making him briefly wonder how the village was faring in the three weeks or so since the group had taken the Hun down.

_Focus,_ the Keybearer told himself then, because he hated that look of fear on Char's face as much as she likely hated feeling it.

He sighed, finally just deciding to say what he honestly felt; the words that the delirium brought by the sweetness of her lips against his had pushed into the back of his mind. "I don't want to pretend it didn't happen," he admitted. "But I…"

Char inclined her head, widening her eyes in a silent request for him to continue – and yet that fear didn't fade in the slightest from her eyes.

What exactly was she afraid of?

Her own feelings, maybe? The very things her job as a researcher had forced her to suppress, and that the loss of her friends to the darkness had all but banished entirely?

As he remembered her telling him the fate of the other six apprentices, a pang of sympathy gripped his heart so strongly the breath caught in his throat. Impulsively, he reached out and pulled her close in the embrace he had wanted to complete from practically the moment she had gasped at Ansem's name in Merlin's house, a day and a lifetime ago.

He felt her stiffen in his hold, but ignored his better judgment – which was telling him quite firmly to pry himself away before he lost an arm – and just hugged her more tightly to him. The frantic beating of her heart mingled with his own where their chests pressed together, and Sora clung to that, the one thing that set him apart from his enemies.

"I just really, really like you," he said, and something seemed to sigh in relief within him as the confession passed into reality.

A beat; then Char relaxed tangibly and let out a sigh whose breath he felt more than heard against his hair. "And Kairi?" she asked, wearily. "What about her?"

Startled into doing so, Sora moved back a little, his hands sliding to her ribs to keep even this small connection. Her pupils darted briefly down to where his hands had settled before meeting his gaze again.

"Kairi is one of my best friends," Sora said, choosing his words carefully. "And I still want to save her. More than anything else. But… I want to save Riku, too. It's the same thing."

_Is it?_ Char left that question unspoken, but for how loudly it echoed in the silence she might as well have screamed it.

"Plus I haven't seen her in over a year," Sora added, trying to assuage the doubt he saw reflected in her eyes. "So, when I met you, I…" He trailed off; even he realized how pathetic he sounded.

Char apparently did too, as her furrowed brow straightened in a skeptical look. She sighed, gingerly grasping his hands and removing them from her ribcage; only when he was bereft of the contact and felt the phantom of her body heat on his fingers did Sora realize what he had just done. It was all he could do to meet her gaze, so strong was the embarrassment that flew from his fingertips to his cheeks. "Look," Char began, folding her arms across her chest, "you like me. I get it. And, lucky for you, the feeling's mutual. But…" Her eyes flicked down for a moment, then back up to him. "I don't know, it just… really doesn't seem like the best time."

"The best time for what?" Sora asked, desperation beginning to build up in his gut. He knew exactly what she meant: they were on a perilous quest, he still had two best friends to take back and the Organization to take down…

It was the worst possible time for the two of them to act on their hormones, and, aided by the way Char's logic and perceptiveness had gradually transferred to him as time had passed, Sora knew it.

Didn't stop it from hurting him, though.

"You know what," Char mumbled, crimson rising to her cheeks.

Sora could only stare at her. "So…?"

She lifted her head and met his eyes then, even though the same luster that had coated her own gaze the night before had returned. "So we shouldn't get into something we'll regret," she said, so quietly he had to strain to hear.

He sighed. She was right, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Even now, his entire body screamed at him to deny her words, to rush out right then and there and tell Donald and Goofy exactly why the dog had heard shouting from Sora's room last night.

More than anything, though, Sora's conscience prevailed, insisting gently that she had set the boundaries in the past and he needed to adhere to them now just as doggedly as he had then. And so, ignoring the pain in his chest, he made his decision.

"All right," he said.

"I said we can't and that's – huh?" Char had apparently had a full rant ready for him if he'd chosen to demur, but as her mind caught up with her instinctive reaction, she stopped abruptly and gave him a startled look. "Are you… are you sure?" she managed.

"Yeah." Sora nodded. "You're right. About us, I mean."

_Us._ The word had never sounded more bittersweet to him.

"But," he couldn't resist adding, "after we defeat the Organization, and go back to the islands with Kairi and Riku…"

Char held up one finger for silence, at the same time feeling a very powerful catch in her throat at his including her in that illustrious return. She had never allowed herself to consider much about what would happen after the initial purpose of her tagging along with Sora – her and Ansem's revenge – was fulfilled, but now she found herself thinking on the Keybearer's words. _I could go back with him…_

Even that was thinking too far ahead, though, especially with how precarious their survival was, with Nobodies and Heartless at every turn. And so she did what she had done best before all of this and shoved it to a dark corner of her mind, once reserved for the memory of her fellow apprentices' deaths and her former crush on Riku.

"We'll think about that when the time comes," she said, her heart rate kicking up at the possibility of later. It was an idiotic thing to feel – Sora kissing her had proved peremptorily that he had moved on from Kairi – but nervousness permeated every throb of that muscle in her chest at the thought of staying on Destiny Island with him.

_Why, though? Because it's so different from what you're used to?_

_ Because then you would have to face a relationship with him, and you're not emotionally ready for it?_

The grin had returned to Sora's face, she noted, and rolled her eyes at his enthusiasm. "Not a moment before," she said firmly. "You need to keep our goal in mind. Riku and Kairi, and the Organization." A flash of her old self – the Char that had balked at the thought of becoming friends with Sora and the others and focused only on thoughts of revenge – rose up inside her, and she held on to that, the only remnant of simpler days.

"Right." His determination had returned at hearing his friends' names, and Char reflected on just how deep his love for them was. Even though Riku had tried to kill him in the past. Even though his feelings for Kairi had turned platonic.

If she had had friends like that, she couldn't help wondering, what would she be like now?

Pushing the thought aside, she gave him a close-lipped, subdued smile and awkwardly patted his shoulder. "Now then, I think Donald and Goofy need us up front," she said, just as a holler of "Get up here, you two!" resounded in the Gummi ship.

"Sorry, Donald!" Sora called back, laughing. He turned away and started toward the main room, and Char followed after him, relief pulsing strongly throughout her entire body. He had handled her ultimatum – the one she had come to just moments before uttering it aloud, feeling his warmth against hers and realizing with a wave of terror how badly she wanted it to stay there – better than her hastily-fabricated fear had made her imagine.

Still…

"About time you two got back," Donald grumbled as Char absently settled into the chair two seats over. Even without picking up her unintentional hint, Sora immediately flopped down into the empty chair she had left for him.

"We were just talking," Sora said with an encouraging smile.

"About what?" Goofy inquired, tilting his head to the side.

_Oh, crap._ Char unconsciously stiffened, sliding her legs up to press her shins against the edge of the control panel.

Thankfully, though, Sora spoke before she could. "Not that much," he answered, shrugging. "Just… this journey. Stuff."

His voice sounded strained, and Char fought back a wince. Sora was a terrible liar. Maybe she should have taken it upon herself to speak for both of them after all; if this past month had proven anything, it was how well she could weave a lie. Which… wasn't exactly an admirable ability, but it would have helped.

Donald scoffed doubtfully, but said nothing.

"So, uh, I guess we're goin' to the Land of Dragons now," Goofy said awkwardly.

"Yeah," Sora said.

Without a word, the mage flicked a few switches, and with a very tangible lurch, the Gummi ship began to move, leaving wisps of pale green behind in its wake.

"I wonder how Mulan's doing," Sora wondered aloud, leaning back in his seat and putting his arms behind his head.

"Oh, yeah." Char blinked. It felt like ages since they had bid farewell to the young woman who had disguised herself as a man to slip into the army's ranks. She allowed the recollections of the time the group had spent in the Land of Dragons to wash over her: finding Mulan and Mushu; that Shang guy snarling at Char, trying to defer her from fighting with his men; and…

The most vivid memory of all floated to the forefront of her mind then, and it was all Char could do not to cry aloud. _Ryou._ The little boy who had died for the sake of that bastard Shan-Yu's war, the child who reminded Char so much of her younger, more naïve self. Gods, but thinking of that poor kid still hurt. She supposed that some amount of maternal instinct must lurk within her, if grief and sorrow and hatred for Ryou's murderer still bubbled up within her at remembering what had happened three weeks ago.

"I wonder if she's still with, uh…" Goofy scratched his head, clearly trying to remember Shang's name.

"Shang?" Char cut in.

"Uh-huh." The dog nodded gratefully.

Char sighed, watching the world between worlds fly past outside the window. Donald remained silent, seemingly focused on piloting the Gummi ship toward the dojo-like building on the map; but his eyes flickered toward them every once in a while to signify that he was listening. "Probably," the redhead said, unable to keep a chuckle out of her voice. Mulan's feelings for the army captain were painfully obvious even three weeks ago, after all.

"Hey," Sora said suddenly, "you're not going to run off again, are you?" Though his words sounded accusatory, the playful tone he adopted while speaking them softened their blow as he gave Char a suspicious leer.

Char scoffed and rolled her eyes, though not without a smile on her face. Oh yeah, she remembered; she had split up from the group upon finding out Shan-Yu had survived the avalanche, fully intending to give him a piece of her mind and her blade. "Unless some more little kids got stabbed, no, I don't plan to," she said, only half-joking.

"Somehow I don't believe you." One dark blue eye squinted comically at her, but before she could respond with another teasing remark, seriousness filtered onto his face and wiped the grin away. "I wonder how Ryou's mom's doing," he murmured.

That made Char wince. If her grief had all but crippled her better judgment, it paled starkly in comparison to what the boy's mother likely felt. _At least we took down his murderer,_ the redhead told herself. "You never know," was all she said.

Sora blinked, discomfort rolling up his spine in hot waves. Somehow, he just knew he had said the wrong thing without meaning to. Again.

Fighting the frustration that began to simmer deep within him, he glanced back at the view of the emerald clouds and saw that said emerald clouds had already vanished, in favor of paler white ones. These white clouds proved few and far between as Donald maneuvered the Gummi ship to land close to the summit where the village lay.

"Why're we landin' all the way out here, Donald?" Goofy asked, peering at the duck, who had his brow furrowed in intense concentration.

"Yeah, seriously," Char muttered. "Isn't a huge eye-burning vessel sitting in the snow considered 'meddling?'"

"Well, would you rather have us land in a bunch of bamboo like we did last time?" Donald shot back, a little too quickly.

"Wait a minute," Sora interrupted slowly. "Donald… are you trying to see if the village is okay?"

"No!" the mage spat. "I just think it would be easier to land this thing if it were in the open, and the snow is the closest – _will you stop smiling?"_

For the boy had adopted a near-smirk of amusement and affection. "It's okay, Donald," he said. "I kind of want to know, too."

Donald huffed and stared back down at the rapidly-approaching snowy ground. "Whatever," he grumbled, pulling a lever. In response, the Gummi ship began to shift very subtly back to a level position, and the group eventually felt a muffled thud as the vessel touched down in the snow.

"All right," Sora said, beginning to rise. He risked a glance out the window and saw, to his immense dismay, that the village just beyond was empty, completely devoid of life and still blackened with the fires they had watched swallow it up not long ago.

He heard Char draw in a sharp breath next to him and knew she was craning her neck to see over his shoulder. "I guess they left the village," he said, and felt a rush of disappointment that he couldn't see how Ryou's mother was faring.

"Well, at any rate, we can still look around," Donald suggested, though the strained tone to his voice implied that his brusqueness was forced.

"Yeah," Goofy agreed hastily. "I wonder how everybody's doin'?"

"Well, we can check and see in a sec." Seeing the duck's failure to respond to the command inherent in her words, Char sighed and reached over to flick a switch. Immediately Donald sprang up, berating her. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, even as a click was heard and freezing cold air suddenly swept into the ship.

"Putting the ramp down?" Char rolled her eyes, pushing herself up from her chair. "Gods, duck boy. Like I don't know what at least _that_ button does."

That silenced Donald at once; he froze right there, standing on his chair with his beak hanging open and one finger still raised at her. Then his bill snapped shut and he growled in his throat. "All right, then," he said irritably. "Let's go."

"Wait," Sora interrupted, causing them all to glance over at him. "Shouldn't we, uh… get some healing items first?"

"Oh yeah," Goofy said, blinking. "We almost ran out in Hollow Bastion, didn't we?"

Donald dug around in his pocket for a moment, then withdrew his hand with a telltale blue sparkle making itself known between his fingers. "I've got a couple of Hi-Potions."

"That's probably not enough," Char murmured. Inwardly, she cursed herself for using her last Potion back in Hollow Bastion.

"I've got a bunch, though," Goofy announced, lifting both hands and showing their burden of multiple blue-filled vials.

Sora gaped at the dog, who gave him a mildly bemused look. "Uh, what?"

"Why didn't you tell us you had so many?" Char spoke what they all were thinking, her eyes wide.

"You never asked." Goofy rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Give us some!" Donald snatched one out of the knight's hands and stuffed it into his pocket.

Char narrowed her eyes at Donald's rudeness, but nevertheless copied his example, if a little more gently. As Sora followed after her, their fingers brushed, causing a tingling sensation that made her jump. Sora jolted as well, then met her eyes with an embarrassed smile that forced her to remind herself of what she had said earlier.

Quickly, she closed her fingers around a couple of Hi-Potions and pushed them into her pocket, refusing to look at Sora. Confusion shadowed his countenance for a moment, but then he shrugged and took a couple of healing items as well.

"So, that leaves a few for each of us," Sora said.

"Wait!" Donald squawked. "What about Ethers, or something? How am I supposed to recover my mana if a fight comes and I run out?"

"Oh, you'll be fine," Char said, waving a dismissing hand. "You can just sit in the back and let it recover yourself."

Her words induced a low snarl from the mage, and he was about to deliver a biting retort when Goofy cut him off. "Uh, so what say we go on outside?"

_Good idea,_ Char thought, smirking at Donald's indignation.

* * *

The snow crunched beneath their feet as the four of them walked through the desolate remains of the village. Looking around, Char suppressed a shiver at the sight of the destruction and the memories it resurrected. Of hot blood spilling over her hands; of walking out of the cavern, exhausted from battling Anxclof, only to stop in horror at the sight of the burning village.

_Anxclof._ Char hadn't allowed herself to dwell on the outcome of their last battle – out of a childish fear that just thinking of the female Nobody would summon her to stand before them with that eerie amber smothering her vision and that vengeful smile on her features – but now she found herself wondering about Anxclof's decision all over again. Not that she wasn't grateful that Anxclof had let her live; she just wondered why Anxclof had relented at the last possible moment. _Considering how much she hates me for kidnapping Roxas and all._

Fast on the heels of that thought came the question as to what Anxclof was doing now. Somehow, Char couldn't believe the Blade of Vengeance was waiting in the shadows to ambush them with her Keyblade; her paranoia had dulled far too much for that. Even though if it came to a battle, Anxclof would likely win all over again, Char found herself not believing she would come back. It was just a feeling she had.

_If she does, though, you have to be ready,_ her pride reminded her. _Riku won't be there to save you every time you bite off more than you can chew, after all._

She looked up from where her gaze had been determinedly focused on her feet making indents in the snow, only to gasp at the sight that greeted her.

Immediately, Sora was at attention, his Keyblade appearing in his hands as he fell into his battle stance. "What?" he demanded, even as Donald almost walked into his back.

Silently, Char pointed ahead, too inundated with fury to form a coherent response. For standing before them was a figure clad in a familiar black cloak.

Sora followed her gaze to the Organization member, and his own eyes widened. "Hey!" he shouted, but his feet had just begun to move when the figure turned and dashed off toward the top of the mountain.

Char stared after the figure, her heavy breathing and tense stance relaxing only slightly. If it really was an Organization member, then why hadn't he just used a dark portal to move away?  
The answer came quickly, and her fists clenched as it echoed in her mind. _Because he's playing with us, that's why. Whoever he is, he _wants_ us to follow him to the top of the mountain._

"What's goin' on?" Goofy gulped.

"Yeah, why didn't he just use the darkness?" Sora wondered aloud.

"He's toying with us," Char spoke through gritted teeth. "He wants us to follow him." Speaking her realization out loud didn't assuage her anger in the slightest, as it turned out.

"Well, if he wants a fight, we'll give it to him!" Donald pounded his staff into the opposite hand, dark eyes narrowed.

Sora nodded in agreement, though doubt passed through his gaze as he did so. Char knew he was probably thinking about Roxas, and Demyx, and the guilt that had filled him at watching the latter fade in a shadowy conflagration. Again, she thought, _why did you have to tell him about Roxas, you idiot?_

Fortunately, any other self-deprecating thoughts were effectively cut off by a familiar voice shouting, "Sora!"

As one, the group turned and saw Mulan running toward them, blade in hand. She stopped in front of them, panting audibly.

"Hey, Mulan," Sora greeted hastily. "No time to talk; we've gotta catch that guy!" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the mountain path's general direction as he spoke, and Char suppressed a smile of relief. No matter how guilty Roxas' existence made him feel about effectively killing the beings he had lived and worked with, Sora's desire to save people would always come first.

Mulan straightened then and fixed a determined look on them. "Good; maybe you all can help me out. I'm following him, too," she added for confirmation.

"Really?" Goofy asked. "Uh, why are you after somebody from Organization XIII?"

"What's that?" Mulan asked, clearly confused. Char had to fight the urge to slap herself then at Goofy's little slip-up.

"The guy in black," she elaborated, at the same time giving the knight a hard stare, at which he ducked his head. "One of the bad guys."

"I knew it. There's a rumor about a spy in black, lurking in the mountains," Mulan explained. "I'd tracked him this far already, but…" The expectation in her voice suggested that their presence was holding her back.

"Then let's go!" Donald urged.

"Right," Mulan said.

The five of them charged up to the village exit, where the ground began to slowly but surely slope upward. Char glanced over at Sora and saw, with a thrill of bemusement, that the Keyblade he had chosen was the Oathkeeper, all but blending in against the snowy backdrop.

"I guess you needed the Keyblade I was keeping from you after all," she remarked breathlessly, unable to keep a hint of bitterness out of her voice.

Sora looked confused as he ran, then realization crossed his face and he gave the Oathkeeper in his grip a glance. "Well," he panted, "I thought I owed you that much. It's called the Oathkeeper for a reason, right?"

Though his words were near incoherent among the breathlessness given to him by their running speed, Char picked up the hidden meaning there. She couldn't help but smile at his unspoken promise – to wield the Oathkeeper for both her sake and Kairi's – albeit somewhat wryly. "Corny as hell," she said, "but I'll take it."

Sora pouted at her words, but that indignation eventually faded out to a grin of relief at the absolution.

He looked back forward again, only to cry out as he spotted the tail of the black Organization coat vanishing around the sheer cliff face. In the same moment, multiple Nobodies materialized around them: Dusks, and an odd, swaggering Nobody holding a pink-glowing gun in its grasp.

The five of them stopped unsteadily and raised their weapons, even as their foes began to converge on them. Sora spotted one of the unfamiliar Nobodies lifting its gun and picked up a high-pitched whine just before a pale pink diamond appeared in midair right next to him. Startled, he reflexively lashed out with his Keyblade and knocked the diamond away, practically into Char. Thankfully, she dodged in time, even as the shape collided with the Nobody and knocked it back. "Will you watch it?" she yelled.

"Sorry," Sora called apologetically. "It was a reflex!"

As if on some kind of signal, the rest of the Nobodies leapt into action. Mulan and Goofy tackled a group of Dusks, while Donald cast furiously, causing flares of electricity, fire, and ice to rend the air. Sora and Char focused on beating back the unfamiliar Nobodies, with the former copying his prior strategy of knocking the diamond back into their source, as the impact seemed to cause the Nobodies pain. It took them a few minutes of fighting for it to hit him that those diamonds were bullets from their enemies' rifles.

Halfway through the battle, Char's jaw had clenched in a way that made the muscle bulge on her face. Sora wondered, surprised, what had caused her that much rage; then again, if he remembered properly, a different kind of lesser Nobody announced the presence of an Organization member, and she didn't exactly like the Organization. Still, it was odd that she express so much anger, and Sora pondered on which Organization member had arrived here in the Land of Dragons.

_Probably the same guy who just ran off,_ he thought, and felt a fresh wave of determination to catch the Nobody who undoubtedly either waited at the top of the mountain or had already left this world.

"Come on!" Donald shouted to them, just as the Oathkeeper cleaved through the final sniping Nobody. Sora called acquiescence back to the duck, at the same time wincing from the sting of the minor wounds inflicted on him – one from an errant pink bullet he had missed still oozed on his shoulder – and turning to Char. "Let's go catch that guy," he told her.

"Yeah." Char simply nodded, her eyes narrowed. "If it's who I think it is up there…" She stopped, shaking her head, before racing off after Donald, Goofy, and Mulan. Startled, Sora followed at a fairly sprinting pace.

When they reached the summit, though, all five of them let out a collective groan. Only the snowy landscape greeted their vision, if a little more swollen than Sora remembered from the avalanche. "Nuts; he got away," Donald cursed.

"Darn it," Mulan sighed, lowering her sword. "I'd almost found him, too…"

The frustrated tone to her voice was tempered by longing, which bemused Sora. Char, however, seemed to pick up the reason behind that tone, if the little smirk on her face was any indication. "Did Shang tell you to track that guy down?" she queried.

"Of course not!" Mulan rebuffed her immediately, though the slight stutter in her voice belied her words. "I just wanted to bring him to justice."

Sora grinned a little, only for that amusement to falter when he remembered she had lost the guy when he and his friends had arrived. "Sorry," he apologized.

Mulan gave him an encouraging smile. "It's all right. Though I do wonder where he went."

"Your guess is as good as mine." Char shrugged.

"Hey!" Donald suddenly shouted, pointing up at the slope. The sound of his yell reverberated throughout the snowy valley, and Sora flinched, bracing himself for the noise to dislodge the snow and cause another avalanche. When he saw what Donald was pointing at, however, any fear of being buried went forgotten.

The bird-like Heartless that had come in swarms at Shan-Yu's back had reappeared in full force, and now they descended from the top of the mountain. Remembering what Saïx had said about the Keyblade feeding Kingdom Hearts, Sora hesitated, gripping the Oathkeeper more tightly in his hands. Up till now, destroying the Nobodies had allowed him to forget how fighting their darker counterparts would indirectly help the Organization; now, though…

"Crap," Char hissed, her hold on her swords tightening. _It's like Shan-Yu all over again!_

As the Heartless grew closer, she couldn't help but feel a tremble begin to shake through her fingers. Taking these enemies out would allow them to survive, it was true; but in light of the truth about Kingdom Hearts and what the Organization wanted from Sora…

_No._ She shook the doubt off. The Heartless would tear them apart if they didn't fight back.

"Come on!" she roared over the buzzing of the Heartless' wings, which was almost deafening at this point. "We can't just let them kill us!"

"But…" Goofy brought his free hand up to his face nervously.

"Come on, you guys!" Mulan shouted, already running sword-first into the mass of foes and beginning to carve a path. Char couldn't help but notice Sora wincing unconsciously every time a Heartless released its burden into the pale blue sky.

Then the brunette sighed and hefted his Keyblade. "Guys, let's go. We have to help Mulan."

"I guess," Donald said, uncharacteristic anxiety on his face.

As the two Disney residents reluctantly charged off after Mulan, Sora made as if to do the same, only to stop and pivot around when something dark caught his eye. Sure enough, the Organization member from earlier stood there, completely still. The brunette couldn't hold back a shiver; although the man's eyes remained invisible, cloaked by the darkness offered by the hood over his head, he swore the Nobody's gaze was locked on him.

Fighting back his discomfort, he narrowed his eyes. "There you are," he growled, pointing the Oathkeeper at the Nobody. "We've been looking for you."

In response, the dark-clad figure merely inclined its head… before settling into a stance Sora knew all too well.

And summoning a dark, wing-like weapon Sora knew all too well.

"What…?" The Keybearer gasped as memories flooded into his mind, stimulated by the stranger's upraised arm above his head and the heart-shaped charm that hung from the chain on the weapon he held. So many play-fights with wooden swords; then Keyblade clashing with dark blade in Hollow Bastion…

_No way. _

_ That can't be…_

_ Riku?_

Shock had frozen Sora to the ground, so he could barely move when the figure suddenly danced away, black coat swishing over the snow as that dark weapon sliced into a Heartless that had gotten too close. As the pink, translucent heart shot up into the sky, Sora had a brief moment before he heard Char scream his name from behind him.

He whirled around just in time to see the Nobody – _Riku?_ – gripping the redhead around the waist and dragging her away. "Sora!" Char shouted again, struggling valiantly, but to no avail. Fleetingly, it crossed Sora's mind that Xemnas had to have been lying, she wouldn't be expressing so much shock and terror if she really did know Riku…

But that couldn't be Riku, right?

Shaking those thoughts away, Sora dashed forward, Keyblade at the ready; but agony abruptly lanced into his arm, and he swung his head around and spotted one of the Heartless moving off, as if taunting him.

"Oh, come on!" he cried, batting it away with the Oathkeeper. It lurched back in midair, and he took that moment to finish it off before it could attack again.

He turned and shot forward again, after the dark shape that had already opened a swirling portal of darkness and stepped into it; Char screamed "Sora!" one more time before the figure pushed a weapon-free, gloved hand over her mouth. Sora swore he saw her captor flinch as if in disgust before calming again and dragging her into the portal behind him.

"No!" Sora shrieked, and flung himself forward, feeling panic ooze slowly, poisonously, through his veins. _No,_ his mind echoed, _no, no, no, not now, this can't be happening, it can't –_

But then the portal had vanished, and the Heartless were setting upon him, and Sora could only stare at where Char and that almost-maybe-Riku had once stood, tears beginning to blur his eyes.

_No._

_Char._

* * *

"Let go of me!" Char snarled, even as the familiar feeling of darkness sloughing over her vanished to reveal the gates of the imperial city. In response, the Organization member only pushed his hand over her mouth again, and she felt a surge of annoyance that her tongue sweeping against her captor's palm had only proved enough for him to let go for a moment.

She flailed valiantly in his grasp as he pulled her over, iron grip rendering her ability to concentrate and summon her swords all but useless. Only the impact of her back slamming hard against the crimson pillar that held up the gate – and the shockwaves that shuddered up her back in response – immobilized her.

"You heartless son of a bitch," she hissed, reduced to that much due to having had the breath knocked out of her. The rim of the Nobody's hood made her unable to see what color his eyes were, but she had the horrible, sinking feeling that a single golden eye would be staring mockingly into hers right now. _Xigbar, _she thought, panicking. _I knew those Nobodies on the mountain path were his – _

But then her captor was lifting his head, and she gasped when two eyes – eyes whose shade leaned more toward orange than Heartless-eye-gold – glared irritably at her.

"That was disgusting," a familiar voice stated.

Char could only gape at him, her mind shutting down. Because why would Riku show up now, of all times, and here, of all places, when he had told her specifically he wasn't revealing himself to Sora?

More importantly, why did his voice sound like a sixteen-year-old boy's, instead of the deep voice of the sleazy bastard whose form had overtaken said boy's?

"Riku?" she breathed.

"Yeah," he confirmed, disgust still in his voice. "And, uh? Please don't lick me next time."

Char narrowed her eyes. Even though the adrenaline offered by the fear that had gripped her failed to vanish, her fear was leaving her rather quickly. "Well next time you kidnap me from Sora, I'll remember that," she growled.

Mentioning Sora proved to be the exact _wrong_ thing to do, as that resurrected the memory of how she had just left him: running after her, Oathkeeper out, panic and rage and fear and realization twisting his countenance into a heart-rending expression. _Oh gods, Sora. _Tears threatened to prick at her eyes, and she glared anew at Riku.

"What?" he asked, amber eyes blinking.

"You know what," she gulped. "Sora… why…?"

She had to stop then, because completing that question would have resulted in a sob.

Riku sighed, the hands gripping her shoulders to hold her against the wall slackening just slightly and making her slide down a little. "I'm sorry," he murmured, two words that made her eyes widen as they escaped him. "I know I told you to stay with him, but I need you for this."

"For what?" Char demanded, speaking around a grief-ridden lump in her throat. Now Sora was probably walking back to the others, and Donald was demanding to know where Char had gone, and Sora was hanging his head and explaining that the Organization had taken her, too…

Gods, he had to be wondering what else those bastards would steal away from him before all this was over.

Riku stared at her a moment longer, contrition making itself obvious even in what was visible of his eyes. Gold, not green, like she – like _Sora_ – so desperately wanted. Char met that gaze with hers, breathing raggedly and trying to hold back the tears she couldn't reach up and wipe away.

Like Sora had reached up and wiped away last night, just before his mouth had met hers.

Then a sigh issued out of Riku again, and one hand lifted from her to pluck away the hood. What she saw did not surprise her, but made her flinch anyway as the face of her greatest enemy met her gaze.

"Your master has a job for the both of us," he explained wearily.

"A job." Char laughed under her breath. _Of course._ This was ridiculous. Before this, she would have gladly agreed to anything Ansem wanted her to do; now, though, in light of all the secrets she had learned he was keeping, she felt only a defiant curiosity, wondering why the hell he was trusting her with something like this when he apparently didn't even trust her with simple facts about him.

_Why does that surprise you, though?_ a voice in the back of her mind asked, very seriously. _You're his student. Not his daughter._

"Yes, a job," Riku said, taking his other hand from her shoulder. Char caught herself before she could stumble and fall, as his grip had been the only thing holding her upright. Bracing one hand against the pillar, she watched as Riku pulled the hood over his head again to hide Xehanort's face. Not that she blamed him, of course.

"So you kidnapped me." It was not a question.

Riku huffed, all pretenses of tired obligation gone. "Look, it wasn't the way I wanted to do it. I wanted you to stay out of it, but that old geezer insisted." He turned away and folded his arms as he spoke.

"So what is it?" Char demanded.

"I'll tell you in a sec," was his simple response. That hooded head lifted to appraise the imperial city gates. "For now, though, I need to do something. To talk to the emperor."

Char blinked. _That_ had come out of nowhere. "And why, pray tell, do you need to do that?" she asked, genuinely, albeit grudgingly, interested. Being torn away from Sora like this still sent a spike of pain through her heart, but she figured she may as well go with whatever Riku wanted. _For now, at least._

"Let's just say Xigbar pissed off a dragon," Riku muttered, making Char's eyes widen.

"Okay, now I'm interested," she admitted, risking a glance up at the mountain in the distance, where she knew Sora still stood.

_I'm sorry, _she thought, hating herself for turning away and following Riku through the city gates.

_Sora._

* * *

...;_;

**Please review with more than "so good" or "I loved it, update soon."** Feedback means a LOT to me.


	64. Chapter LXIV

Chapter 64, folks! And here's where the fic will start to deviate drastically from the original KH2 material. (Finally, right?) Don't worry, though - we haven't seen the last of Sora till TWTNW. I'm planning on including little tidbits of his second world visits so we know where he is in relation to Char and Riku.

This is also a good time to say that the other two OCs of this fic - Falcon and Copperhead, in case you've been skimming through Anxclof's little dream flashbacks all this time - are going to get a more prominent role for a little while. Don't worry too much; this section is still mostly focused on Riku's problems and his coming to terms with Sora loving Char now, so _maybe_ I'll have no Fal/Copper POVs? I'm not really sure yet; I'm kind of just writing this part by ear. XD;

So, yeah. Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** I do not own Kingdom Hearts - just Char, Anxclof, Falcon, Copperhead, and the Shadowed Desert world.

* * *

It was weird, Riku reflected, to see Char again.

He glanced over at her as he walked through the bustling imperial city, ignoring the bemused stares of the world natives as they landed on him. For the most part she kept her eyes focused straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge his presence; really, he couldn't blame her for that. A month ago he'd practically begged her to leave Twilight Town and follow Sora, and now here he was, dragging her away from her mission. Moreover, a mission _he'd_ imposed. That was a new low, even for him.

Still…

Something seemed… odd, about Char – if not odd, then at least _off._ Her licking his hand in a vain attempt to free herself had been something he'd expected – _although,_ he thought with a grimace, _it wasn't exactly the reaction I would've liked_ – but he had also expected her to calm down once she saw just what her assailant wielded. Yet she either had failed to catch sight of the Soul Eater in his hand, or just hadn't cared, neither of which seemed very viable for her.

He looked ahead again, only to stop in his tracks when he saw how close they were to the palace gates. Mentally, he took a deep breath as he went over what exactly had happened: Xigbar had tampered with one of this world's most powerful deities – turned it into a Heartless, only to find out animals could not produce Nobodies and leave it alone out of disgust. Now the dragon Heartless, furious at what it had lost, had tracked Number II to the imperial city and was readying to attack. Riku looked around at the metropolis' many inhabitants and felt his determination rise at the sight of their ignorance. If nothing else, he figured it would be polite to at least warn the emperor what was going on.

_That way, Sora can take care of things. _Riku's mouth twisted into a wry smile.

He turned his head to tell Char to stop, only to find she had beaten him to it. Angling his head downward to get a better look – _geez, is Xehanort really that much taller than her?_ he wondered, and felt an unexpectedly sharp pang at remembering his true form cleared her by only a few inches or so – he saw her staring at the gates. Following her gaze, Riku stifled a groan as he noticed the firmly sealed crimson doors.

This was going to be more difficult than he'd thought.

"How are we getting in?" Char asked then, brusquely. The barely-disguised irritation in her voice made Riku quirk an eyebrow. He knew she wouldn't exactly welcome him back affably – her nature, and the fact that he had just dragged her away from her main mission, made sure of that – but this was almost ridiculous.

He chose not to voice these thoughts, though; if Char wanted to be this way, it wasn't exactly his problem. No matter what, he needed her for the mission after this. Instead, he merely shrugged. "How have we gone to places in the past?"

Char blinked, then a light of realization passed over her gaze and she gave a slow nod of understanding. "Of course," she murmured, before seeming to remember he was still watching and slipping the annoyed mask back into place. "Well? Do it."

Riku rolled his eyes. Amber – not green – eyes narrowed as he approached the gates, his back prickling under the heat of Char's stare. _Why don't you try being a little more pissed off? I don't think you've reached your limit yet._

He surveyed the doors for a moment, at the same time listening for any onlookers. Detecting nothing, he took a deep breath before lifting a hand and concentrating; after a moment, a portal of swirling darkness had appeared before him.

Lowering his hand, Riku felt the familiar surge of self-hatred at just how deeply he had succumbed to the lure of the darkness – in both his physical appearance, and in using this particular form of transportation. Like so many times before, though, he forced himself to push down that nauseating feeling. _This was to get Sora back, and now that he's all right, you're paying the price. Deal with it._

With that thought ringing soundly in the back of his mind, Riku extended one arm out in front of him, unable to resist his next quip. "Well then," he drawled, "ladies first."

"Oh, ha, ha," Char said, rolling her eyes. However, she did step forward, and as she strode past, he swore he caught a glimpse of her lips quirking upward just so. The sight made him feel unexpectedly smug, that even after a month, they could banter back and forth like they used to.

Yet his amusement faded abruptly when he saw her grin die down, to be replaced by a wistful look, as though remembering speaking like this with someone else. It startled him, because the only one he could think of that she could talk to regularly like this was Sora, and gods knew Sora wasn't exactly the master of witty conversation.

"You know," the girl suddenly said, her voice a bit strained, "if I go in there with you, and Sora shows up afterward…"

She trailed off then, because honestly, she wanted Sora to find her so badly it sent multiple surges of agony pumping through her heart in place of blood. Guilt tempered that agony – because how long had she prayed to see Riku again, albeit in urges that had long since petered off as she grew closer to Sora? – but it was how she felt. Torn, between her old love and her new one.

Riku didn't know about that last little development, though, and she intended for him not to. Playful jibes about her terrible taste in men aside, she knew that no matter how much Riku loved Kairi, he had long since resigned himself to her only chance at happiness being with Sora. Not him. Knowing Sora's heart had begun to follow Char would tear Riku apart, both with desperate hope that he still had a chance with Kairi and with guilt that he felt the former.

Char shook these thoughts off, though, and focused on the situation at hand. _Screw missions,_ she thought with a vehemence she normally reserved for thoughts on the Organization. _As far as I'm concerned, the first one you gave me – to stay with Sora – still stands._

She said none of this, and just gave Riku an expectant look. Though his expression remained shrouded in shadow from his hood, she could almost see the light dawning in his now-amber eyes. "If you're there, then Sora will definitely know something's up," he murmured, then let out an irritated sigh.

"Didn't think that far ahead, did you?" Char asked, raising an eyebrow.

Riku's answering grunt suggested that he hadn't.

"Well, whatever," he said, before Char could interject something about how she didn't mind being found. Or perhaps because he _knew_ she would try and say something; his hasty choice of words implied that much. "You can just… stay outside, or something. This is something I should do on my own, anyway."

"Then why didn't you just leave me outside the city?" Char challenged, the true strength of her frustration making itself known in her words. "And why take me away from the first thing you told me to do?" The last part slipped out in spite of her self-restraint.

Riku huffed and angled his head down to glare at her. "You followed me, remember? And like I said before, I didn't want you getting involved. It wasn't my idea. But you're stuck with me now, so you'll just have to deal with it until we get done with what Ansem told us to do."

Char narrowed her eyes, shoved away the very large part of her that was demanding very loudly to know just what Ansem had told Riku to do. For a moment, the clouds above shifted, and she swore the newfound sunlight reflected off the annoyed amber stare hidden beneath the cloak's hood.

The two of them glowered at each other for a few moments, during which it occurred vaguely to her that they hadn't appraised the other with this much venom since he had first come to live with her and Ansem in Twilight Town. It also occurred to her that the amount of anger in her friend's eyes, concealed as they were, should hurt a lot more than it did, but somehow, she found herself not giving a damn.

Surprisingly, Riku tore his eyes away first. "Well, either way, we can't just leave this sitting out here," he commented, gesturing to the still-waiting portal of darkness undulating in front of them. "I'm still going. If you want to wait out here, that's your business, not mine."

Without waiting for a response, he stepped into the portal and was swallowed up by the tendrils that made it up.

The redhead looked after it, chest heaving with the force of her ire. Something inside her – something that reminded her painfully of Sora – told her she should be greeting Riku in a more friendly way, considering how she had pined for him when all of this had started. But, she wanted to argue, how the hell was she supposed to do that when he insisted on acting like this?

She cast a glance behind her, hoping fervently to see a spiky-haired shape charging through the town square and up the stairs toward her.

* * *

Riku easily parried the dark-haired young man's blade with the Soul Eater, groaning inwardly at the resistance. Almost the instant he had materialized in the throne room, the emperor's guard had leapt up, shouted a challenge, and lunged at Riku from where he had stood in front of the elderly man: the man who now looked on with narrowed eyes as the two clashed in front of him. At least the emperor only had one guard; this might actually have been a bit difficult if Riku had had to fight more than one of them.

His opponent stumbled back as the Soul Eater pushed against his sword, effectively pushing him away as well; to his credit, though, the young man quickly recovered and thrust forward again. This blow carried much more force than before, and Riku found himself actually grunting with exertion when the sword collided with his own wing-like blade.

_Come _on! he thought irritably, already-sore muscles screaming with the effort of blocking his opponent's jagged weapon. He could feel more than see his arms trembling as he held the other at bay, and cursed the time he had spent sparring with Falcon yesterday.

Before he could think any more on that, however, the man in front of him hissed out, "There's no way you're getting to the emperor!"

The words annoyed Riku more than he would have liked, and with a sudden burst of adrenaline, he spun and lashed out with his sword. Clearly his foe hadn't expected that, because he failed to anticipate the attack in time and was knocked back by the Soul Eater.

As the young man fell to the ground, Riku lifted his arm and mentally ordered his sword to vanish. It heeded his command with a burst of darkness, and Riku walked past the defeated guard who was now gaping at him and nursing his bruises on the ground.

"Some guard you've got here," Riku remarked, addressing the emperor directly. "Maybe more than one would have worked a little better for you."

He heard the young man gasp indignantly, but ignored it and stared right at the elderly man who sat on his pillow, watching him closely. "What is it you want here?" the emperor queried, not a trace of fury in his voice.

That made Riku blink, a little bemused. However, he quickly erased any signs of confusion – an instinctive response, even though his hood still concealed his face – and barreled onward. Time to do what he had come here to do. "Someone made the mistake of disturbing one of your dragons," he explained. "And now? Let's just say it's really, really mad, and it's on its way here."

"No," the man on the ground gasped. A flicker of movement from the corner of his eye told Riku he had gotten to his feet, swaying due to his haste. "You must employ your imperial guard immediately, Your Highness! I'll –"

"Captain Li," the emperor interrupted sternly. "I sense the newcomer has more to say." He inclined his head expectantly at Riku.

"You're pretty good," the dark-clad young man conceded. "I was just going to say that…" He paused, thinking of his best friend and how he knew Sora wouldn't just let the situation stay the way it was. A smile twitched across his face at the thought, but that too he quickly stifled.

"You don't need to worry about it, sir," he said at last, after a few moments of Li's eyes burning into his back. "Three wise guys are going to be here soon, and you can bet they're going to take care of things."

The emperor's lips quirked upward. "I see." He turned to his guard. "Well, Captain, you heard the boy. All we can do is wait."

"Are you sure we shouldn't do something about this?" Li demanded. "He could be lying. He could be the spy in black we've heard about!"

"You mean the one you sent Fa Mulan to track?" When the captain fell silent, the emperor's smile completed itself on his wizened face. "Do have some faith in her. She would be here right now if this were the one she sought."

"I suppose," Li mumbled, sounding embarrassed.

Riku gave a nod, impatience crawling up from deep within him. No doubt Sora was already on his way here, and the last thing he wanted was for the Keybearer to find Char now. "Right, then. Can I go?" The question was more blunt than he would have liked, but he needed to leave _now_ if he wanted things to go smoothly.

The emperor nodded, ignoring his guard's startled grunt at Riku's rudeness. "Yes, young man, you may," he agreed.

_Young man, he says. The only reason he says that is because he doesn't know what I look like. I just sound like a boy._ The same self-hatred he always felt on seeing those shadowy portals coalesce in front of him rose up powerfully at the thought.

He forced himself to just nod, before turning on his heel and stalking off down the hallway. Though every muscle in his body screamed for him to not wait, he forced himself to only open a dark portal and step through once he had darted around a corner.

When he reappeared outside the gates again, he quickly spotted Char, although her hair should have allowed her to easily blend in with the crimson pillar she currently leaned against. She was staring off at a fixed point in the cloudy sky, but as Riku approached and cleared his throat pointedly, she turned just her head to face him. "So?" she asked, briskly. "Did you get done what you needed to get done?" As she spoke, she pushed off the pillar and made her way toward him.

"Yeah," he answered. He wrinkled his nose as the injuries from the few times that Li guy's sword had managed to strike him began to throb anew, and put a hand to a slowly-oozing wound on his arm. "That guard put up a fight, though."

"Guard?" Char tilted her head to the side. "You didn't catch his name, did you?"

Riku shrugged. "Li-something-or-other. Why are you so curious?"

"No reason," the redhead muttered, though the tiny smile on her face belied the dismissive quality of her words.

Riku folded his arms, curious in spite of his desire to just leave now before Sora got here. Gods, but the brunette was taking a while. _Probably helping some woodland creatures or something,_ he thought dryly. "That doesn't answer my question, Char," he said, dragging out her name.

"Oh, shut up," Char snapped, her nostalgia vanishing in favor of annoyance. He felt himself begin to smirk at her immediately angry response. A month hadn't taken that fire out of her. "I was just wondering because… Sora and the rest of us visited this place before."

_The rest of us?_ Riku almost asked, before remembering just who she had included with her and Sora. He could recall Donald telling Sora quite firmly back in Traverse Town, a year and forever ago, that Riku wasn't allowed to accompany them, while Goofy stood back, looking quite uncomfortable, as if he didn't quite know who to side with. Weird, the dark boy reflected now, that she had chosen to include those two. He would have thought her incapable of tolerating either of them. "Before?" he asked.

"About three weeks ago," Char clarified. A distant look had come into her eyes, one that she had always reserved for discussing the old days with her fellow apprentices.

"We met this girl who was disguising herself as a man to try and get into the army."

"And Sora just had to help her," Riku guessed.

"Basically." Char chuckled, a warm sound that differed so deeply from what he'd grown used to from her. He blinked, wry amusement replaced by curiosity.

_Just how much did being around Sora change her?_

He chose not to voice the question aloud, even though it was now nagging deeply at him; if she wanted to say more, she would – a trait about her he had been forced to learn by a year in her close company. Instead, he raised an eyebrow. "We should get going," he said, at the same time casting a furtive glance over his shoulder at the town square. Still no brown-haired boy or light glancing off steel, though gods only knew how many seconds he had to get on with this before said boy and Keyblade did appear. "I'll tell you what Ansem wants when we get there."

"When we get there?" Char repeated incredulously. Before Riku had spoken, a small, rueful grin had still held sway over her countenance, along with a spark of almost-maybe-longing. At his words, though, those emotions sluiced off her face at once, replaced by disbelief that seared him as she tilted her head up to glare at him. "No. That's not how this works," she growled, standing on tiptoe and jabbing her finger into his chest. "You're going to tell me what's going on and why you _needed_ to make me break that first promise to you."

A lesser being would have quailed under the heat of the fire in her eyes and in her voice, as well as the anger that tightened her expression. Riku had grown used to this in the past, though, and so he just rolled his eyes. "Geez, Char. If I didn't know any better I'd think you liked Sora or something."

The remark had been an offhand one – one tailored specifically to dig under her skin and serve as one of the many different types of gasoline that caused her temper to flare to the surface – but it had an effect he did not expect at all. Char averted her eyes, and relaxed slightly from her position standing on her toes, causing her form to lower just an inch or so. The hand she had used to point at him uncurled from the fist, and splayed out against his chest, tightening into the fabric of the Organization coat.

It took Riku a moment to pick up the emotion on her half-hidden face: _shame._

All at once it hit him, what she was leaving unsaid. His eyes widened, both in shock and bemusement. "Don't tell me –" he began, the degree of exasperation in his voice making her cringe.

_You can't have fallen for Sora. Because he can't love you back,_ he thought furiously. _He loves Kairi. Always has, always will._

And yet, despite the impossibility of Sora returning whatever twisted semblance of love – loneliness, need for companionship, whatever; Riku could justify it however he wanted and it still confused the hell out of him – Char felt for the brunette, the possibility would not leave him.

_Why? Because it would mean you've got a chance after all?_

Light suddenly glimmered out of the corner of his eye, originating from beyond the castle gates and within the town square. Even as he jerked his head in the direction of the movement almost irritably – considering the revelation that had just come upon him and needed to be confirmed – his heart twitched in abrupt, jarring dread.

For the light was one he remembered well from his deadliest battle with Sora in Hollow Bastion, back when darkness overtook both his mind and body, as opposed to now just taking his form.

The glimmer of light glancing off the steel of a Keyblade.

"We need to go. Now!" he hissed, seizing the arm attached to the hand on his chest and yanking it away.

Char looked up at him, her brow furrowing, and she opened her mouth to ask what was going on. Before she could do anything other than summon the breath to speak, he put out his free hand and concentrated. In an instant, a swirling hub of darkness appeared before him, and he quickly pushed Char through to avoid hearing her protests.

* * *

"I swear I saw her!" Sora panted, heart screaming in his chest with the fade of the adrenaline that had come with his urgent burst of speed. The Oathkeeper sagged in his hands, and he fought the urge to copy his gesture from Hollow Bastion and just fall to the ground with the force of his despair. "Her hair… and that coat…"

_Not that weapon, though. _Fear twisted his heart as he remembered the presence of the strange Nobodies on the mountain path: evidence that, Riku or not, an Organization member still lurked about this world. For all he knew, that Nobody could have caught Char and kidnapped her…

_No. Riku wouldn't have lost her. If it _was_ him, even. _

So many possibilities – each more stifling than the last – whirled about his mind that it almost hurt.

"Gawrsh, I'm sorry, Sora," Goofy said from behind him. Sora turned around and saw the dog eyeing him with pain and sympathy in his gaze. "But, you know, we can still ask the emperor about her!"

"And that dragon we saw, too," Mulan added. Her own face was filled with worry, but determination. "Don't worry, Sora. I'm sure Char's around here."

"Yeah." Donald nodded, even though Sora knew him well enough to detect the concern for the boy on his face.

Sora forced himself to smile. Put up a brave front, his instinctive reaction, even when both mind and heart were wracked with agony. "You're right, guys." He looked forward again and tried not to sigh aloud at the lack of crimson hair that he had picked up in the town square.

_The emperor will know. The emperor _has_ to know._ He repeated the words until they buoyed him a little out of his despondency.

* * *

Char stumbled out of the dark portal onto a considerably darker path than that of the Land of Dragons' castle gates. She blinked a couple of times to get used to the change in lighting; once her eyes grew accustomed to the new settings, she realized that the newfound shadows came from the leaves from the overhanging trees swaying gently in the wind and changing the amount of sunlight that dripped on the dirt.

She glanced around at the forest path, eyes narrowing, even as Riku released her wrist and lifted one hand to push his hood down. The movement from him drew her gaze away from the continuously-undulating contrast of light and shadow, and her eyes widened as his hood lowered to reveal the face of the main foe on Sora's last journey.

"Riku, are you sure that's such a good idea?" she couldn't help asking. Even though her common sense told her one of her best friends – not Xehanort's Heartless – stood before her, and that, furthermore, said Heartless was long dead, she still had to hold back a momentary urge to summon her blades as Riku turned to fix an unnervingly familiar amber gaze on her.

Pushing away the uncomfortable memories of days long past that those eyes brought to her – of research with Xehanort; of watching Xehanort and Ansem argue over the merits of their findings on the Door to Darkness with a nervous Ienzo behind her – Char continued with her original query. "After all, you look exactly like the guy that went around destroying worlds a year ago."

Riku rolled his eyes, tousling his gray hair with a gloved hand. The move was so reminiscent of his old self that Char felt a burst of the old pain that had assailed her at seeing Xehanort's body perform Riku's habits in the past. "Only the Hollow Bastion people know exactly who was doing that," he pointed out. "So it's not like I'm setting myself up to get taken down. Besides, the only source of justice in this town knows who I am, anyway. As a matter of fact," he added with a hint of a smirk, "she should be here to meet us soon."

"She?" Char tilted her head to the side.

"The Keyblade wielder in this world," Riku explained, lowering his hand and focusing his gaze beyond her, as though searching for someone.

Char raised her eyebrows, now mildly interested. Obviously other Keyblade wielders besides Sora and Roxas existed – Anxclof was more than tangible proof of that – but she had never really focused on the thought of any others due to her prolonged proximity with the only one who mattered. "Really?"

"Yeah." Riku nodded. "She's the one who kept me entertained after you left. Gods know there's only so much Ansem anyone can take," he said dryly. "So I went world-hopping, looking for something to do."

"And you found her, right?"

"Yeah."

"Hm. I see." After a moment, during which the silence pressed in on them and Riku continued to search the winding dirt path before them for an unseen woman, Char spoke, suddenly needing to hear conversation. It was stupid – she treasured silence, after all, and she would have thought even more so after spending a month smothered by Sora's naïveté – but it was how she felt. Yet another way Sora had rubbed off on her, she supposed with a pang of bitter longing. _I miss you already. _"And what world, pray tell, is this?"

This time, Riku actually deigned to glance back at her before replying. "The natives call it the Shadowed Desert. It's obviously not much of a desert –" he gestured around at all the foliage surrounding them – "but apparently it gets to that level in the summers. All the forests around here dry up in the summer, shrivel in the fall and winter, and grow back in the spring." He sighed. "We're lucky we showed up when we did. It's spring right now – the time where this is called just the 'forest' and not the 'flaming forest.'"

The researcher part of Char was frantically taking mental notes, and she found herself listening intently as he explained this world's climate. Now that she had a name to go with, she could vaguely remember reading something on the Shadowed Desert in the past: nothing substantial, but at least the name sounded familiar.

And – yes, yes, now she remembered; she had read a couple of pieces on some battles of the ancient Keyblade War that had taken place here. Apparently a few of the wielders opposing Xehanort had died here, and so their comrades had buried them near the citadel with their Keychains.

Curiosity flashed across her mind as to whether or not those Keychains still remained here; but before Char could ask just how much this female Keyblade wielder had told Riku of this world's history, Riku suddenly straightened, his eyes lighting up with recognition. "I see her," he announced.

Following his gaze, Char's interest increased, its focus shifting from the past to the anonymous Keybearer. Other than descriptions of Keyblade wielders from that period – which weren't always accurate – she had relatively little to go on as far as present Keybearers went, unless she included Sora. However, she liked to think she knew him well enough to recognize his blitheness was only partially a front. Besides, not all Keyblade wielders had that personality. Anxclof was more than proof of that, despite her status as a Nobody.

At first Char only saw a flash of iridescent, translucent blue, a color that, despite not shining particularly vividly in the fluctuating shadows, appeared in the gaps between the trees nonetheless. Then, as the pale blue object rounded the corner, Char had to hold back a gasp at seeing it was a Keyblade – a solid, slender one whose larger nicks and scratches she could now see from this distance.

She followed the path of the bare fingers wrapped around the Keyblade's hilt up to the face of the girl who held it. She was surprisingly young, no older than eighteen, and barely tall enough to pass for sixteen. Before she could assess the stranger any more than that, though, the girl had come to a hasty halt in front of them, panting aloud and lowering her icy weapon.

"Sorry I'm late, Riku," she said between gulps of air, tilting her head back to meet his gaze with her own emerald eyes. "Those Heartless wouldn't leave me alone." The last words emerged amid a sheepish smile.

Riku shrugged. "Don't worry about it, Falcon. It's actually better that you got here when we did."

Char noted the rather pointed edge to his voice as he spoke, even more so as he swerved a glare onto her. She rolled her eyes and looked away, embarrassment heating her spine at why she had made them this late. At thinking of what Riku had almost figured out, literally _minutes_ after she had vowed to never let him know she loved Sora. "Like it's my fault we were late," she grumbled.

Falcon's gaze shifted to Char then, and the redhead glanced back just in time to see the warm grin fade into a more stoic, calculating look, such a drastic contrast from her prior expression. Char met those now-narrowed green eyes, fighting the powerful urge to raise an eyebrow at the coldness of Falcon's appraisal. _Don't antagonize Riku's friend; it'll piss him off,_ Char told herself.

"This is her, huh?" the other girl asked then, turning back to Riku and pushing a strand of short, dark hair behind her ear.

"Yeah." Riku gestured at the redhead. "This is Char. The one whose master I've been trying to avoid for the last few months."

"You mean the guy who sent you out here in the first place?" Falcon quipped dryly. When her words earned only a noncommittal grunt, she smiled a little before looking back at Char. Maybe it was just her, but the amusement on the dark-haired girl's face died down considerably when her eyes landed on her again. "I'm guessing Riku explained why he dragged you here?"

"Actually, no," Char answered, making her voice just as tart as Riku had when indirectly pointing out her shortcoming earlier. She punctuated her words with a stare just as he had. "This guy failed to tell me anything. Just showed up, nabbed me, and here we are."

"I told you I'd explain when we got here," Riku muttered, putting one hand to his face and sliding it over his cheek. "Look, let's just go into town, and I'll tell you there. Falcon knows the way."

Falcon nodded and turned around to look out in the direction she had come from. Following her gaze, Char spotted the outline of buildings poking up in the distance; the sight spurred another burst of curiosity that made her wonder what exactly this world would be like outside this forest. Somehow she had a feeling it would be like Hollow Bastion – a bustling metropolis with Heartless-filled outskirts. Along with the twinge of wistfulness at what her home had become came security in the likely familiarity.

"Just be careful, all right?" the dark-haired girl said then, without turning around. Her fingers tightened on the hilt of her Keyblade. "The Heartless have gotten worse since the last time you were here."

The announcement induced a smirk from Char; at least she would get to exercise her fighting muscles while she was here. It was a paltry source of solace – and a somewhat pointless one, as thinking of fighting Heartless made her remember just who Riku had taken her from – but she clung to it. "Piece of cake," she boasted, folding her arms. "If there was anything fighting with Sora taught me, it's how to kill Heartless."

As she spoke, she remembered her near-defeat at the claws of the Dusks during their first visit to Hollow Bastion, and how her skill with her twin blades had evolved enough by the battle with all those Heartless in the Great Maw that she had barely any trouble at all. The memory hurt more than she would have liked it to.

Some of her pain must have flashed across her face, because Riku actually tilted his head down to give her a concerned look. However, Char only responded with a hard stare, one that, she hoped, conveyed her desire to not discuss this now. Or ever, preferably.

Falcon's shoulders tensed slightly at Char's arrogant remark, but her next words were relatively calm. "Well then, at least that makes one person I won't have to look after." She glanced over her shoulder, pupils moving up to accommodate the height Riku had over her. "I'm assuming the usual place, then?"

Riku put a hand to his chin, thinking. In spite of herself, Char watched his expression, wondering what exactly he would have to say. _After dragging me out here and still refusing to tell me what's going on, I need to hear at least this much,_ she thought in annoyance.

Finally he raised his head and lowered his hand. "No," he said.

Falcon actually turned halfway around, one slender eyebrow vanishing into the bangs that swept over one part of her face. "No?"

"No," Riku repeated firmly. "The saloon's too public. Let's head to your house instead."

_Saloon?_ Char almost laughed aloud. Maybe she had made assumptions too quickly about just how much this place resembled her old home.

Pushing down her amusement – her thought from earlier about not wanting to antagonize Falcon, no matter how much her random shifts from warmth to disdain unnerved Char, came back to the redhead – Char refocused on Falcon. Riku's suggestion had a very visible effect on her: her eyes widened and a tint of crimson appeared on her cheeks.

"I, um… Are you sure?" she managed after a moment.

"Yeah," Riku answered, though not without a hint of weariness in his voice. Either the events of today were finally catching up to him, or he noticed Falcon's change in demeanor all too well. "You know what I brought Char here for. It's not really something we want everyone in town to hear."

Char blinked, indignation rushing into her anew. "Oh, so she gets to know and I don't?" she growled, narrowing her eyes at Riku. The gray-haired young man folded his arms and opened his mouth to speak, but he only got to utter a warning "Char…" before her frustration exploded forth.

"I made you a promise a month ago," she hissed, striding forward and standing on tiptoe to glower at him properly. "You _made me_ make that promise. To stay with Sora and help him on his journey, keep him on the right path for revenge on the Organization."

Despite her genuinely strident words, a flare of uncertainty embedded itself in her heart: because for all intents and purposes, she had already fulfilled that part of her vow. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were likely following her suggestion in the Gummi ship – searching the worlds for a seam, a rip of darkness through which they could slip and find Kairi and the boy who stood, disguised, in front of her – and in the process, would destroy the group of Nobodies who had been using them for their goals all this time.

_And now they probably think that I'm in the World That Never Was, too,_ Char realized with a pang of dread.

She fought back the very terrified part of her that suddenly wanted to tell Riku to open a portal and take the both of them back to the Land of Dragons. Actually, she thought with a newfound wave of horror, for all she knew they had left already; trying frantically to remember which world lay next to Mulan's world on the map brought her nothing. However, she forced herself to maintain her angry appearance and push on.

"And you think, after taking me away – after making me break that promise – you think I have less of a right to know than a total stranger to me and Master Ansem does?" To Char's immense shame, her voice got damn close to breaking on the last part.

Up till this point Riku had looked as though he were trying not to roll his eyes with intense difficulty; now, though, his face actually softened a bit before he put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down to the flats of her feet. "I never said that," he pointed out, surprisingly gently. "When we get to Falcon's house I can tell you what's going on. Sorry I freaked you out by keeping it secret this long. Like I said, I wanted you to stay with Sora; I didn't want to do things like this."

"You may as well tell her now," Falcon suddenly called from behind them. Char jumped; in her frustrated outburst she had all but forgotten the older girl still waited for directions as to what to do.

Risking turning around to face Falcon, the redhead found, unsurprisingly enough, exasperation on her countenance. Exasperation and, Char suddenly noticed, a kind of grudging sympathy, as though Falcon understood what it felt like to be torn from something precious.

Fast on the heels of that revelation came another: the true reason why Falcon's face turned sour when looking from Riku to Char, and why Riku looked so uncomfortable at Falcon being embarrassed to take him home with her. It took every ounce of Char's self-restraint not to clear _that_ little situation up right now, not to leap up and tell Falcon she wasn't out for Riku's heart.

_It's Riku she's going to have to deal with,_ the redhead reflected. _I highly doubt he'll move on from Kairi anytime soon._

But she had assumed the same thing about Sora, and Char herself had warped that; why was Riku any different?

The whole situation was confusing as all hell to think about.

Thankfully, Riku's voice tore her out of her reverie; sent a reassuring surge of black and white into the shades of gray his and Sora's love had become. "Might as well," he sighed.

Char's eyes widened as his words sank in. "Right now?"

Riku folded his arms. "It's not like we're going to get any more private than this." He waved a hand vaguely at their fairly-empty surroundings, at the trees that still swayed patiently in the breeze and welcomed the embrace of the early afternoon sun.

"Since the Heartless showed up," Falcon added, walking closer, "I'm the only one who ever comes this far out of town anymore."

"You're the only one who can fight them, though," Riku told her. Glancing back to Char, he sighed again, with the same sense of resignation. Char tried not to feel too gratified that she was finally getting some concrete information, but her lips still twitched a little nonetheless. During their time in Twilight Town, the days she could wear him down like this came few and far between, so she welcomed the chance to do so. "Right, then. Let's sit first. Falcon, you look like you're about to fall over."

"Huh?" Falcon blinked; clearly, she hadn't expected him to address her anytime soon. Now that he had pointed out the Keyblade wielder's exhaustion, Char saw the fatigue in those green eyes and the dust coating her dark hair. Gods only knew how many Heartless she had had to fight through to meet them here, in this oddly-empty clearing. _It's the curse of the Keybearer, I suppose._

For now, though, it didn't matter, because she was finally going to get some answers.

* * *

"Once again, you have served China well," the emperor said, gazing down at them from his throne. Mulan ducked her head modestly in response, causing Shang to smile from where he stood at the emperor's side. "It would please me to reward you. All of you." His wise old eyes swept over Sora, Donald, and Goofy as he spoke.

Sora hesitated, wondering what to ask. On the one hand, he wanted to know if that Organization member from earlier – the one that was so clearly not Riku – had appeared to the emperor and Shang, and what he could do about it. That part of his mind reminded him so painfully of Char. Which brought him to the impetus to his decision: a larger part of him just needed to know that Riku had been here in the first place. That, just once, his hopes weren't completely unfounded.

The emperor's words from earlier – that a black-clad person had in fact shown up and acted rather rude, a clear indicator that it was Riku – still rang in Sora's mind, and he didn't doubt those words for a moment. And yet if Riku really had taken Char – which seemed sickeningly likely, given the all-too-familiar blade the figure had whipped out to dispose of the Heartless in his path; the certainty of that much made Sora's stomach and heart take a nauseating dip – his possibly having been here could give Sora some clues as to where he had taken Char.

_She'll be safe with him; I know that much. But… _

Suddenly torn, the brunette muffled the sigh building up in the back of his throat and looked at the emperor, who was waiting for his reply. "You said a guy in black came by earlier," he said. "What exactly did he say?"

"That is all you request?" the emperor asked, quirking a brow.

"Yes," Sora replied evenly.

"And, uh, do you know where our friend might be?" Goofy queried hesitantly.

"I'm afraid I do not know the whereabouts of your friend," the emperor said, and Sora's heart plummeted completely. He looked away, down at the ground, where he hoped his despondency wasn't too visible to his comrades. Apparently, though, even that effort failed, because he felt the sympathetic eyes of everyone in the room on him.

"But when the man in black appeared to us," the emperor went on, "he told us that a source of great evil had disturbed one of our dragons, and turned it into what you call a Heartless."

Sora lifted his head and nodded.

"Yeah, we remember that thing," Donald muttered, rubbing a few lightning burns on his arm and wincing at the contact. Thinking back on the battle just outside the imperial gates – the battle that had cleared the formerly-bustling town square of terrified citizens and rent the air with flashes of lightning and the flares of bombs thrown from the dragon Heartless' wings – Sora could detect just the tiniest beginning of his own more onerous injuries throbbing again.

Char would have hated that fight, he thought wistfully, thinking of her fear of fire. A fear that, he reflected guiltily, his reckless lack of action in the Underworld had instilled in her.

The emperor acknowledged Donald's bitter interjection with a slight, indulgent smile before continuing in his explanation. "This young man came to warn me to ready our troops, and I was prepared to do so. But he told me the situation had changed."

"He said three 'wise guys' had come along," Shang put in, "and they would take care of things."

"Wise guys?" Donald repeated, a look of both realization and annoyance coming into his eyes.

"That had to be Riku," Goofy said, his dark gaze landing on Sora.

"Yeah." Sora nodded, at the same time wondering at the odd mixture of triumph and confusion that twisted inside him. For one thing, this all but proved Riku had shown up in the mountains and taken Char; even though the last time Sora had seen Riku face to face had been in front of the door to Kingdom Hearts, the figure on the summit had definitely seen that Sora had an extra companion from then. However, even though the emperor had cleared that much up, that stirred so many more questions, first and foremost why Riku was wearing an Organization cloak in the first place.

"But that means he definitely has Char," Donald pointed out, his voice unusually subdued. Clearly, he had come to the same conclusions Sora had.

"Yeah," Sora repeated, allowing the fear and sorrow and despair that the day had built up to condense into a sigh. "But… if she's with Riku, then she's safe, right?" The words tore him apart to say, but he knew he had to focus on getting his friends back and taking down the Organization. Besides, now finding Riku meant finding Char as well; it wasn't like he was giving up on his original goal entirely.

"Yeah, but you don't look real happy about that, Sora." Goofy angled his head to look right into Sora's eyes.

_No, I'm not happy about it,_ the Keybearer wanted to say. _After I finally figured out how I feel about her, she just up and disappears… I don't know if I can handle that._ He left those words unspoken, though; donned his mask of optimism, no matter how frayed and tattered it was, and just shrugged, because now even the emperor was eyeing him with sympathy. "I'm not, really," he said. At least that wasn't a lie. "I just think we should keep looking for a way into the Organization's world. If Riku's there, and he has Char with him, I'll find both of them. And Kairi's supposed to be there, too."

As he spoke, his resolve slowly began to replenish within him until he believed every word he said. He thought of Riku, dragging Char along with him, and of Kairi, sitting in the Organization's world waiting for someone to come save her. Unconsciously, the brunette's fist clenched. At this point he didn't even care if the Organization had set him up for everything – for feeding Kingdom Hearts with his Keyblade, and likely for heading to their world – so powerful was his desire to just see his friends again.

_I'll get them back, and take them home._

"It's what Char would want," he added for good measure.

Donald gave him a skeptical look, as though doubting the validity of Sora's decision. Odd, considering his attitude toward Char. Eventually, though, he relented and just nodded. "We'll pound the Organization and save everyone again," the duck vowed. "Kairi, Riku, Char, and the King."

Sora gave a perfunctory nod of agreement, even as the conversation carried on and the emperor asked what Mulan wanted. It hit him that he was clinging to Donald's determined words with every ounce of strength in his aching body, and he knew that was because it would have to be enough until he got to see Char again.

It would have to be enough.

* * *

The three of them settled on the ground in a small caricature of a circle. Char saw Falcon eye her iridescent blue Keyblade for a moment before shaking her head with a soft sigh. An instant later, it had vanished into its chain form in a flash of light, and she settled with her legs crossed on the ground.

"So," Riku began, making Char look back to him. He sat with one elbow against the knee of the opposite leg, an oddly relaxed position, considering just whose form he had taken. "I told you already that your master put me on this mission. There's a reason for that."

_Obviously,_ Char wanted to say, but remained silent.

"While we were all at Twilight Town," the boy in front of her went on, "Ansem was working on something that would destroy Kingdom Hearts – the one the Organization used Sora to build up." His voice grew tight as he mentioned Sora, one of the few indicators of just how much he had sacrificed to get his friend back; in an instant, though, he was brusque as ever again. "Apparently the old geezer didn't leave the finished product well-guarded enough, and so the Organization had time to show up and steal it."

"They took it?" Char gasped, shocked. "But…" She groped for words – _why, how, when_ all tripped over each other, so she ended up just settling for the last one. "How long ago was this?"

"A few days or so, right?" Falcon glanced to Riku for confirmation, to which he nodded.

Char's heart twinged. With the pace at which Sora's travels had been going, a few days felt like an eternity. _While I was watching Timon and Pumbaa drill 'hakuna matata' into Sora's head, and listening to Roxas complain about having lost Anxclof, the Organization was ruining Ansem's design. Again._

As it turned out, that was the same day she had come to terms with, or at least put a name to, how she felt about Sora.

Not wanting to think about it, knowing it would distract her, Char fixed her gaze on Riku, praying the tears she could feel burning at the back of her eyes didn't appear too soon. "Go on."

Her voice must have sounded less brusque than intended, because Riku raised an eyebrow before continuing. "When Ansem found out, of course he was furious. He's been up for three days straight trying to figure out where the Organization could have hidden it. But this morning, he finally tracked the machine down."

_So here we are._ The question at the heart of the matter – why Riku had felt the need to drag her along on this venture – had still not been addressed, so Char beat back any pretense of manners and did it herself. "So why am I here?"

Falcon had previously occupied herself with staring at the grass and tapping her fingers to some unknown beat on the ground, but at Char's words she glanced up sharply, expectation on her face. Politeness had clearly kept the dark-haired girl from asking that question as well, which, for some reason, sent a current of irritation into Char's veins.

"I told you a thousand times I didn't want to drag you into it!" Riku barked, fixing a smoldering amber glare on Char, which she returned with gusto. "He said you'd be able to recognize the design on the machine or something like that. Don't look at me!"

Char narrowed her eyes to little more than glittering icy slits, wanting nothing more than to vent the full extent of her anger at this whole situation: an anger that ramped up considerably when she remembered the look of pure horror on Sora's face upon spotting Riku dragging her away.

"And after all this," she spat, "after you find this machine or whatever –" she deliberately danced around using the word 'we' – "what are you going to do with me?"

Even with all the venom she threw into her query, though, a tremor of fear began to shake through her – fear and humiliation, that even by asking that she had resigned herself to being an unwilling participant in this whole damned mess. She found herself wanting Riku to say he would take her back to Sora so badly the desire began to devour her and make her need little else.

And it was so incredibly pathetic, but along with that want came a need to feel Sora's heartbeat against hers again.

That grudging sympathy had returned to Falcon's face again, and she opened her mouth to say something, only to gasp aloud as multiple globes of translucent pink-and-black shadow coalesced in front of them. With a blaze of pale blue light, her Keyblade appeared in her hand. "We've got company," she muttered, settling into a stance that reminded Char of a fencer.

Sure enough, a series of foes dropped down in front of them, and Char took a moment to assess what kind of Heartless these were. Most of these particular enemies had never attacked her and the brunette in the past: larger versions of the shadow Heartless she was already familiar with, who immediately vanished into a puddle of darkness beneath their feet. A couple of the Heartless from yesterday had arrived as well: the robots and the ball-and-chain-like ones.

Concentrating, she found her dual swords in her hands and took comfort in the familiar way their hilts fit in her fists. A ripple of darkness out of the corner of her eye announced that Riku had summoned the Soul Eater as well.

The three of them tensed as a new series of silvery spheres appeared in midair as well, Char in particular, as she recognized the typical signal of a Nobody beginning to manifest itself. _As if things aren't crappy enough; now there's an Organization member here, too._

She had fully prepared herself to take down whatever kind of Nobody appeared out of that globe in an instant. She had been ready for Dusks or whatever chose to show their face.

However, any semblance of determination immediately flew out of her mind to be replaced by terror when the silver-and-white cloud vanished to reveal their burdens.

Sinuous bodies surrounded by pink cubes, and bipedal creatures wielding their blade in a disturbingly familiar stance advanced on the trio.

Sorcerers.

And Avengers.

* * *

Oh crap.

Yes, that machine Ansem put there is the KH Encoder machine from KH2. You know, the one he blows up Kingdom Hearts with?

Besides that, the only thing worth noting is my head-canon about the whole bit on the Keyblade War battle in the Shadowed Desert.

As you may or may not have figured out, this is the place where Riku's going to pick up the Destiny's Embrace Keyblade and give it to Kairi. (You know - the "flowery ugly one" that's one of Aqua's BEST WEAPONS in BBS? -eyeroll-) As such, one of those Keychains buried there is, in fact, that of the Destiny's Embrace Keyblade. But someone obviously went grave-robbing and stuck the Keychain in Radiant Garden so Aqua could pick it up. Later, after Aqua gave up her Keyblade and armor, the Keychains she owned scattered to the various worlds of their origin (yes, even the ones that ended up in the Realm of Darkness), so the Destiny's Embrace Keychain did return to its original spot.

Basically, in my mind one or both of Kairi's parents is a Keyblade wielder. So yeah. XD

NOW. After that big tl;dr bit... Review please?

**The request from that last chapter still stands, btw. I'd like to think it's common sense to do, but I'm afraid if I don't repost it here no one will heed it.**

**So: please say more than "so good, update soon" or "I love it." Feedback will always mean so much to me.**


	65. Chapter LXV

Hey all! I wanted to get this updated before its four-year anniversary, and much to my surprise (and yours as well, I'm sure), I managed to do it.

Not much in the way of events happens in this chapter. We meet Copperhead (:DDDD), and get a little insight as to how Falcon's been doing since her parents died, but that's really about it. Oh, and brief Anxclof cameo. But if you can pick out that last one I'll be surprised. xD;

Enjoy!

**_Disclaimer-_** I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

"Char!" Riku shouted, for pure horror had etched itself on her face. He could understand at least a little dread – two kinds of special lesser Nobodies meant the presence of two Organization members, not just one, and he knew the identities of who exactly _these_ lesser Nobodies belonged to – but Char seemed almost haunted as she gazed, frozen with fear, at the Avengers and Sorcerers moving toward them.

Like they were associated with a particularly bad memory.

"Snap out of it!" he roared. An instant later, he jolted and let out a cry of surprise as a large shadow Heartless – the one that had dropped into that pool of darkness and disappeared – rematerialized right in front of him and lashed out with sharp talons. Leaping back to avoid anything more than getting his cloak slightly torn, he immediately pressed forward again, slicing deeply down with the Soul Eater. The blow connected, and the Heartless reeled, allowing him to finish it off.

Straightening from where the angle of his last attack had forced him to half-crouch, he glanced around quickly to see how the girls were faring. Much to his relief, it seemed his shouting at Char had snapped her out of her trance, for she was now matching a Heartless blow for blow as it charged at her, claws bared. Just next to the blur of silver swords, Falcon was successfully holding off a Sorcerer, waiting until its pink cubes had lowered from its form before lashing out with her Azure Ice Keyblade and slicing into its flowing form.

Seeing that neither of them needed his help, Riku turned on his heel, only to snarl in shock and pain at the feel of a smooth-textured blade digging shallowly into his arm. All at once, the minor wounds that captain back in the Land of Dragons had inflicted on Riku began to ache again, much to his frustration. _I'm used to pain; this is just irritating._

The Avenger looked almost pleased as it continued in its onslaught; it only took a few blows – and an increase of heat rushing to his arm and torso, where its weapon connected with him and tore through the leather Organization cloak – for Riku's reflexes to catch up. He had to hand it to Anxclof for creating a breed of such dangerous lesser Nobodies, one that succeeded both in hurting him and pissing him off.

For all its wits, though, the Soul Eater finished the Avenger within moments. However, almost the instant the Nobody vanished with a sickening squelch, another of its fellows took its place. Riku felt its presence in the sudden influx of cool air created by its blade swinging toward his back, and whirled on his heel to combat it.

As it turned out, though, it had several friends at its side, including a couple of Sorcerers.

"Oh, come on!" he yelled, raising his wing-like sword and parrying the Avenger's own weapon. The resulting contact created a shockwave that reverberated up his arm, but he had only a moment to recover before the Avenger was on its feet again.

He prepared himself to beat it back again, but his fears turned out to be unfounded. "Back off!" a female voice he knew all too well grunted.

A split second later, the Nobodies began to explode one by one, revealing Char hacking her way through. As the last Sorcerer convulsed under her relentless assault before disappearing, the look of anger on her face went with it, replaced by surprise and mild smugness.

Riku allowed himself to relax a little, even as he wondered at her bemusement. It almost looked like she hadn't expected to destroy the Sorcerer so easily. At the same time, though, grudging gratefulness filled him. _Forgot what it was like not to have to fight by myself._

"Way to steal my thunder," was all he said aloud, smiling slightly.

Char rolled her eyes, smirking a little as her triumph overtook her strange confusion. "You're welcome, you big baby," she chuckled, falling, for a moment, back into the personality he'd grown accustomed to in Twilight Town. Back before she'd left and changed so much.

_If she's changed so much in just a month,_ he realized suddenly, _how deeply have Sora and Kairi changed in a year?_

Before he could dwell on the question long enough to push its absurdity aside – they were his friends and always would be, events from a year ago hopefully notwithstanding – Char gasped and nearly shoved past him in her haste to move away. All but stumbling back with the force of her palm, Riku narrowed his eyes, wondering what had had that effect on her.

He didn't have long to ruminate on that, though, because an instant later his curiosity was palliated: Char had spotted a Heartless moving toward Falcon, who fought with her back to it, and had immediately lunged for it.

Only an instant after wondering just when Char had gotten a penchant for not letting others fend for themselves, a ripple of off-white caught his eye and he whirled around to see a Dusk undulating toward him. Relief made his battle-empowered heart slow just a bit – these things were significantly easier to take down than a Sorcerer or an Avenger, after all – but he still refused to let his guard down. Snarling a challenge, he leaped into the fray anew.

Char slashed her way past another Sorcerer, keeping her eye on the dark-haired, black-clad shape and the large Heartless moving toward it. Thankfully the Sorcerer had chosen that moment to allow its pink-cubed shield to drop, so Char batted it aside fairly quickly. Just like earlier, she marveled at the ease with which she fought it back; then again, the day Sora had limped into Merlin's house, terribly injured by these very Nobodies, had taken place two weeks ago and they had all grown stronger since then.

_Still… _The very revelation that should have given Char peace of mind was eclipsed by the presence of the Avengers, whose tactics and fighting style reminded her all too easily of fierce green-turned-gold eyes and repeated vows of vengeance. Just remembering the day she had almost died at Anxclof's Keyblade made a shudder of fear ripple down Char's spine. _That reminds me,_ she realized, _I kind of owe Riku for that, too._

No matter how much it rankled her, she couldn't very well dwell on it; right now, she had to keep that Heartless from goring Falcon's back. A month of fighting while keeping an eye on others had given Char that observation that had clearly eluded Riku until now.

That, or he just knew Falcon could take care of herself.

Char nearly cringed at that belated epiphany, but it was too late for her to change her mind now. She finished off a couple of Dusks with a well-placed series of blows, only sparing a moment to wonder when they had arrived. Just as the Heartless raised its claws, though, Falcon whirled and saw it bearing down on her.

The older girl lifted her Keyblade. Instead of blocking the blow like Char would have, though, she hastily parried the sharp, black talons with her Keyblade, striking the Heartless' forearms and making it draw back.

Char skidded to a clumsy stop, ignoring every fiber of her being that told her to help Falcon; somehow, the look of intense concentration on the other's face told her she wouldn't take too kindly to any assistance.

_You're the only one that can fight the Heartless,_ Riku had said earlier. At the time Char had dismissed that as his just affirming Falcon's destiny as a Keyblade wielder, but now the redhead could see exactly what he had meant. Just like Riku, Falcon had grown used to fighting alone and only looking after herself.

At that moment, an icy blue flash rent the air between Falcon and the Heartless; it yielded to the Blizzaga attack, vanishing in a swirl of darkness that was accompanied by a pink heart floating up where it had been. Watching that, Char felt a burst of fear and nearly opened her mouth to tell Falcon to stop; to tell her just how fighting Heartless would help her and Sora's enemies.

But then Falcon was lowering her Keyblade, whose blunt tip still had a bit of mist clinging to it, with narrowed emerald eyes and a determined set to her jaw. The expression looked disturbingly familiar to Char, but before she could wonder exactly why, the other girl caught sight of her looking on.

"I'm used to this," was all she said, with a very openly bitter smile.

Char blinked a couple of times. "Clearly," she said, raising an eyebrow.

To her credit, Falcon actually spared her a genuinely amused chuckle before turning on her heel and launching herself at an Avenger, Keyblade out. It completed the gesture Char had anticipated earlier and brought up its own weapon to block; the move was so disturbingly Anxclof that nausea suddenly assailed Char and she had to look away.

That decision, born of her own emotions as it was, proved a valid one, for suddenly she found herself the victim of one of the Heartless. Beating it back proved simple enough; but then two more Avengers took its place, accompanied by Dusks that hadn't been there before.

"There's too many of them!" Riku shouted from where he was attacking a Sorcerer. It kept throwing up its shields right before the Soul Eater connected, inducing a snarl of frustration from him.

"Don't look at me; they've never been this bad before," Falcon called back, her voice strained due to throwing herself into a full-on attack on the Avenger.

Just as she fired another ice attack at it, though, a Heartless materialized right next to her and lashed out, slicing deeply into her side. A cry of both pain and shock tore itself free from her, and, holding the afflicted area with one hand, Falcon lunged, Keyblade tearing into the Heartless in a combination of strikes that gave as good as she had gotten.

As the three of them shook off their respective opponents, Char found herself instinctively drawn toward the others; they had apparently had the same idea, for soon she felt Riku's back heat against hers in a pathetic echo of what had happened to her at Hollow Bastion.

Only now Sora, Donald, and Goofy didn't stand at her back, and masses of Heartless and Nobodies alike advanced on them; she couldn't take comfort in knowing she could trust the others to take care of each other.

_This is bad._

Riku echoed her thoughts aloud, and although Falcon remained silent, her heavy breathing told Char she agreed more loudly than words ever could have.

And although the battle with the sniping Nobodies in the Land of Dragons hadn't worn too much on Char, it – along with the various injuries yesterday had inflicted on her, such as the laceration on her belly from the virtual world Heartless; some of the more minor ones from the fight with Demyx; and a couple of shallow scratches from all the Heartless in the Great Maw – began to wear on her.

Suddenly, a dark red blur whirled through the air, colliding with the foes before them and knocking them back. Char blinked, feeling Riku's back tense against hers at the new arrival. Not surprisingly, the contact failed to elicit the goosebumps that had risen along her spine when Sora had done the same thing in the Pride Lands.

Her exhaustion slipped in favor of confusion then, and she searched for their savior.

She caught sight of dark gold hair and a long-tailed white coat before the owner of the crimson weapon was off again. He – she? – pursued the Nobodies, dancing around the Dusks' feet and the Avengers' attempts at an honest attack. The series of dodging movements drew the Nobodies close together, and crimson flashed again, sweeping through the foes and making them implode in a series of squelches.

Behind her, Falcon muttered "Oh great," under her breath, the exasperated words audible over her pain-labored panting. Char glanced sharply back, torn between curiosity and irritation at the other girl's words. Having to be saved rankled her a bit as well, admittedly; but she had the common sense not to show it.

Right then, the owner of that red blade came to a halt, and Char got an actual look at the one who had shown up and saved them.

At first she thought Riku had somehow returned to his normal form, so similar was the man in front of them to the dark boy she had come to care about in Twilight Town. However, his hair fell in longer, dirty blonde locks and was pulled back in a messy ponytail; and the eyes he fixed on them were violet, not turquoise. He shifted his weapon in his hands, and Char saw it wasn't a sword; the stranger wielded a scythe, whose shaft, like the hilt of Falcon's Keyblade, carried a series of scratches and nicks that suggested it had seen combat plenty of times.

His gaze swept over the three of them, lingering on a point just next to Char: on the side on which Falcon currently stood.

Maybe it was just Char's imagination, but she thought she felt the older girl stiffen.

"You guys all right?" he asked, only to grunt in surprise as a Heartless latched itself onto his scythe. Grimacing, he shook the weapon a couple of times before finally lifting one foot and just kicking it off; as it fell, he swung the scythe around, successfully impaling the larger shadow Heartless with it and making it vanish. "Geez! Stupid thing."

He glanced around a couple more times before relaxing visibly and letting out a loud sigh. As he approached them, he lifted his scythe so the shaft rested on his shoulders, blade down, and draped one arm over it. "Damn things," he chuckled, completely _not_ looking like he'd just spent the better part of half an hour fighting. "Couldn't stand them three years ago; can't stand them now."

"Thanks, Copperhead," Riku said, sounding a little grudging. He moved away from Char and Falcon, walking a few steps forward before finally halting in front of the other. "We were in a huge bind there."

"Uh, yeah, Riku," Copperhead said, cocking his head to the side. "I could kind of tell." His eyes landed on Char, and in spite of her own reluctant gratefulness toward him, she bristled a little at the glimmer his gaze gained. "Who's this?"  
"I'm Char," she said before Riku could speak for her. Gods, but this was like every single world visit with Sora all over again.

Now that the better part of her battle adrenaline was dying down, she found in herself a core of deep suspicion toward this newcomer. "Not that I'm not grateful for what you did, but any particular reason why you were in this forest at the same time we were? Apparently it's not a huge hangout for normal civilians."

Her terminology proved a mistake, as it reminded her of what she had thought about Hollow Bastion's less battle-oriented residents right after fighting through the ravine trail. Ignoring the nostalgia that blazed its way across her heart at remembering, she met that dark purple gaze expectantly.

Copperhead lowered his hand and the scythe with it. "Calm down," he said, which only served to irritate Char more. "I just… come here when I need to get rid of some stress. When I heard battle cries, it wasn't really hard to put two and two together."

"You mean you heard _my_ battle cries," Falcon suddenly spat, making Char jump; in the other girl's silence, she had almost forgotten she was still there. Looking over her shoulder, Char was surprised to see Falcon glowering at Copperhead with a vehemence that rivaled even the redhead's own best glares. The effect was dulled slightly by the hand she still had against her side, but there it was.

And yet the redhead could also see many more emotions lurking in that emerald gaze: bitterness remained prominent, but beneath that swam a hint of pleading, a desire to know something that remained unknown.

"Well, yeah, but –" Copperhead began sheepishly, but Falcon was already striding forward, fury contorting her face.

"Shut up," she hissed, knuckles growing tight around her Keyblade; even with her gloves, that much was visible. "Why the _hell_ can't you ever just leave me alone?"

"Fal –" he tried again, genuine contrition flashing on his countenance; before he could get more than that out, though, Falcon was shoving past him, putting enough force into her shoulder to make him stumble, and stalking off into the forest.

Watching her go, Char slowly raised an eyebrow until it vanished into her bangs. Her interactions with the redhead thus far had made it rather clear that she couldn't stand her, but this Copperhead guy remained a different enigma entirely. _Something happened between them,_ Char assumed.

She exchanged a glance with Riku, who just gave her a helpless look and folded his arms.

To his credit, though, Copperhead kept any confusion or hurt at Falcon's departure off his face. "She so wants me," he announced with a grin.

"Uh…" Char blinked.

Riku sighed. "Anyway, thanks for helping us back there."

Copperhead shrugged. "Hey, no big deal. Like I said, I was stressed. And anyway, what was I supposed to do? Let you guys die?" Without waiting for a response, he immediately turned to Char – who cringed a little under the weight of his stare before remembering how easily he had succumbed to Falcon's fury and straightening – and addressed her. "Char, right?"

"Yeah," she replied, slowly. Warily. If the main defender of this world didn't trust him, she figured something had to be off, personal feelings clouding judgment aside.

He seemed to fail to pick that up and just smiled even more impossibly widely: a gesture that reminded her so suddenly and painfully of Sora that she almost gasped with the force of it. "I'm guessing this guy hasn't shown you around town yet, huh?" As he spoke, he nodded roughly toward Riku.

"Not exactly," the gray-haired young man admitted. Briefly, Char wondered with a surge of annoyance whether Copperhead had acted this annoyingly friendly to Riku when he had first arrived; somehow, just from the vexation on Riku's countenance, she doubted the scythe wielder had. "We just got here. And we're kind of on a mission."

His words brought everything sharply back into perspective: she had to get a hold of this machine the Organization had left here so she could return to Sora. _Although from the looks of things, Xemnas probably put the thing here on purpose,_ Char reflected, thinking of the Sorcerers with a barely-repressed shudder.

"Right," she said, stepping past Copperhead. "So if you'll excuse us, we're off to start looking for this thing."

Frustratingly, though, she only got a couple of steps away before Copperhead called back, "Hey, wait a sec!"

It was a testament to how much she had changed, that she actually listened to him and stopped instead of just striding off into the brush like she wanted to. Well, she tried to assure her stinging pride, at least her listening to him was a valid decision; dashing off into the forest like Falcon had was reckless, and even more so since Char had no idea how to get to town.

With the thought of Falcon's departure came the mental image of the emotional amalgamation that had marked the dark-haired girl's face and glare: pain twined with anger and anathema. Shaking her curiosity off – _you're on a mission,_ Char told herself; _don't get distracted, once you're done here you can go back to Sora_ – she looked over her shoulder, trying to look at least a little bored. "What?"

Copperhead blinked, clearly taken aback at her lack of fire. Then he relaxed and shrugged, idly crossing one leg in front of the other as he stood. "I was just about to say if you're looking for something, the best place to start is to get familiar with where you are."

The serious words coming from him surprised Char into turning all the way around and appraising him bemusedly. She caught sight of Riku raising an eyebrow; even though he had clearly known Copperhead almost as long as he had Falcon, the logical explanation of his seemingly-impulsive desire to show Char around the Shadowed Desert surprised Riku as well.

Seeing their confusion, Copperhead tilted his head a little to the side, his amiable smile taking on a newfound smugness. "Well? Am I right, or am I right?"

"Never thought I'd hear you saying something that makes sense," Riku remarked. "But you have a good point." He looked to Char, and she hated the wariness that had embedded itself in his eyes, the very image of a person approaching a wild animal that had just bitten them.

In light of her outburst toward him earlier – when she had so desperately wanted the answers he had refused to give – his expression made sense; it still pissed her off, though. Not for the first time, she felt herself longing for the days when she had only had to worry about Sora's progress regaining his memories and the way her heart skipped whenever Riku was near. In contrast to her annoyance, the wistfulness was damn near agonizing.

"Well?" the dark boy asked. "Copperhead and I can show you around now, or later. It's up to you."

He tapped his fingers of one hand against where they rested on the opposite arm. The gesture reminded her powerfully of who he had been – of who, exactly, had taken this repulsive form to protect the ones he loved most.

For that, Char found herself agreeing with Copperhead's proposal, much as it irritated her to do so. "I guess you're right," she acquiesced, looking to the older boy. Her words made those violet eyes light up, but before he could speak she raised a finger for silence, at which he calmed, still looking annoyingly pleased. "But don't take all day about it. I have somewhere to be."

Listening to the strained undertone that lurked beneath her brusque conditions, Riku had to hold back a sigh. He couldn't help but recall the revelation that had come to him in the Land of Dragons – when she had had far too hesitant a reaction to his innocent joke about her and Sora – and felt the same incredulity that had come over him then return now, albeit eclipsed slightly by sympathy.

The thought of Sora ever not loving Kairi was foreign and tasted odd even in the back of Riku's throat; but Char wouldn't throw around his friend's heart like that. She might have liked to think she had the emotional fortitude for it, but Riku knew her better. Char was about as manipulative as Sora himself.

Still, though… she must have had to lie a little bit about who exactly she was along the way. Particularly, about how she actually knew where Riku was hiding. Not for the first time, guilt assailed him at just how thoroughly he was hiding from Sora, who undoubtedly was scouring the worlds searching for him; but like the hatred he always felt at summoning portals of darkness, Riku pushed the feeling away. _You chose this._

He supposed that was the crux of the matter: having loved the same girl his whole life – the same girl Sora had professed to feel the same for until now, the same girl for whom they had competed for ten years – Riku couldn't imagine feeling that way for anyone whose soul he did not completely know. Even Falcon, as she had told him tearfully a couple of nights ago, had spent years traipsing around with Copperhead and being his best friend before his brother died and things had gone bad; she hadn't explained exactly how, but the tremor in her voice and sorrow in every tear had told Riku she clearly didn't want to discuss it.

Either way, Riku – and Sora, too – knew every aspect of Kairi inside and out. Her favorite color was pink; her favorite ice cream flavor, strawberry; season, summer; and her lips always quirked upward just so whenever one or both of her best friends spotted her. Infectiously, uncontrollably, in a way that always, always made Riku smile too.

_Does Sora know what Char's favorite color is?_ Riku found himself wondering. _How could he move on when he doesn't even know her favorite color?_

But he didn't get more time to dwell on just how odd the whole thing was – Char, falling for Sora; if he hadn't seen the feeling in her eyes for himself, Riku would not have believed it – because Copperhead had begun to speak.

He waved his free hand, still grinning. Almost disturbing, really, on a face that so resembled Riku's own. His original one, at least. "Right, right. Take you around town, but keep it short. I can do that."

Riku rolled his eyes, unable to resist leaning over and muttering, "No, he can't," into Char's ear.

"Hey! I heard that!" Copperhead yelped indignantly. He lifted his hand in a mock placating gesture, already beginning to walk backwards away from them. "Don't insult your tour guide if you don't want to stay lost."

"Oh, whatever," Char grumbled, "we're coming." She stalked off after Copperhead, taking care to walk on the scythe-free side of his body.

Shaking his head, Riku followed after them, still wondering at Char's behavior. Before he could do much more than ruminate a little on whether Sora knew as much about Char as he did Kairi, though, he found the closest object of his thoughts falling back to his side.

"I just had a thought," Char muttered lowly, and Riku inwardly praised her uncanny ability to drive straight to the heart of things.

He inclined his head in a silent request for her to continue, and Char did so. "Namine," she said. "Is she… Ansem didn't…?"

She left the question unfinished, but Riku could almost hear the rest of her inquiry. He shook his head, recalling how after Char had left, he had had to painstakingly wait until Ansem actually left the computer room for a while before retrieving the artist Nobody from her incarceration there. "I left her with Axel," he explained softly.

"Axel? Really? That hedgehog?" Char snorted, albeit quietly so as not to startle the scythe wielder still trudging on ahead. "I know he'd hardly rat us out at this point, but why him?"

"Because there was no one else to turn to?" Riku huffed out a sigh. "Everyone else she knows is either dead, doesn't remember she exists, is an enemy, or had already left at that point." He lifted one hand and counted the identities of each possible savior off on his fingers: the other members of the Organization at Castle Oblivion; Sora, Donald, and Goofy; Ansem and the living Organization members; and Char herself. "Since Axel's pretty much slated for oblivion anyway, he was the best choice."

Char opened her mouth to respond, only for it to hit her that she had no rebuttal and closing it with a sigh through her nose. "I guess," she murmured.

Hearing the barely-disguised concern in her voice, Riku felt a tiny part of him relent. Gods, but sometimes he really disliked the soft spot he'd obtained for the rare moments in which Char showed an emotion besides anger or annoyance. "She's safe," he told her, laying one gloved hand over her shoulder and squeezing. "Don't worry. And anyway, didn't you say you were just worried about the mission?"

The attempt at a subject change sounded clumsy even to his ears, and he would have winced at how stupid he sounded had his fingers not still lingered on her shoulder. However, Char chose not to point it out, just giving him a grateful look. "Yeah, you're right. I was just wondering."

"Hey guys," Copperhead suddenly said from further up. Reluctantly, Char glanced from Riku to the other young man. Following her gaze, Riku detected a cloud of worry moving over Copperhead's face, evidenced by his round, nervousness-filled eyes.

"Um… Fal was hurt a little bit back there," he began, hesitantly. "Is she going to be okay by herself going back to town?"

Char narrowed her eyes. From the looks of things, his concern for Falcon's safety made next to no sense, given the venom in her voice when she had snarled at him back there. Before she could say as much, though, Riku's fingers slipped away from her and he took it upon himself to reply.

"She knows healing spells," he pointed out. "She should be fine."

"I know that, but…" Copperhead trailed off with a sigh. He looked back forward again, quickening his stride almost imperceptibly.

Then, abruptly, he glanced back again. "We were friends once," he explained to Char. "More, actually." The last part was spoken among a bitter chuckle.

This new piece of knowledge didn't stop the new flood of questions that poured into her mind; just exactly what had happened to create such a rift between them rose to the forefront of her thoughts.

As damnably curious as she was, though, for some reason, her manners firmly reined in the researcher's interest. It infuriated her, but she forced herself to calm down. Sora had always stayed silent about his obvious desire to know _her_ past, after all; out of wanting to avoid hypocrisy, she should probably extend the same courtesy now.

_Sora. _Tears pricked at the back of her eyes at how badly she already missed him. If she weren't so sick of it already, she would have berated herself for such an insipidly girlish feeling. Doubtless, if he were here, he would have gone along with Copperhead's request to visit the Shadowed Desert town in an instant.

Copperhead's deep voice, tinged with no small amount of hesitation, made Char glance to Riku, who the scythe wielder was clearly addressing. "Falcon told you… she said why we stopped being friends, right?" he asked, tentatively. Tensely. As though dreading the response with every fiber in his body.

Just like that, the situation rushed back into Char's mind with the dizziness-inducing effect of standing too quickly: Riku had placed her into a situation with even more drama than her own emotions tugging her every which way about a relationship with Sora; somehow she had ended up in a love triangle that simmered with hatred at the center.

Riku clearly noticed the desperate fear in Copperhead's voice and demeanor, for his eyes widened. "No, actually, she hasn't. Not yet."

Copperhead deflated visibly in relief at Riku's confession. As he turned back around again, Char swore she heard him mutter "good" under her breath, which only mystified her even more.

She didn't get much time to dwell on it, though, because suddenly the forestland thinned out around them and revealed the sprawling town. Beneath their feet, the dirt had gradually faded away, replaced by concrete that changed the sounds of their steps.

"All right; we're here!" Copperhead announced obviously, with a very audible grin in his voice. Although the ease of his mood shift unnerved Char a bit, she knew it was really no different from how bipolar she must have seemed to Sora and the others when she'd first met them.

_And now I'm comparing myself to a guy who's still in love with a girl who hates him. Perfect._

Shaking those self-deprecating thoughts off, she lifted her head and took in the town before her.

* * *

_How dare he show up like that!_

Falcon raced blindly through the forest, following only the dirt path beneath her feet, fury carrying her as far from that bastard and his annoyingly, achingly familiar grin as possible. Had she not spent four years navigating this forest and memorizing every shadow and nook from which a Heartless could materialize, her anger controlling her every move might have proven dangerous; as she had spent her life learning to fight here, though, it didn't hinder her as much as it should have.

The wound on her side flared up, and she barely reined in an irritated hiss, although she did slow her pace to accommodate the newfound burst of agony. Even now, minutes after the fact, she cursed herself for having let her guard down long enough for that Heartless to come after her.

Then again, though, she wouldn't have been distracted to begin with if it weren't for those white things. Not for the first time since they had shown up, she wondered as to the exact nature of those strange, off-white beings. They had never shown themselves in the Shadowed Desert before today, after all.

"Either way," she murmured aloud, coming to an unsteady halt, "I need to treat this."

By now she could feel her mental reserves had recovered enough from her constant Blizzaga attacks for her to scrape together enough mana to heal herself. She concentrated; after a moment, her free hand began to glow green with healing magic. Once she placed her hand on the wound, tendrils of warmth oozed out from her fingers into the injury, palliating most of the pain and serving to stagnate the flow of blood.

_I really need to learn Curaga soon,_ she thought with a frown. How she had gone all these years without teaching herself the most soothing healing spell was beyond her; then again, her training had fallen to a much lesser priority after Copperhead…

After…

Just like that, the fury that the knowledge of her physical state had kept at bay burst through the proverbial dam her need for healing had slammed over it and flowed forth again. He thought he had the nerve to save her after trying to kill her?

Yet amidst the bitter thoughts, something else arose. She couldn't place its name, but the dull ache it resembled in her heart reminded her of the grief and longing she felt every time she remembered her father's smile or her mother's reassuringly ruffling her hair.

In fact, if Falcon didn't know how deeply her heart believed the contrary, she would almost trick herself into thinking she missed Copperhead.

"Right," Falcon grumbled under her breath. "Like I'd ever miss the bastard who killed my parents and tried to kill me."

But the memories of better days were there, and they refused to leave.

Maybe only nostalgia for days long past governed her feelings – this continuous, pendulum-like swinging from bitterness to the desire she hated still feeling for her best friend and the man she had loved once upon a time. Normally her refusal to dwell on this would keep her from realizing this much about that terrible night at the top of the abandoned citadel; but a year and a half dwelling on said night had given her some mixed emotions. She knew moving on was the best thing for her to do, but having to skirt so close to the source of her grief precluded that process more than anything ever could.

_Guess I could start refusing the townspeople when they ask me to defeat Heartless for them, but that's just not an option,_ Falcon reflected with a quiet sigh as she sat down on the ground. No matter how much the reflexes trained by years in the fencing club screamed for her to keep her guard up, now seemed like as good a time as any to rest and regain her bearings.

She drew up her bare knees, ignoring how her skirt rode up with the movement, and rested her arms across them, staring out at the outline of the citadel in the distance. A small, albeit pleasant wind picked up then, rending the silence with the sound of leaves rattling; the breeze bit through the fabric of her jacket and induced a shiver in spite of her long sleeves. Her hatred of the citadel may have caused her pain, but at the same time that pain drew her to it, like a moth to a flame: unable to resist until the pain of the blaze brought by the memory crumpled her.

Unbidden, Riku's face floated into her mind, carrying the mixture of sympathy and contempt he would undoubtedly experience at seeing her right now. Thinking on that, Falcon felt her lips begin to curl into a smile that not even the caveat of knowing how her last romance had ended could control.

The contrast between Riku and Copperhead was stark, now that she considered it – both in personality and in the nature of how well she knew each of them. Copperhead's philandering tendencies made her grimace just thinking about it, while Riku's reserved personality was a breath of fresh air; and while she had spent a good majority of her life despising Copperhead before they had become friends, with Riku, they had gotten along rather easily, and still did after a month's time.

_And I'm pretty sure Riku never did anything like kill his girlfriend's parents,_ she couldn't help thinking angrily.

Then again, though, she had never discovered for herself the true nature of his past – had heard him mention the names Sora and Kairi, and that his true form wasn't the one he had garbed himself in over the last month, but never how he had gotten to look that way and become separated from his friends in the first place. In turn, Falcon had never mentioned exactly why she spent her days avoiding one Copperhead Sandgale and regarding the Shadowed Desert townspeople with detachment she had never felt before losing the three most important people to her.

The day after was a blur; Falcon vaguely remembered cleaning the injury Xemnas' light swords had left on her side and thinking that it would probably leave a scar, but beyond that the events lay surrounded in a self-imposed haze.

Afterward, reality had stepped in and she had realized she needed a way to stay in the house, no matter how many terrible memories it held. She recalled forcing herself to go into town and advertising herself as a sort of Heartless exterminator. Only the munny offered by the Shadowed Desert people – who had been in so much awe that the girl who had moved here so many years ago now wielded the Keyblade – had kept her in the same house since then.

_Before that day, though, I would have done it for the good of the people, not just for the munny,_ Falcon thought, lifting her Keychain and rubbing a finger over the teardrop-shaped charm. It still felt like one of her father's prized guitar picks; the smooth texture brought her both sorrow and comfort at once. No matter how painful the mixed emotions, though, she found solace in the fact that such emotions still made themselves tangible to her at all. Leaning her head back against the tree, Falcon stared up at the cloudless sky, taking a deep breath of the spring-laden air.

Smiling and laughing had proven easy enough; but they had had no real honesty behind them. Thanking the people and promising not to let them down had proven easy enough; but she had never been able to stop the thought that maybe they didn't deserve saving. Fighting for the Shadowed Desert's sake had proven easy enough; but Falcon had never found herself caring for real. The empathy and love she had felt toward her parents and Copperhead – the desire to keep them safe, to calm their fears, no matter the cost – had sputtered and lit out when they had, and now lay as a fallow, dully aching reminder of what she had lost.

She was just thankful that Riku had arrived in the Shadowed Desert when he had.

Before she could think back properly on the day they had met, though, something sounded at the very edge of her hearing.

Something that sounded very much like a twig snapping.

Immediately, Falcon was on her feet, Azure Ice in hand. Mentally cursing herself for taking even that infinitesimal moment to relax, she scanned the clearing with narrowed eyes, readying herself to fire a series of ice shards at whatever sentient being happened to appear from the bushes. When nothing happened, her tensed muscles unwound only slightly. "Who's there?" she shouted, before her common sense kicked in and scolded her for even doing that much.

Clamping her mouth shut immediately, she glanced around, and, finding nothing more intimidating than the shadows created by the leaves against the ground, tried to calm her heartbeat. _I swear, if that was Copperhead…_

Somehow, though, she couldn't believe that. If it was him, he would have already slipped out of the shadows, hands up in the air, laughing and completely _not_ acting like he had murdered her parents, however indirectly. Direct or not, the fact remained that his desire to bring his brother back had made him all the more easily manipulated by Xemnas – whoever he was.

She would have searched the clearing more thoroughly for any signs of Heartless, but her stomach chose that moment to interject and offer some suggestions of its own. As she felt the organ beneath the bruises from today demand sustenance, Falcon put one hand over her belly, her fingers unconsciously flexing at the knowledge of the scar tissue just beneath.

"I should get back to town," she murmured aloud, despite her prior vow to stay quiet. "Riku's probably worried."

Was he, though? Falcon thought of Char, how she so obviously didn't want to be here, and tightened her hold on her Keyblade. She knew the grip of jealousy when she felt it, and knew she should probably try and push it aside; for some reason, though, she found herself not caring about what she should or shouldn't do.

Still, she figured she may as well help Riku search for that machine he had talked about, the very thing that supposedly lay entwined with Char and the reason she was here. Even though once the redhead left Riku would probably go with her – a fact that sent a spike of despair into Falcon's heart – the female Keybearer found herself wanting to help their mission.

For the obligation she felt toward Riku as his friend, if nothing else.

Thinking on how she so desperately wanted him to see her as more than a friend, Falcon couldn't hold back a tired sigh.

She turned on her heel and began the long walk back to town.

* * *

Char, Riku, and Copperhead passed over a flowing river, their footfalls creating a hollow sound as they crossed the bridge concealing it; it reminded Char of the steady waves in Port Royal, even though the light glittering off the waters gleamed gold and not silver.

Copperhead caught her staring at the river and cocked an eyebrow. "It usually dries up in the summer," he explained, misinterpreting the nostalgia in her stare for fascination. Rather than correcting him, Char simply narrowed her eyes against the near-blinding glimmer on the river and looked back in front of her.

As they left the water behind them, they came upon a bustling marketplace, one filled with people swarming about and shopkeepers calling out their wares. Char was vaguely aware of Copperhead pointing out each and every one as they wove between the shops, but she found herself not truly invested in memorizing them. Instead, she glanced around the town square itself, making a mental list of places where the Organization could have hidden the machine.

It reminded her of the days when she and Ienzo would play hide-and-seek in the corridors, nearly getting lost and tripping over Ansem's coattails in the process. Only this time, so much more rode on the outcome. She could feel Riku's gaze burning into her back as she scrutinized the area; clearly, he had been given this tour already, for he was much more focused on how deeply she was looking around.

"The Organization's not going to hide it in town, you know," he muttered into her ear.

Char jumped in surprise and whirled to glare at him. "Don't _do_ that!" she whispered furiously.

Riku didn't look the slightest bit repentant as he straightened again and folded his arms. "Seriously," he said, "you look like you're searching for a place to put a bomb or something. Relax."

_Relax,_ Sora whispered to her. She could almost feel his fingers squeezing her shoulder to accompany the echo of his voice.

"Right," she murmured with a sigh.

Riku eyed her a moment longer, before uttering a sigh of his own, as if in resignation. "Char, about what I said back there…"

Char lifted her head. "Back there?"

"In the Land of Dragons, about you and Sora," Riku clarified. He hesitated, then seemed to decide his curiosity was more important than her comfort and plowing on. "I don't… what –"

"What are you two talking about back there?" Copperhead asked playfully. Char forced her tensed muscles to unwind just a bit, grateful in spite of herself to the blonde for halting this awkward conversation before it began. It took her a moment to realize they had stopped walking.

It took her another moment to realize they had stopped in front of a set of oaken double doors that lay at the edge of the town square. Looking the doors up and down, Char turned to Riku and cocked her head to the side. "Where are we?"

"I just said we're at the saloon? Geez, way to not listen, Blaze." Copperhead lifted his hands, palms upward, in an exaggerated groan of frustration.

Char blinked and exchanged a glance with Riku before looking back at Copperhead, who now had one hand on one of the doors to push it open. "What was…?" She trailed off, before clearing her throat and narrowing her eyes. "My name is Char."

"Yeah," Copperhead said without turning around, "but I like mine better." When he earned only a confused noise in response, he glanced over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. "What, they don't have nicknames where you're from?"

"Obviously not," Char grumbled, folding her arms.

_Call me anything but Char and I'll rip your eyes out. _

_ Not even –_

_ That means _anything, _Key-boy._

Odd, then, that the urge to spin Copperhead around and give him a taste of her swords flickered only briefly before vanishing.

"Are we going inside?" Riku asked, giving Char a raised eyebrow that clearly asked whether or not she was still okay.

Meeting those amber eyes, Char suddenly hated the tan skin and gray hair and not-turquoise gaze of the form he had taken, and wanted nothing more than to grab the leather of his Organization cloak and pull him down to tell him so. _I wouldn't _not_ be okay if it weren't for you, asshole,_ she thought, around the heat of tears beginning to build up behind her eyes.

She just shrugged, though, and aloud only said, "I guess we are."

Copperhead grinned and nodded. "I thought so."

Riku gave him a look that suggested he should quit while he was ahead, but at the same time couldn't help wondering at Char's lack of anger. In the past, only Ansem had been able to call her by another name and escape unscathed; and right now she had made her feelings on Copperhead completely clear – if not hatred, then at least hostility and disgust.

_Another effect of traveling with Sora?_

As Copperhead pushed the doors open, Riku took in the scenery that had become familiar to him over the last month: the carpeted floor; the scent of apples that always seemed to blanket the interior of the saloon; the half-opened blinds letting the noontime light filter inside; the dull buzz of the customers chatting.

Copperhead tossed a few greetings over his shoulder at people who called out to him, and the occasional winning smile at the female portion of those people, but Riku tuned him out for the most part and focused on Char. Currently she was regarding the saloon with a tilted head and curiosity-filled gaze, and he could almost see her taking in as much information as possible. The gesture made sense for her and he found himself relaxing almost unconsciously, at the sight of her doing something he would expect: silently absorbing, scrutinizing.

Copperhead led them past the scant amount of empty tables – this was a busy day for the saloon, Riku noted with a raise of his eyebrows; normally the crowd was significantly smaller at this time of day – and flopped down in an empty seat at the bar at the front. With an exaggerated sigh, he unwound the strap of his scythe's sheath from around his shoulders and wrapped it about the back of his chair. "Man, I'm starving," he groaned, stretching his arms high above his head before letting them drop back down to his side with a wince. "Arm just popped," he explained unnecessarily.

Rolling his eyes, Riku slid into the chair next to Copperhead. "Like we didn't just hear it," he muttered.

When no telltale crimson hair flashed in his periphery, Riku twisted around to see Char standing there awkwardly, clearly not knowing whether to sit down or not. He saw her eyes flicker to the concealed weapon hanging off the back of Copperhead's chair and figured she was probably wondering how no one noticed it.

With that thought came a surge of sympathy so powerful that it made the breath catch in Riku's throat. He hadn't seen Char this lost since he had darted behind Sora and seized her by the waist to take her with him; the look of pure terror in her gaze then rivaled her expression now, certainly, but the air of general fear – and anger toward him, as her eyes roving over him narrowed – remained nonetheless.

"I'll just order us some food and – hm?" Copperhead had already dug out a dark green wallet and placed it on the countertop, but when he detected Riku's shift in movement he turned in his chair as well. His eyes darted down to Char's fingers tapping against her leg, and his face softened. "You all right, Blaze?"

"No," Char muttered, not taking her glare off Riku. He felt annoyance mar the pity inside him at that. _I'm not letting you leave no matter how much you want to,_ he thought irritably. _As much as I hate it, I need you for this. _

Before he could say as much, though, Copperhead stretched one arm out in front of the black-clad arm that rested on the counter. Glancing up at the older man's face, Riku blinked in surprise to see a hard look in those violet eyes. An unspoken _don't._

It abashed him far more than he would have liked to admit, but Riku just glanced down, trying to hide the sudden shame that lifted up from deep within him and heated his cheeks.

"I figure you probably don't want to be here," Copperhead said, surprisingly gently. "But obviously this jerk isn't going to let you go anytime soon, and a little food isn't going to hurt things. They don't actually serve anything alcoholic here," he added clumsily, "so if that's the problem, don't worry about it."

The words had a stronger effect on Char than Riku would have thought: a tiny, almost nostalgic quirk of the lips, so quick that he almost leaned forward in his surprise. Not for the first time, he wondered just what all he had missed.

Copperhead grinned. "There we go, there's a smile. Just sit. I'll pay."

Char rolled her eyes, but a rueful look had replaced her prior petulance as she sat down on Riku's other side, one elbow propping itself against the countertop. As the Shadowed Desert native lowered his arm and turned back around to call the waiter over to them, Riku risked a glance over at her.

It was completely stupid, but he heard himself repeat Copperhead's question, albeit excluding the little nickname. "Are you okay?" he asked lowly.

Char raised and lowered one shoulder; after a moment, she seemed to decide he deserved more of an answer than that – _hey,_ Riku thought dryly, _there's progress_ – and turned her head to him. "I've definitely been better," she admitted, pushing her bangs out of her eyes with the hand attached to the elbow on the counter. "Kind of sore. Tired." After a moment of hesitation, she added, so quietly he had to lean in to hear, "Missing him already."

There was no question as to who _he_ was. Riku sighed, resisted the sudden urge to reach out, knowing he would probably come away with a stump for a hand if he did.

"I've been missing him for the past year and a half," he said quietly.

* * *

If Char knew Xaldin had appeared in this world again, she would hold enough anger to fill all of them.

The thought was a paltry one, but it served to lift Sora's spirits nonetheless, to remind him her fire still remained with them even though she was gone. He told himself he had to channel that fire in order to convince Beast; not only did the sight of all the strength and fury and determination that normally marked the Beast send pangs of empathy throughout Sora's heart, but the words of Mrs. Potts and the others still rang through his head.

Beast, a prince. Sora shook his head at that. He was never going to get used to that one.

Squaring his shoulders, he approached the Beast, who stood with his back to them, massive furry head angled to gaze out the window. The aura of hopelessness wafted up from him in palpable waves, and Sora heard Goofy let out a soft murmur from behind him.

"Don't worry, guys," he murmured. "We'll convince him."

"I dunno, Sora," Donald said, anxiously. The brunette glanced behind him and caught a glimpse of the doubt in those dark eyes before the duck's pride slammed itself down hard over that vulnerability. "He seems pretty upset…"

Sora coaxed a smile onto his face, even though a very large part of him agreed with Donald. If Beast's stubbornness let him listen to Sora, it would be a miracle. "It'll be fine," he said, and turned back around, tacking a belligerent expression onto his face for good measure.

"Hey, Beast!" he called.

Beast didn't even turn around. "Leave me alone," he mumbled.

Hearing the raw desperation in his friend's words, Sora clenched his fist and tried to think, suddenly at a loss for words. He could almost hear Char at his back, demanding that the Beast erase his depression, and felt a tendril of guilt work its way into his veins. _Like I have the right to even say that. _Nevertheless, he pushed that doubt aside and renewed his determination. "C'mon, you need to hear this."

At this, Beast actually turned his head to the side, one pale eye staring balefully at Sora. "What?" he asked softly.

Sora took a deep breath. "You used to be fearless," he said. "You would've given your life to save Belle." As he spoke, memories of fighting through Hollow Bastion and the castle at Beast's side flowed into the brunette's mind: the sewers, how difficult the involuntary replacement of a stick for Keyblade had been, and, above all, Beast's repeated creed that he needed to save Belle.

The Beast must have been recalling this as well, for he pivoted his entire body around and stared at Sora in a silent, albeit still half-hearted, request to continue.

"You gave us all courage, remember? In Hollow Bastion, and here, too." Hope and anticipation twitched within Sora's heart at the gradual brightening on the Beast's face. With the lack of interruption, he plowed on. "Are you really gonna throw that chance at happiness away?"

"The rose is your only hope, right?" Donald added. "So let's go get it back, and pound that Nobody in the meantime!"

"Yeah," Goofy said. "Remember what it was like before Belle got here?"

Beast blinked a couple of times, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it with a soft growl. After a few moments, during which Sora began to wonder if he would respond at all, Beast spoke. "I do know one thing." Those pale blue eyes – the last vestige of his humanity – narrowed, and he bared his fangs in a snarl. "This castle belongs to me! And Xaldin will never be welcome here."

Sora nodded, a relieved smile coming over his features. He exchanged a triumphant glance with his comrades, trying to ignore the pang that assailed him at the very noticeable lack of ice blue among them, before looking back at Beast. "All right," he cheered. "Let's go kick some Nobody butt!"

As he turned, his foot slid over something on the ground; at first he thought it was just a figment of the mess in the room, but when it produced a distinctive jingling noise upon being jostled, he had to reach down and pick it up. _A new Keychain,_ he realized, and had just enough time to identify the charm as that of a rose before Donald shouted, "C'mon, Sora, let's go!"

Pocketing the Keychain hastily, Sora called back "coming!" before taking a deep breath. Thinking of the likely battle with Xaldin ahead, unpleasant memories of the fight with Demyx seeped into the brunette's mind, making him wince. At the forefront of those memories marched the sight of darkness consuming the sitar-wielding Nobody, and Sora tried to beat back the nausea that filled him at the thought of watching another die that way. _It's not dying, though, right?_ he argued with himself. _If Nobodies don't really exist, then they can't really die. And besides, Roxas didn't even like Xaldin that much anyway._

He clung to that logic as he followed his comrades out the door.

* * *

Char hated to admit it, but the prospect of food was actually beginning to soothe the anger and frustration that had been percolating inside her all day.

It didn't quite manage to push away the thought of Sora and how he was likely panicking in desperation at the notion of losing another friend to the darkness, but it definitely assisted the typical mental process of pushing it to the back of her mind. Difficult as mentally shoving Sora to the designated "worry about later" section of her mind proved to be, Char found it rather disturbingly simple to do so anyway.

_Another way he's changed me,_ she reflected wryly, taking a sip of her water and keeping a surreptitious eye on the kitchen door behind the bar. _Sora made it so easy for me to forget about all the bad things. The way my apprentices died, how I used to like Riku…_

Thinking of Riku, she glanced over at him. His dark gray hair swayed, tugged by the air conditioning, as he glanced over in response to Copperhead speaking. Char found herself straining to catch a few threads of the conversation, suddenly hating the silence that had fallen over her like a suffocating shroud.

"…managed to get that Heartless, though, right?" Copperhead was asking, with his head of uncannily Riku-like hair tilted to the side.

The black-cloaked young man beside him nodded. He lifted his glass of paopu juice – which Char still marveled at the fact that the saloon had in plentiful supply; then again, though, this world apparently had a deeper connection to the others, perhaps because it had its very own Keybearer – and took a swig before replying. "Yeah," he answered, "but only because Falcon managed to figure out its weak point was on its head." A grudging undertone wormed its way into his voice at the part about Falcon, and Char's lips twitched in a vain attempt to hold back a smile. Riku still couldn't stand conceding victory to anyone else, it seemed.

Especially since, but for that battle in Hollow Bastion, his main rival – Sora – had never bested him at all.

_What would it be like,_ Char wondered, _to have a friend like that? A best friend, someone to share everything with? _Vitriolic as Sora and Riku's relationship had turned in more recent times, the fact remained that Sora had had the mental fortitude to look past those transgressions and fight not just for Kairi, but his darkness-swathed best friend as well. The closest Char had ever gotten to having someone like that had come in the form of Ienzo; but even that had petered off when she had rounded the corner to find Heartless swarming the six males she had spent eleven years of her life with.

In fact, if anything, her best friend had, in the last month, had spiky hair, smelled like paopu fruit, and responded to the name of Sora.

Char struggled to eradicate any hint of melancholia that may have appeared from her countenance and focused on sipping her water. This place certainly belied the reputation that normally followed another with its name.

Copperhead laughed, shaking his head. "She would. Try to jump on a Heartless' head, I mean." He stared down at the hand still wrapped around his own glass of fizzy liquid, the smile on his face obtaining a wistful taint to it. "Once, a couple of years ago, she went charging after a big one in a blizzard." Shaking his head, he chuckled, that sorrow – the desire for things long ended – oozing into his voice as well. "Crazy kid."

As he lifted the glass to his lips, Char blinked a couple of times. Having met him only an hour ago, she should have the ability to dismiss the almost-maybe-wistfulness in his voice, and definitely should not have the unconscious comparison between her and him piping up in the back of her mind. And yet both were there, as palpable as Riku's grip on her shoulder or Sora's lips on hers.

Clearly, Copperhead missed Falcon. And a niggling curiosity was squirming up within Char to find out exactly what had happened to put a rift between them.

She shook her head with a muted growl, knowing full well she shouldn't care at all about Copperhead's situation with Falcon. That only Sora, and the thought of seeing him again, should elicit any emotion from her besides impatience and anger as long as she was in this world. But a part of her – one that resonated with Sora's unique timbre in her mind – urged her to figure out why.

Before she could decide on whether to act on that, though, the sound of multiple plates clicking against the countertop drew her attention, and the scent of fresh beef wafted up into her senses. "All _right!"_ Copperhead grinned, and gave the waiter a thumbs up. "Thanks for the food, James."

The young, suit-clad man – another contrast to the reputation Char would have thought this place carried: the way their employees dressed, almost too extravagant for a "saloon" – shrugged his shoulders in a dismissive, yet modest way. "C'mon, Copperhead. You're giving me your munny; the least I can do is feed you guys. Uh, speaking of which…?" He trailed off pointedly and extended out a hand.

Copperhead groaned good-naturedly and slapped some coins into James' hand. "You're milking me dry, man!" he laughed.

While the waiter rolled his eyes and counted out the currency in his grasp, Riku raised one eyebrow at Copperhead. "You know, we've got munny of our own," he pointed out. "At least some of us do."

Char narrowed her eyes, knowing the comment was directed at her. "Like I had time to get some out of Sora's pockets before you dragged me here," she growled.

And now she was thinking about actually fishing around in his pants pockets. Perfect.

Fighting uselessly against the flush that rose to her cheeks at the thought, she just took a fierce bite out of her burger, pretending it was Riku's face in the process. The flavor of the meat soothed her at once, though, and she swallowed with a pleased murmur, inwardly cursing herself for being so easily pacified by food.

The blonde young man waved off Riku's words. "Don't worry about it, Riku. It's my treat."

As the waiter shuffled off, apparently mollified by his payment, the three of them readily accommodated their food. Silence descended upon them, broken only by the din of the other customers carrying on their conversations nearby and the waiters taking orders. Char suddenly became aware of how eagerly she was devouring her food and tried to make her next bite a little smaller and more polite, difficult though it proved. _Guess this morning made me hungrier than I thought._

Of course, thinking of this morning made her remember the panic stamped onto Sora's face and the urgency in his voice as he had called her name, swiping Heartless aside with the Oathkeeper in the process. For the first time in the last five minutes, Char lowered her food back to her plate with a closed-mouthed, quiet sigh. _Where are they now?_ she wondered. _What are they doing now?_

In all likelihood, they had probably already left the Land of Dragons. Char thought back to the reason Riku had visited the emperor after snatching her up and stifled a soft laugh. They had definitely defeated that dragon Heartless Xigbar had apparently spawned, that it was just like that bastard to create. Perhaps even now, Sora, Donald, and Goofy had boarded the Gummi ship to make their way to more worlds – still searching for Kairi and Riku and a way to the World That Never Was, yes, but now with an added goal to their list. Char found her breath jostling for room to escape around a sudden lump in her throat and swallowed past it.

Which world had been on the map after the Land of Dragons? She couldn't even remember. However, she did recall them visiting Beast's Castle afterward, and seeing Xaldin – Dilan – there, trying to corrupt the Beast. _If he's still there… _

Her anathema toward the Organization halted that thought and didn't let her finish it. She just hoped Sora would give Xaldin a piece of his mind and his Keyblade. If Number III's lances didn't spear him through first.

She chided herself for doubting Sora's strength; he had grown significantly stronger between their last visit to the castle and now, and could take down anything that came his way there, Organization ramping up their Heartless patrol or not. Even if Anxclof chose to come back…

Char had just an instant to shiver at the memory of Sora's rain-tinged blood running down the tip of that golden Keyblade – and wonder for the thousandth time where the Blade of Vengeance had disappeared to – before a blur of gold appeared out of the corner of her eye. Turning, she found herself practically nose to nose with Copperhead.

Riku had a bemused, yet annoyed look on his face, but still lifted his fork, laden with a piece of cheese-slathered baked potato, to his lips. Copperhead had his elbow bracing himself against the counter and the adjoining hand splayed across the underside of his jaw; his other arm rested practically on top of Riku's plate. "So, Blaze," he began, ignoring Char's flustered affirmation as to what her real name was, "why'd Riku bring you here?"

Swallowing his bite of food, Riku appraised Copperhead with an air of impatient annoyance. "Don't waste any time, do you?" he muttered.

"Well, excuse me for being curious!" Copperhead retorted, glaring at Riku over his shoulder. "You wouldn't bring just a random person here, right?" Char couldn't help noticing how he carefully skirted around using the word "girl," and the possibility of his knowing about Falcon's not-so-little crush on Riku floated to the front of her mind.

Rather than asking, though, she just sighed, the sound curling out from her like a wisp of poisonous smoke, with much the same effect: Copperhead jerked back around at once, and Riku widened his eyes. "Do you want to tell him, or should I?" she addressed the latter.

He hesitated for a moment, as though honestly weighing her question; after a moment, he relented, rolling his eyes and pulling his plate away from where Copperhead's frame hovered over it. "Fine, I'll tell him." Yet a kind of tight, restrained anger marked his words, as though he knew he would regret relating the tale again. Char felt a tiny pinprick of gratification twinge in her heart, that he found it difficult to resurrect the memory of her fury toward him.

Thankfully, Copperhead chose that moment to draw away from her and looked toward Riku as the gray-haired young man spoke. "Quite basically, we have to find… a machine," he finished, a little lamely.

Copperhead blinked. "A machine? Like, for washing clothes?"

"No," Riku snapped back, immediately on edge. He huffed, seemed to mentally smooth his ruffled temper, and began again. "Char's teacher created a machine to fight back against our enemies, and he thought it would work. But then they found, and stole, it."

"Terrible job of guarding it _he_ did," Copperhead remarked. Although Char could only see the back of his fine-haired head, the way his neck slowly curved to angle it to the side suggested a hidden accusation behind his words.

Riku narrowed his eyes. "In my defense, I was here helping Falcon run the medicine shop that day. That's not the point," he quickly interjected, before the other young man could prod further. "The point is, Char's teacher found it here, but we don't know where it is. So we're looking for it, so we can save the worlds from this threat."

Copperhead perked up at the last part. "Can I help?" he begged. "Saving the worlds sounds pretty damn awesome! And besides, finding something like that here shouldn't be too hard. I mean, look at this place." He waved one hand vaguely at their general surroundings – the people still immersed in their respective conversations; the waiters and waitresses swarming about; the soft simmer of food cooking in the kitchen. "We're not exactly big on the whole technology thing, outside of suburbs of course."

Char craned her neck so Riku could see her around Copperhead's form and shook her head. The last thing she wanted was someone else involved in this. _All I care about is getting this over with, and really, he would be more of a liability than an asset anyway._

However, the dark boy spent only a moment of blankly taking in the urgency on her face before those amber eyes shifted back to Copperhead. "Why not?" he announced. The redhead groaned aloud, a sound that, coated with volume-maximizing exasperation as it was, proved a quiet expression in comparison to the world native's triumphant laugh.

"Yeah," Riku went on, fixing eyes smoldering with spiteful smugness back on Char, "we can use all the help we can get on this. Gods only know where it could be."

Char seethed inwardly. _I'm going to kill him for this._

Apparently her expression had made that thought loud and clear, because what looked like a tiny smirk stole briefly across his face before the infuriatingly neutral façade appeared again.

Seeing the thunderous expression darkening Char's countenance, Riku fought the urge to tell her to calm down. His decision was a valid one, as far as he was concerned; irritating as Copperhead could be, he knew his way around the Shadowed Desert almost as well as Falcon did, and the two of them could use all the help they could get. If Char wanted to complete this task as quickly as she claimed to, Sora notwithstanding, her behavior definitely contradicted it.

He looked back at Copperhead, who had the uncontrollable grin of a child just having received a particularly delicious piece of candy. "You can count on me!" he crowed, pumping a fist. "Now let's get done eating; I'm starved!"

Riku rolled his eyes, but couldn't preclude the imaginary strings that quirked his lips upward. Food definitely sounded like a good idea.

* * *

**_Please review with more than just "so good, update soon" or "I loved it."_**


	66. Chapter LXVI

Hey all! Thank God the document editor decided not to screw up; that's all I can say. XD FFN doesn't like my Macbook Pro, it seems... Anyway, I'm going to make this A/N quick, because my geography class is starting in like 2 minutes. Not much to say about this chapter, except don't expect much of it because I'm writing updates for this fic for NaNo. Which, as we all should know, means word vomit first and editing later.

Also, the last part of this chapter is a special treat for those of you who have been saying we need a scene with Donald/Goofy's POV. I think I did all right with that, but who knows? ;)

Enjoy!

_**Disclaimer**_- I own nothing.

* * *

As Sora and the others dashed out of the castle to the courtyard beyond, the Keybearer spotted the black-clad figure they had been looking for. He narrowed his eyes, already preparing himself to summon his newfound rose Keyblade to his hand; it had done a fairly good job of beating back the Heartless and dragon-like Nobodies Xaldin had summoned to fight them in the castle entrance, so he figured it would be enough to defeat their master as well.

At least, he hoped it would be enough.

"Get out of my castle, now!" Beast snarled, flexing his claws.

Xaldin hummed almost dismissively, hefting the glass container holding the rose. In his other arm, Belle struggled valiantly, but to no avail; he had an iron grip around her already. Beast flinched at the sight of both, but to his credit managed to keep a relatively strong hold on his anger.

"And let Belle and the rose go!" Donald added, fury in his hoarse squawk.

Goofy gave a fervent nod of agreement, brows drawn over his eyes in as close to an angry look as he could get.

"With pleasure," Xaldin said, "but in all honesty, I'd like to make an equal exchange. Which will it be, Beast?" A smile full of relish curved over his lips as he spoke. "Belle? Or the rose?"

"If you really want to travel light, why don't you give us both?" Sora demanded.

Xaldin's violet-blue eyes landed on him, and Sora fought back a shudder at how deeply that gaze probed over him. "Ah, Number XIII," the Nobody purred after a moment of scrutiny. If possible, his smile widened even further, and he perfunctorily tightened his hold on Belle, who had fallen limp for a moment before lashing out anew. "Xigbar was right about that look you used to give him."

"Xigbar?" Sora blinked; the name sounded familiar, though whether that was from Char's story of her fellow apprentices or Roxas, he wasn't sure. The effect of Xaldin's stare on him sent dozens of prickling barbs into the Keybearer's skin, and he could only growl under his breath, wanting so badly to dispel the reminder of Roxas, but knowing only a glare could embody his disgust right now. Yes, now he could remember: Roxas, stalking by a long-haired man with an eye patch and giving said man a baleful stare.

He snapped out of his trance as quickly as possible, as Donald and Goofy were giving him worried looks – and he didn't dare think of ice blue's absence among those concerned eyes. "Trying to psych me out isn't going to work!" he shouted. A near-blinding light flashed, announcing the rose Keyblade's appearance in his grasp, and he blinked against the sudden influx of light; his eyes had grown used to both the darker half-light of the castle and the way the clouds currently eclipsed the sun.

Fleetingly, he wondered how much time had passed today, since he had near fallen to his knees at seeing the last remnant of darkness swallow up Char in the Land of Dragons. The sun had remained somewhat high in the sky in Mulan's world, and Donald and Goofy had all but forced a sandwich down his throat on the way here. So noontime had just passed. The more time he spent dawdling here exchanging blows with this Nobody, the farther away Char could get; and the more time Kairi and Riku spent in darkness.

_Kairi. Riku. _To his shame, his mind choked on the last name and he couldn't continue, even in his thoughts. He nearly opened his mouth to ask about them, before remembering only Axel seemed to know anything about Kairi. And Riku and Char…

For all he knew, Riku and Char were already together.

_I just hope they're safe. All of them._

Xaldin scoffed daintily. "I'm not going to bother with trying to bring out Roxas. As far as I'm concerned, he is long gone." He flexed his fingers. "However, if you insist on being difficult –"

Suddenly Belle lashed out again, driving her elbow with all her strength into her captor's ribs. A grunt cut off whatever belligerent words might have followed, and Xaldin recoiled, loosening his grip on the rose and allowing Belle to leap up and seize it from his hand. Her trembling fingers slipped a bit on the glass container, but soon she found purchase, gripping it tighter even as she dashed off toward the safety of the castle.

"Good one, Belle!" Goofy called. Sora caught a glimpse of her triumphant smile as she charged past.

Beast let out a murmur of relief that both his most prized treasures were safe, only for his expression to turn thunderous again as he swiveled his head back to Xaldin. Crouching low in a way that made his muscles bunch, he sprang forward, paws thudding against the ground as he raced toward the Nobody. However, Xaldin straightened, apparently having had enough time to recover from Belle's unexpected attack, and jumped backward, out of range of those deadly claws. As a result, Beast nearly toppled forward from the force of his momentum, only managing to catch himself before falling. He glowered upward as Xaldin floated back down again, seemingly weightless, black robes and dreadlocks fluttering, eyes narrowed with a rage that someone with no heart should not be capable of. For some reason, Sora was reminded of the shadows that had consumed Char, and suddenly he wanted to tear this Nobody apart twice as hard.

For her, if nothing else.

As Xaldin touched down, he lifted his arms to the sky. In response to some unspoken command, swirling amalgamations of cloud and lightning coalesced around him, surrounding his form in opaque spirals. The wind kicked up then, and, letting out a surprised cry, Sora drew his arm over his eyes, even as behind him, Beast dug his claws into the ground. Donald eventually lost his balance and was thrown backward, but Goofy extended his shield to halt his path. The duck hissed out of both indignation and pain at the impact with the turtle shell-like weapon.

After a few moments, the dust cleared, and Sora lowered his arm to see the pillars of cloud had vanished, to reveal six long, pale-bladed weapons. With one swift movement, Xaldin gathered up the lances to hover at his side. The near-unbalancing gale had vanished from the air, Sora suddenly realized. He trailed his gaze up to the now-vibrating air around the Nobody. _Of course,_ the Roxas part of him whispered, _Xaldin's powers involve wind._

A smirk overcame Xaldin's face then, as though he had heard Sora's thoughts and wanted to confirm them. However, he sighed and twirled his lances around. "Where's the fun in this?" he queried, and his lips curled up in an even more impossibly sardonic manner as he added, "If Charisa's not with you, it's almost not worth the bother."

His mentioning the redhead's name broke Sora out of whatever nostalgia-induced trance might have followed. Hefting the rose Keyblade in his hands, the brunette charged forward, with Beast hot on his heels. "Where is she?" Sora demanded, even as he leaped and lashed out with his blade. "Where –"

But then an invisible force was thrusting him back, tiny invisible blades scissoring into his form and nearly throwing him into Beast. Sora landed on his feet and, upon feeling multiple twinges of pain in his Keyblade-wielding arm, glanced down. What he saw shocked him: even though Xaldin had made no move with his lances, multiple cuts had appeared on his arm.

"What…?" Beast trailed off, shaking his head with a snarl. He charged again, only for much the same result to occur; behind them, Donald cast a lightning spell, only for said lightning to harmlessly absorb into the wind surrounding Xaldin. Even Goofy's shield bounced uselessly off the Nobody, and the dog caught it just before it could make contact with his face.

"We can't hit him?" Goofy gaped, his shield beginning to shake in his grip.

Sora shook his head. "I'm sure there's a way, we just –" He cut himself off, instead choosing to concentrate on the multiple lance points abruptly slicing toward him. Like Demyx before him, Xaldin chose to refrain from taunting them, only watching with a detached air that made sickeningly enough sense in light of their inability to hit him.

"This isn't good," the Keybearer muttered under his breath, his mental rendition of Char echoing the words. She might know what to do – maybe this was one of the Organization members she had lived and worked with; she might know how to counteract his fighting style – but she wasn't here. And, Sora realized with a surge of desperate dread, he would have to figure this out himself.

_You'll be fine,_ he thought in an attempt to encourage himself, _you fought just fine without her, remember? _But the fact also remained that he had grown used to having the extra help; to hearing sardonic quips and vulgar pejoratives thrown at his enemies; to taking heart from her solid presence.

Now he didn't even have that.

However, Sora knew now was not the time to focus on her absence and the yawning chasm filled with fear and loneliness that said absence had ripped open in his heart. Especially since Xaldin had withdrawn his lances, only to thrust them forward again, very nearly impaling Beast and Goofy in the process.

Recoiling, Donald instinctively tossed two Potions to the prince and the dog; the latter caught it and spared a couple of seconds to trot far enough away from the fray to gulp the elixir down, but Beast swatted his away with one paw. "I don't have time to focus on this," he growled, glare fixed unwaveringly on the whirling eddies of air surrounding Xaldin. "I need to make him pay for what he's done!"

Without waiting for a response, he leaped forward again, but the result was the same as before: the wind guarding Xaldin sliced into Beast and he fell back, letting out a guttural snarl of pain and frustration. Sora noticed the blood welling up from beneath his companion's fur and fought back a wince.

He tried not to panic, a process that was made even more difficult by Xaldin suddenly deciding to take the offense again. Facilitated by the currents of air surrounding him, the Nobody became little more than a whirlwind of wind and lances, slashing viciously through the air and effectively scattering the four of them. Sora himself barely drew back in time, though the lance points caught against his skin and ripped more than once. Donald squawked as he lost his balance, but Goofy pulled him out of the way just in time, dragging the duck back with him.

After what seemed like ages of frantically dodging Xaldin's attacks, the Nobody finally settled into his prior position, not looking dizzy in the slightest. Multiple drops of blood spattered the ground beneath Beast's feet as he stood, wavering only slightly. "I don't understand," he growled, almost incoherent with anger. "How are we supposed to hit him?"

Sora shrugged helplessly, holding back a wince as the cool air of the royal courtyard seeped into his open wounds. A moment passed, and he realized he was waiting for a female voice to remark _I guess we don't._

_ Not unless we find his weak point first._

_ His weak point. _Even absent, Char caused the gears in Sora's mind to turn.

Determination flooded into his heart anew, effectively sweeping away most of his worry, and the Keybearer faced Xaldin again. "He's got to have some sort of weak spot," the brunette called to the others. Donald and Goofy, who could also already barely stand, exchanged a glance and startled murmurs. "A place where the wind doesn't cover him up."

"Right," Goofy said slowly, eyes widening. "And then when we find that, we can finally hit him!"

Xaldin snorted, speaking for the first time since the battle had begun and he had mentioned Char so casually. Thinking of that, Sora clenched his fists, tightening his grip around his Keyblade; the Rumbling Rose as a name suddenly came to mind, for both Beast's righteous fury and the object that was once his only hope for salvation until Belle came along and showed him light.

"The last horses finally cross the finish line," the still-floating Nobody drawled. His heavy eyebrows drew down over his eyes in a dark smirk. "But you only have so much time to defeat me. You're looking a little tired, Beast."

"Don't listen to him!" Donald screeched at the prince, who had straightened with a look of ire at Xaldin's taunts addressing him. "He's just trying to make you mad enough to get tired!"

_You're one to talk, duck boy,_ Char snorted in the back of Sora's mind, and suddenly he had to force back tears pricking at his eyes. Not now, the time for missing her was not now. The sooner he sent this Nobody back to the darkness he had emerged from, the sooner he could find Char and Riku and Kairi again.

For the most part, the aura around their battle took on a very subtle shift. Except for Beast, who prowled around glaring at Xaldin, obviously hating that he couldn't just jump up and claw the Nobody to ribbons, the group began fighting more defensively. Donald expended his magic only to heal, which he did immediately after Sora's revelation, giving them all new energy to retaliate again. Goofy and Sora watched Xaldin's strikes more closely, only using their weapons to guard themselves whenever one of those deadly lances deviated from its position floating around their master.

By the time Sora found a way to return the injuries Xaldin had inflicted on them in kind, his muscles were screaming for rest and he was wishing for Char's presence more than ever. Strange ways of giving them morale aside, his mentioning her told Sora loud and clear that in a past life, Xaldin had lived and worked alongside Char as one of her fellow apprentices. If she were here, maybe she could have given them some hints about his fighting style. _Yeah,_ Sora found himself thinking, _and if she were here –_

_ If she were –_

Not the time, not the time, his mind chanted, and he surfaced from the proverbial dark waters just in time to catch a glimpse of still air just above Xaldin's head, stark amidst all the globules of wind surging around him.

Hastily, Sora parried the two lances that had converged on him and would have sliced him, scissor-like, in two, had he not brought up the Rumbling Rose to guard. _Good,_ the Roxas part of him suddenly whispered, _now jump and give it all you've got. He knows his weakness, so do it fast before he can see what you're doing._

Guiltily grateful for his Nobody's presence in his heart, Sora found himself obeying. He slipped around those lances, which had withdrawn briefly only to lash out again, and leaped, assisted by all the training he had done with the Valor Form.

At the last possible moment, though, Xaldin glanced up. With a thrill of horror, Sora realized he couldn't slow himself down enough to just vault sideways in midair.

"Good try, Sora," the dreadlocked Nobody said, voice little more than a mockingly praising rumble. Rather than raise his lances up and impale Sora, though, Xaldin chose to just move out of the way, leaving the brunette to hastily right himself before he could break a bone landing on his side.

"Close, but just not enough." The last part turned into an eerie echo as Xaldin suddenly, strangely, began to glow with a pale green fire.

Donald had just enough time to get out a confused "wak?" before Xaldin suddenly became little more than a blur of green and wind and lances.

The next few minutes became desperate attempts to escape those deadly blades. Everything in Sora's mind shrank down to just the primal need to survive, sending only the signals required to evade the foe before him to his body. Even then, that wasn't enough; Donald and Goofy got caught in the whirlwind, and Sora felt something distinctively warm splash across his face. No time to think about that; just run, just get away as quickly as possible –

Just as abruptly as the chartreuse blaze in his periphery had appeared, though, it vanished. Sora dared turn around; a movement out of the corner of his eye nearly made him whirl around, Keyblade brandished, but then it hit him that it was just something dark rolling down his temple.

Blinking the blood out of his eyes, the Keybearer turned to search for the others. Much to his confusion, Xaldin had vanished. "Everyone all right?" he called, a little cautiously.

"I've been better," Donald muttered, staggering to his feet only with Beast's support. Crimson wounds mottled all three creatures' bodies, and it looked like Goofy's scars from the Demyx battle had opened up again. Sora fought back a groan, restraining his tremble for their sake. If Xaldin came back…

_Xaldin!_

"Sora!" a raspy voice roared from above, making them all glance over with a mix of weariness and dread. To their shock, the voice had not come from a dark-clad figure, as they would have assumed, but a dragon-like shape floating in the sky, appraising them from just beyond the walls of the castle courtyard.

"You think Nobodies can transform, too?" Goofy gulped.

"I don't think so," Sora replied slowly. Before he could mention any theories on that little matter – _theories; _Char was getting to him – Xaldin spoke again.

"You'll wear the face of despair!"

_This can't be good._

Of course, an instant later, the talons on the dragon's three arms slid open, and a globe of white coalesced within. Sora's eyes widened. _I hate it when I'm right,_ phantom Char said.

The white light changed shape then, turning into a laser-like beam that swept over the area. Sora heard his comrades let out murmurs of confusion and fear, and couldn't say he blamed them. Panic had taken hold of his mind, throttling his ability to react to this new crisis. Normally he would have just thrown up his Keyblade and blocked, but from the way the beam of light tore through statues in the courtyard, it looked like that would only end up with his weapon torn apart.

He didn't know how else he could counter this, though, and that sent more terror pumping through his body than a destroyed Keyblade ever could.

The phantom of Char in his mind was telling him to calm down, but he found himself unable to heed her. In the span of only a few seconds, the light emanating from the dragon's mouth was moving ever closer, and now that he could get a better glimpse of it, he saw it spiraling about in midair, creating the illusion of a horizontal tornado. If he were to lash out and slice into it with the Rumbling Rose, which remained heavy and unforgotten in his grip, more than likely it would just bounce off, since the amount of air tumbling within the vortex created a shield…

Sora's eyes widened as a long-buried memory came back into his mind: in Agrabah, how only the use of a new, unfamiliar kind of magic – one that had tunneled its way up from a part of him he didn't even know he possessed – had saved him, Donald, Goofy, and Char from being barbecued by a fire-breathing Heartless.

It was a last-ditch effort, and he didn't even know how much mana remained to him after the exhaustion of fighting Xaldin, but he knew it was worth a shot.

"Guys, get behind me!" he shouted above the howling gale sweeping toward them.

"Are you crazy?" Donald screamed.

Sora shook his head frantically, explanations clawing their way at the back of his throat but remaining there due to the lack of time to voice them. "Just do it! I've got an idea. And _hurry!"_ he added, heartbeat quickening as he spoke.

Goofy was already nodding and racing to stand behind Sora, but Donald and Beast stared a bit more skeptically before following suit. Feeling the trembling bodies of his friends at his back – even that of the Beast, who until moments before had been filled with so much rage – Sora took a deep breath, knowing he had to wait until the light engulfed his vision entirely to throw up the shield. He could feel his Keyblade shaking in his grip and tried to focus on that instead of the possibility of timing his defense wrong.

_If I know you, Key-boy,_ Char remarked, _you'll be just fine. You just can't die._

It was the strangest thing, but her voice, even in his thoughts, sent confidence streaming through him and blotting out the fear like the light before them.

Just like thinking of Kairi's voice had done on his last journey.

With that, he concentrated, and let every last drop of remaining mana flow forth to protect his friends.

* * *

Once Riku, Char, and Copperhead had finished their meals, the eldest stood, taking one final swig of his drink as he did so. "I've got some stuff to take care of around town," he announced.

Char narrowed her eyes, somehow doubting his words. "Such as?" she couldn't help asking, despite the very large part of her that told her she shouldn't even give the semblance of caring.

Copperhead just shrugged evasively. "Work for the mayor. You know – stuff like that."

Char blinked, not knowing what to say; rather than having her skepticism proven groundless, said skepticism only magnified even more within her. She found it a bit difficult to believe that someone like this – a man who seemed so _careless,_ for lack of a better word, and who moreover the main defender of this world distrusted more than anything – could obtain work with the most important figure in this town.

Then again, she had also once denounced Sora, the one chosen by the Keyblade, as little more than a naïve dork. She'd been wrong before.

She fought back a sigh, one that was born both of longing and irritability. Longing, toward the boy Riku had so abruptly torn her away from just when she was gaining some genuine feelings for him; and irritability, for caring this much about basically a complete stranger.

The saloon doors swinging closed brought her back to reality. Just like that, the situation came back into focus: the sounds of the customers deep in conversation; the raised voices of the waiters and waitresses as they called out to one another; the boy at her side that was most assuredly not Sora.

Riku turned to her, pushing his now-empty plate aside. "Well," he said, "we might as well start for the town, too. Try to find where the Organization hid the machine."

His words reminded her of their real purpose here: not to sit around and chat with scythe-wielding, dark-haired Keybearer-obsessed blondes, but to find the product of Ansem's hard work and desire for revenge on the Organization. Budding distrust toward her master aside, Char knew the faster she and Riku found what they were looking for, the sooner they could leave.

She glanced toward the blind-covered windows, from which weak sunlight still streamed forth. When they had walked in, noontime had pushed the sun toward its zenith in the sky; now that they had spent an hour or so on their lunch, the light eking through the blinds seemed a bit weaker. For perhaps the thousandth time in that hour, she found herself wondering what Sora and the others were doing now; if they had managed to beat back the dragon Heartless Xigbar had created.

Of course, she figured the latter's answer was obvious. Sora just couldn't die.

"How do you think Sora's doing?" she heard herself ask, and immediately wanted to clap a hand over her mouth for exposing her insecurities so easily. Especially toward Riku, toward whom she had experienced nothing but impatience and irritation since he had pinned her to the wall in the Land of Dragons and told her just what he was doing.

Riku had been looking toward the door, clearly itching to move on; when she spoke, though, he turned his head back to her, startled. The surprise would almost be comical on Xehanort's face, had she not known exactly who currently wore it. Those fine gray eyebrows arched over amber hues before relaxing, and Riku sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "He's definitely moved on from the Land of Dragons. Where did you guys end up going after that place the last time you visited?"

Char thought a moment. Pale blue eyes set off by dark brown fur, ivory fangs, and a vicious temper came to mind, along with the inanimate objects that served the owner of those things. "Beast's Castle, I think."

Then her mind caught up to her instinctive response of answering his question and berated her, saying that Riku couldn't have known they had gone through those worlds already. She frowned, leaning forward on the elbow placed against the tabletop, a bit of distrust seeping up from within her heart. "How did you know we visited the Land of Dragons already?"

Riku flinched, knowing he was caught. An instant later, though, his composure slid back into place. "Let's just say I've been watching you guys a little more closely than you'd think," he muttered, head angling down to the ground.

Char narrowed her eyes, about to chide him; but a voice whose timbre was disturbingly reminiscent of Sora's piped up in the back of her mind, saying to just let him be. A sigh tunneled up from deep within her, and she pushed her bangs out of her eyes with the hand attached to the elbow on the counter. "I can understand that," she commented. "He's your best friend, after all." And even in spite of everything Sora and Riku had gone through, fights and all, she meant every word.

He glanced back up then, surprise etched onto his features again. However, unlike before, the shadows of questions left unasked lingered among that shock, making hesitation mark his movements. Before Char could do much more than register what all he wanted to ask her – about her relationship with Sora, or at the very least how she could believe so much in him – he shook his head, effectively shedding those shadows. "At any rate," he said, "we should go."

Char sighed, inwardly telling herself to be less obvious when it came to Sora. "Right." After she had failed to respond to Riku's jibe about her feelings toward him, more than likely the dark boy had to be feeling suspicious enough already.

And yet…

_Would it really be so bad, to admit to someone other than yourself and Sora that you love him?_

The terminology about her emotions toward him would have bothered her, were she the Char of a month ago, the Char who shied away from directly admitting her turmoil and hidden from everything that struck sorrow into her.

Now, she just wanted to get this over with and see him again.

If these thoughts showed on her face and in the sudden brightening of her eyes – _stupid tears, _Char thought fiercely, _go away, dammit_ – Riku said nothing about it. He just turned away, dark cloak swishing as he did so.

Silently, they walked out the door.

* * *

With one final blow, the Rumbling Rose slashed into Xaldin's shoulders. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Sora fought back a shudder at the distinct lack of blood on his blade. Just went to reinforce exactly who – and what – these enemies were. Roxas notwithstanding, now the Keybearer knew for sure he had to take the Organization down.

For what they were doing to his friends, if nothing else.

The Nobody let out a choked cry of agony. Agony, and shock, and so many things that a being with heart should have been unable to muster. "Is this the end?" he managed, just before falling to his knees. The lances spread out from where they had once floated around his body, which was also now bereft of the winds that had once surrounded it, and fell, embedding themselves in the ground around him. White light surrounded them as they, too, vanished.

Xaldin lifted his hands to the sky and let out a roar filled with so much primordial anguish that even Donald winced. An instant later, darkness wreathed his form and swallowed him up.

Sora was surprised at the lack of contrition and guilt, the emotions that had come with watching Demyx die – no, not _die,_ that wasn't the right word; _vanish_ fit Nobodies' ends better – and plagued him afterward. Maybe because Roxas had cared more for Demyx than for Xaldin.

Either way, even as Belle raced out from the castle with the rose in hand to check if the Beast was okay, the Keybearer figured he and his friends should move on.

"Good thing he was caught off guard so you could finish him after that spell you did," Goofy commented.

"Yeah," Sora murmured absently.

Donald eyed him oddly, but spoke nonetheless. "And I guess you got a stronger reflect spell out of it, too."

"It just bothers me," the brunette confessed, after a moment of silence.

The dog tilted his head to the side. "What's botherin' you, Sora?"

Sora shrugged, keeping his eyes on the ground. "Nothing, really. It's just –"

"Thank goodness you're all right!" Belle cried. She set down the rose gently, only to recover her urgency and rush to the Beast's side. "You're bleeding terribly," she gasped, grazing one of his less onerous wounds with one finger.

Beast shook his head, wincing at the contact; however, Sora noticed he did not shy away. "It's fine," he muttered gruffly.

Belle drew back a little, not looking the least bit convinced. In the end, she just sighed and gestured at the rose, still glowing in its glass cage. "Here. It's yours again."

All four of the others followed her gaze. Even as they watched, one petal freed itself from its fellows and drifted to the ground. Remembering what Mrs. Potts had told him – that if the last petal fell before the Beast found love, he would maintain his form forever – Sora glanced up, opened his mouth to say something. But the prince beat him to it.

"I… I don't want you to leave the castle, Belle," he blurted out.

Donald's eyes widened. "At least we didn't have to make him say it himself," he commented under his breath. Goofy just shushed him, and, significantly chastised, Donald turned back to the two world natives with a grumble.

"I…" Beast hesitated. Almost helplessly, he gave Sora and his friends a pleading look.

"Whatever you have to say, you can say it," Sora encouraged him. "Belle will listen."

Beast turned back to Belle, nervousness in the way he clenched his claws and unclenched them again. "Will you?"

She just smiled.

"Don't be bashful, now!" Goofy grinned.

That earned him a hard stare, a silent command for them to let him be. Sora couldn't help it; his lips quirked upward as well.

The Beast's annoyance died down immediately when his gaze landed on Belle, on his last hope for salvation. Watching, Sora felt his adrenaline kick up again, this time not due to battle, but desperate hope. This was Beast's last chance; they could only pray he didn't botch it.

"I want you to stay," the former prince managed at last. A beat, then, "With me. Please?" he added for good measure.

Almost before he had finished speaking, Belle was moving forward and took his hand in hers. The furry brown paw easily swallowed her smaller hand in its grip, but she did not waver in the slightest, even when Beast stiffened in surprise. "As long as you need me to," she said quietly.

Beast's eyes widened, and Sora, Donald, and Goofy watched as wordlessly, naturally, the two fell into a dance, right there in the blood-spattered courtyard. The mage and the knight sighed in relief; Sora could only look on, the smile on his face faltering just slightly.

Because selfish as it was, he couldn't help imagining himself and Char dancing like that.

Goofy spotted the Keybearer's newfound melancholia, and his expression softened. "Think it's about time we move on?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

The couple before them halted in their movements, with Beast's own large paw encircled around Belle's waist. "You need to find Char, right?" Belle asked.

Sora's eyes roving steadily down to the ground served as more than enough of a reply.

"We understand," the Beast said, giving them a smile that revealed none of his fangs. A smile that could only ever come out around Belle. He hesitated a moment longer before adding, "Everything will be all right for a little while."

_Everything will be all right._

* * *

Riku and Char spent the remainder of the sun's cycle in the sky wandering around town, asking the marketers and civilians if they had seen anything strange over the last few days or so. For the most part, none of the Shadowed Desert natives gave the two of them any response beyond blankness and curiosity, which Riku had to hastily rebuff before causing panic among them.

Char could understand his desire to keep the situation relatively beneath the public eye; after all, for all intents and purposes, telling these people the real reason an odd, tall boy in a black cloak and a sullen redhead trailing after him were asking about something as seemingly random as this was like telling them the worlds were in danger. And while the real extent of how much the Shadowed Desert natives knew about the worlds beyond this one remained a secret to her, Char figured revealing Xemnas' existence wouldn't do much in the way of maintaining the town's calm.

She glanced up at the sky, immediately having to shield her eyes from the near-blinding rays of the sun, low in its path as it was. _How much time have we spent, wasting time chasing people who don't know anything?_ she wondered, a jagged bolt of desperation slashing across her heart as the question went through her mind. Fast on the sparks of said desperation flickered annoyance, at the fact that if Riku had bothered to get more information before dragging her into this, they wouldn't have had to waste this whole afternoon.

Before her frustration could spill forth into reality, she forced herself to rein her emotions in. Moaning about the day slipping between her fingers, so much like the grains of sand on Sora and Riku's island, wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't change the fact that she still had no idea on which world Sora currently stood, if he was helping the Beast redeem himself or glaring at Hades or asking Simba how his reign as king was going.

Thankfully, her hand already hovered just above her eyes, so crooking her wrist slightly downward to halt the path of any forthcoming liquidated anger at this whole situation.

Inwardly, though, she had to congratulate herself a little at coming to terms so quickly with this. _It's just till we find that machine,_ she tried to soothe her tantrum-throwing pride, _I just need to bear with it until then._

At this rate, though…

The spring breeze picked up then, ruffling the surface of the river underneath the bridge where they stood. Char turned away, away from where the horizon was currently beginning its dinner of the omnipresent disc of the sun. Just beyond the line of trees, where, she knew, marked the spot she had first arrived here, a somewhat vague silhouette protruded in the distance, one that reminded her disturbingly of Maleficent's castle viewed from Hollow Bastion's bailey. Despite her prior vow to only care about finding Ansem's work – or perhaps because of it – Char cocked her head to the side, pondering the identity of that castle-like shape in the distance.

Well, she thought, at least if she knew what that was, she could go explore it and search for the machine there. The possibility of that remained as well.

Behind her, the buzz of Riku's voice gained a peremptory timbre, suggesting he was wrapping up the conversation he had begun with a citizen just before Char had wandered off. The redhead tried not to stiffen, but couldn't help flinching a bit when she heard footsteps drawing closer. "I don't think we're going to find anything else today," the dark boy announced, disappointment dripping from every word as he halted at her side. Without looking down at her, he folded his arms, just staring out at the sunset-clad sky.

Char just uttered a noncommittal "mm," which apparently served as more than enough of a response for Riku. Surprise engulfed her as it hit her that the silence now enveloping them had an almost comfortable aura; briefly, she considered trying to hold up her previous anger toward him, but a sense of exhaustion from the day – kidnapping, still-stinging injuries from battles, Copperhead and all – descended on her like a Heartless' claw and told her to just drop her anger. He had said more than once today that he didn't want to bring her into this, after all.

She found a bit of grudging gratefulness eking into her soul, if only for that much.

If she had been the Char of a month before, she might have felt the urge to reach out and graze his fingertips with hers: felt it, but not acted on it. Now, though, the very knowledge that would have precluded her from acting on that impulse – his love for another girl – kept Char from both experiencing and acting on any desire to just feel that much contact.

Unbidden, Falcon popped into Char's mind, as well as the dark-haired girl's own heart pining for Riku. Surely the female Keybearer knew of Kairi's existence: Riku had made it seem as though he had spent a fair amount of time talking with Falcon, enough so that he had to have told her some stories of the old days. Once Riku and Char had lowered their verbal weapons from each other's throats long enough to talk about the past, Char had felt a tiny, stabbing needle in her heart at hearing the softness that overlaid Riku's voice when he mentioned Kairi.

Then again, Char had never bothered mentioning her past to him; those were the days when she had shied away from the mere shadow of how her fellow apprentices died.

In that regard, past Char and current Falcon weren't so different after all. And even though Char had vowed to care about nothing but leaving this world as soon as humanly possible, sympathy filled her at knowing that.

She leveled her gaze back to the castle-like shape in the distance, slitting her eyes against the setting sun. Beside her, Riku let out a small sigh, almost making her turn and ask him why before it hit her. _Probably thinking it looks like home,_ she thought with a sigh. What would it be like, to regard her home with anything more than bitter nostalgia of what she had lost?

"What are you looking at?" Riku asked suddenly, so suddenly that it startled her.

Steadying herself, Char looked at him, bemused. "Well, that was random."

He rolled his eyes. "Just curious, is all." He gestured to the general horizon. "You're concentrating pretty hard on it, so I was just wondering what it was."

Char blinked. "Oh." Mildly irritated at her monosyllabic response, she turned back to the horizon. "Just that thing that kind of looks like a castle." She pointed at the silhouette.

Squinting, Riku followed her finger with his eyes. As he took it in, he frowned; Char could hear the downward quirk of his lips in the confused sound he made and didn't dare glance up, knowing she would see the contemplative expression Xehanort always got when he was thinking particularly hard on something. "Falcon's never taken me that far," he admitted, sounding slightly irritated at his lack of knowledge on this. "Every time we get that deep into the forest, she just makes us turn back."

Char's brows drew down over her eyes in a bemused mien of her own. "Odd," she said slowly. "What would the Keybearer of this world have to fear on her own turf?"

Riku shrugged with a sigh. "I didn't want to bug her about it," he said, even though every trace of annoyance in his voice suggested that he most certainly did. "I just assumed it was a little like the Secret Place, back on the island." When Char eyed him with even more confusion, he rolled his eyes again. "Something you're not supposed to get too far into."

_Do you really still believe that?_ Char wanted to ask. _After everything you've been through, is that place still something untouchable?_

"Anyway," he went on, not taking his eyes off the silhouette in the distance, "all I know is that the townspeople call it the citadel."

He glanced back down at her, only to blink at finding a lack of aggravation on her face: just that researcher's curiosity, and the light of realization dawning on her. "That's what that is?" she gasped. When he only nodded, her eyes widened in acknowledgment. "I guess that would be where the Keybearers who died here got buried," she mused.

Riku raised an eyebrow. Clearly, her anger toward him had died down just a tad, if her daring to let even this much contemplation shine through was any indication. In spite of himself, he felt a wave of relief wash over him, both out of knowing he hadn't completely lost her as a friend and the fact that they could work together now.

He took a mental step back, though. Just because she wasn't showing her frustration anymore did not mean she had dropped it entirely. That, and the possibility of her having feelings for Sora hung in the back of his mind, as deceptively calm as a poisonous fog.

But then Char was turning on her heel and asking him a question, and Riku shook any hopeful thoughts of Sora reciprocating Char's feelings that might have tread along the coattails of his previous thoughts. "Hm?"

Char rolled her eyes. "I _said, _where are we supposed to sleep tonight?"

His mind drew a blank; much to his embarrassment, he hadn't thought that far ahead. Looking away, he found himself intensely grateful that the dark gray hair of this form could hide his shame. "Good question," he muttered under his breath.

Even though he didn't dare meet her gaze, he could feel her eyes searing into him with all their incredulity. "After going to the trouble of dragging me here, you must have known this would take more than a _day." _Gods willing, it would have only taken a day, and the only problem would have been bouncing from world to world, chasing Sora around to find him.

"I never sleep here, okay?" Riku snapped, glaring at her. "Usually I just stop here to see Falcon and vent stress killing Heartless. I'm gone by this point in the day."

"So where the hell are we supposed to sleep?" Char demanded. "The ground?"

Riku bristled. There went all the sympathy he may have felt toward her in the last few minutes. "Look –"

The sound of a conversation resonating behind them drew both teens' attention, rimmed with belligerence as both respective pairs of ice blue and amber still were. Said belligerence faded, if only a little, as the sight of a slender, dark-clad girl greeted their vision. Falcon stood in front of a robust, middle-aged woman whose back was to the bridge edge, touching the wall that separated them from the river beyond. The fading sunlight caught off something passing from the older woman's pudgy fingers to Falcon's own, and Char realized it must be munny.

"…just wanted to thank you for destroying that _awful_ Heartless," the woman was saying.

Falcon shrugged, not looking up at the other in favor of counting out the coins in her hand. "It wasn't a big deal, really it wasn't." She blinked and glanced back up. "Are you sure you really want to give me this much for such a tiny bounty?"

"Nonsense, dear!" The woman waved a hand dismissively. "It's the least I can do, for the amount of havoc the dreadful creature was causing in my shop."

"Well, all right," the female Keybearer said. Although her next words were clearly spoken around a smile, somehow Char found it difficult to hear that smile in her voice. "Thank you very much, ma'am."

As the woman tittered for a moment longer before turning and shuffling off back to the town square, Falcon shoved the munny into her pocket. From this distance, the way her longer locks of dark hair slid over her shoulder as she stared out at the river was visible, and Char swore she caught the tiniest hint of a sigh.

Then Falcon turned and saw the two foreigners to this world standing there, watching her. At once, any hint of melancholia that might have touched her countenance sluiced away, so flawlessly that its presence before proved doubtful, and she approached them, footsteps clacking across the stone surface of the bridge. Although the smile that had replaced her despondency gleamed brightly enough for both of them, Char had enough sense to know Falcon's expression was directed toward Riku alone.

"Didn't know you were still out here," the dark-haired girl greeted.

Riku shrugged. "We spent the whole day wandering around, trying to find leads."

"And?" Falcon pressed.

He just let out a sound that seemed caught between a growl and a snort and turned away, arms folded across his chest.

"Quite basically," Char spoke up, making Falcon pivot to face her, "we didn't get anything worth checking out. But there's always tomorrow, right?"

Riku gave her a shocked look. "Didn't ever think you'd be the voice of optimism."

His words grated on Char more than she would have expected, and she returned his glare in kind.

Falcon's lips twitched in a smile at Riku's quip, but she just nodded fairly briskly, making Char narrow her eyes a little. She told herself she was probably the only one who had put together her old self's similarity to the dark-haired girl – secret-keeping, tendency to be brusque around anybody beside Riku and all – but it didn't stop her from feeling annoyed at Falcon's terse reaction. _Is this how Sora felt, those first few days I was with him?_

If so, she had to give Key-boy a bit of her sympathy. Only the days spent in such close proximity had allowed her to push her pride aside, however grudgingly, and accept his friendship rather than just his help in battle.

"About tomorrow," Riku cut in suddenly. "Where are we supposed to stay the night?"

Falcon tilted her head to the side, processing his query. "Well," she mused, "we don't exactly have a local hotel around here…" She stared at the ground in thought, rubbing her arm with the hand of the opposite one.

Much as Char hated to admit it, the dilemma proved difficult for her to solve as well. She folded her arms, thinking; but Riku beat her to it.

"We can't just stay at your house, Falcon?" he asked.

The response came almost instantaneously: the dark-haired girl jolted, arms falling limp at her side, and stared at him in surprise. Surprise, and something like nervousness that showed all too obviously on her face and in her emerald gaze. Char glanced from one to the other, inwardly wondering why that hadn't occurred to her.

_Because Falcon doesn't know how she feels about having her crush so close, that's why. _Char could relate to that. Hell, the first night after that day in the Pride Lands when she had come to a proper conclusion about what she felt for Sora, Char hadn't been able to stem the flood of thoughts concerning what would happen at having the boy she loved right there. She knew that, had she had more than a few days to ruminate on her emotions – a few days that Riku had soundly interrupted – she would have experienced the same nervousness eventually.

And yet the mild discomfort clear in Riku's jaw tightening suggested that bringing up staying at Falcon's house had been a last resort for him. Maybe that was when Char realized he couldn't have turned a complete blind eye to Falcon's feelings.

Returning them, though; that was a different matter entirely.

"A-are you sure?" Falcon stuttered out at last. Char distinguished the crimson dusting the other girl's cheeks from the light of the setting sun and risked a glance at Riku again. To his credit, he was watching the lovelorn Keybearer fairly steadily, only faltering once to give Char a hard stare. Grumbling, the redhead looked away. "I mean, I haven't had anyone stay at my house in a while. It's kind of messy."

Char turned back and tried to muster up a smile. "We can handle messy," she said. It was only half a lie. After all, she had grown up not only as a researcher, a profession where the fruits of her knowledge often ended up scattered across the building where she and the others lived, but alongside six men. In retrospect, maybe her constant desire to have her room at the Gummi ship clean had originated from that.

Her room at the Gummi ship. The breath caught in Char's throat at the thought of Sora, Donald, and Goofy boarding their vessel, trudging along without her at their side. In particular, Sora, having to walk past her empty room every night now.

"You all right?" Riku queried, concerned.

She quickly rubbed away the tears beginning to form at the thought of Sora alone, without her. "Yeah," she answered. "Just tired." She punctuated the last part by looking straight into his eyes, praying she had rid herself of the last liquid remnants of her thoughts.

Riku raised one eyebrow, not believing her in the slightest; in the end, he just sighed and turned back to Falcon. "Anyway, she's right." Even though she had kept her room in Twilight Town's mansion clean as well; but maybe he was just trying to steer the conversation back to the point instead of mocking her. He really must be tired. "I spent a lot of time in Sora's room back home," he added dryly. "It's not exactly the tidiest place out there."

Char thought of his permanently persisting in not making his bed, the various world costumes scattered all over the floor, and fought back a smile. "Accurate," she muttered.

Amber eyes flickered briefly in her direction to acknowledge her comment, but the amusement that danced briefly across his face faded when he met Falcon's eyes again. "Anyway, if that's the only problem, then I don't understand why we couldn't just… stay for a few days." The part about their time here was marked with a bit of hesitation, as if he didn't even know how long this would take.

Fighting back a flood of frustration, Char just nodded.

Falcon's eyes darted from one to the other, as though hoping to find excuses in her companions' faces. When neither of them yielded to her desperate, unspoken plea, however, she just deflated visibly with a dry puff of a sigh. "There's only one guest room, you know," she said, heavily, as though so many memories were associated with that one room.

"Then I'll sleep on the couch," Riku said firmly. "C'mon, Falcon. We need a place to stay."

She just let out a reluctant murmur and stared down at the ground again. As Char watched her hand come up to rub the opposite arm again, she tried to push aside the irritation that filled her at Falcon's demeanor; tried to keep her fingers from tapping impatiently.

But the desire to please her friend proved too much for her, and Falcon finally raised her head in defeat. "All right, fine," she agreed. "But only for a few days, right?"

Riku nodded, relief unclenching his jaw. "Gods willing, that'll be how long it takes. Thanks, Fal," he added, the nickname slipping out before he could stop it. "I… well, _we_ really appreciate it."

Char rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Thanks for including me at the last minute, dark emo boy." Like him, she couldn't halt the old moniker before it tumbled out of her.

Riku smiled down at her – actually _smiled_, genuinely, without a trace of sarcasm, just out of nostalgia for their days spent in Twilight Town. Char reflected that only a month ago, seeing that expression would have put her off at first, due to Xehanort's face still covering Riku's own, but then made warmth pool in her belly, due to Riku's intentions shining through. Now, though, knowing only Sora had that effect on her now just made her smile in return.

They looked back out at Falcon again, to see the older girl sigh and rub her temple. "Don't call me that," she muttered. "Brings back bad memories."

Before either of them could ask, she turned on her heel and began to walk back to the town square. "Follow me," she called without meeting their eyes. "I'll show you where it is."

"Why is Fal a bad nickname for her?" Char murmured to Riku, all the while holding back a wince. Trying to keep up with him while standing on tiptoe to whisper into his ear was more difficult than it seemed.

"Apparently Copperhead used to call her that, when they were still friends," Riku explained in a low voice. "And you saw how things ended badly."

Remembering the acid that Falcon had all but spat at Copperhead earlier, Char knew he had a point.

The only question remained as to _what_ exactly Copperhead had done to merit that hatred.

* * *

"Here we are," Falcon announced, opening the door and stepping inside.

Riku and Char followed closely after her, the former nearly bumping his head on the top of the doorframe and glaring viciously at it as he passed over the threshold. Smirking a little at his misfortune, Char felt the remnants of her amusement melt away as she looked around. Despite Falcon's continuously denouncing her house as too messy to expose to them, really, compared to the storm that was Sora's room, it paled significantly. Then again, Char had only seen the living room so far.

Glancing to the right, she quickly remedied that prior thought. The kitchen adjoined the living room, carpeted floor quickly changing to tile. Both rooms were fairly small in size; the former contained little more than a stove and cupboards that were, likely, filled with cooking materials and utensils, while the latter only had a glass-top table on which to eat the meals made with said materials and utensils. A marble countertop wall stood to divide the two rooms, albeit smaller, to be able to see in both directions.

Of course, multiple items were strewn across the floor in both areas. Char found herself glancing down to make sure she didn't tread on anything important and barely managed to avoid stepping on a pack of gauze pads. She blinked, wondering why Falcon kept healing items besides Potions around; then again, maybe she either didn't know the Cura chain of spells, or spent time treating her injuries whenever she got home from a day of fighting in the forest. This explained Falcon's lack of obvious wounds today, at any rate. _Probably went back here after talking to us and cleaned that injury on her side,_ the redhead thought, eyes drawn to the way Falcon kept her hand off her lacerated flank as she moved away.

As if thinking about battling those Nobodies had summoned it, pain rushed back into Char's healing injuries, injecting soreness into her bones and making exhaustion weigh on her as deeply as if the moon had risen higher in the sky. Nonetheless, she pushed that pain aside and watched Falcon dart about the kitchen and living room, shoving things into her grasp and setting them down on the counter. "I told you it was messy," the older girl muttered, embarrassment obvious in her voice even though the speed at which she moved covered her face. "I'm not home much, so I don't really get a chance to clean up."

"I told you," Riku said a little testily, "it doesn't matter how messy it is." Sighing, he ran fingers through his hair. "At any rate, we're just pretty tired."

Char whipped her head to stare at him indignantly. "Who are you calling 'we?'" she queried acidly.

"Well, are you?" he retorted. When she just opened her mouth to snap back, only to close it as she realized he had a point, he smirked slightly and turned back to Falcon, who now stood in front of them waiting for Riku to continue. "That answers that. Where are we sleeping?"

"Oh, um…" The glimmer in her eyes died down slightly as she spoke. "Well, you said you wanted to take the couch, right? It's right there, as you can see," she explained, gesturing to the dark blue couch in front of the glass-covered table. Riku's eyes followed her hand before his pupils shifted back to her and he nodded in understanding.

"And me?" Char couldn't help asking. For some reason, she felt like if she didn't mention herself, Falcon would completely forget she still stood here.

Sure enough, the disappointment beginning to eclipse Falcon's happiness at having Riku here faded into mild disinterest when she looked at Char. The redhead held back a growl of frustration; she seemed to have completely forgotten about her initial reluctance to have them here. "The guest room's upstairs. First room on the left once you get up there." She pointed down the hall leading away from where they stood, and dimly lit as it was, Char still picked out the stairwell spiraling off into invisibility.

"My room's up there too," Falcon went on, "but I'm going to eat a snack or something before going to bed." However, as she spoke, a yawn engulfed half her words, and she stretched her arms high above her head before letting them drop back down to her side. "Killing Heartless all day takes a lot out of you," she added.

Although her words sounded innocent enough, Char struggled not to pick out an accusatory undertone to them. _If only she knew what I've been doing for the last month,_ she thought.

Had fatigue not so suddenly hit her, she might have expended some mental energy on longing for Sora and wondering if he, too, was mentally readying himself to sleep as best he could with her gone. At the moment, though, all she could think about was bed.

Riku nodded, already moving toward the couch and pulling the hood up over his head. "Well, try not to eat too loudly, okay?" he told Falcon over his shoulder. "Looking for leads all day takes a lot out of you." The last part was spoken playfully, with a hint of a smile that looked odd on both Xehanort's and Riku's countenances.

While Falcon smiled, Char couldn't help rolling her eyes a little. Turning on her heel, she trotted off to the hallway Falcon had pointed out, wondering inwardly if this was what it felt like to watch one's two friends act like a couple and look on awkwardly, not knowing what to say. _If this is what it's like to be the third wheel, I don't want any part of it._

Of course, she applied the term _friend_ rather loosely when it came to Falcon, due to the older girl's unwarranted hostility toward her. Char vowed to find a chance to tell Falcon tomorrow that it wasn't _her_ stealing Riku's heart that the female brunette should be worried about.

That, and… Despite her anger at Riku for doing this to her – for taking her away from the boy she had come to love and genuinely respect – any sentient being following her down the hall would detect a notable softening of her eyes and hear the quiet sigh emitted from her direction. Riku had spent his entire life playing the awkward friend role: looking on as Sora and Kairi laughed and played and fell in love, while he could only stew in his own desire for freedom and let that call the darkness to Destiny Island.

_Then again, when I came along, that changed, didn't it? _While Char had very decidedly taken Kairi's place in Sora's heart, it didn't stop her from wondering what would happen if or when she accompanied Sora back to his island. Somehow, she couldn't picture Kairi as the onlooker alone.

Halfway up the stairs, Char had to stop and blink as her mind caught up to itself and chided her for contemplating going back to Sora's home with him. Hadn't she been so hesitant about the idea only this morning – regarding it with a sense of tentative desire, but not daring to lay much more than an iota of her hopes on it?

Gods. She _was_ tired.

Shaking her head, she resumed her journey up the spiraling staircase. Darkness enveloped the dim light emanating from downstairs as she reached the top, but she could still discern major details, which made her walk all the more carefully down the hall.

Until she walked into something whose contours and edge digging into her hip felt disturbingly like a small table.

Hissing, Char drew back. Only now that she had a new source of bruising did it hit her that maybe she should have asked Falcon if she could use one of the gauze pads her shoe had nearly ruined. _Too late now,_ the redhead told herself firmly, and glanced around. Falcon had said she would find the room on her left right after climbing the stairs…

Sure enough, an instant later, Char spotted what faintly resembled a doorframe upon searching her left. This time, she kept a careful eye on where her feet trod as she passed into the room. Had the alertness that had recently left her allowed her to get a better grasp on the room's details, she might have absorbed what the guest room looked like. But, as it was, not only did darkness blanket the area, her energy level had significantly depleted from when she had seen the living room. At least she didn't trip over anything Falcon might have left lying around, like she had in the living room.

As it was, Char's mind only allowed her to make out the outline of a bed sitting against the far wall. She trudged over to it and allowed her eyes to slip closed as her head hit the pillow.

Sleep effectively enveloped all the stress of the day: coming to an ultimatum about what to do about her and Sora's kiss the night before; discovering Xigbar's presence, and purpose, in the Land of Dragons; Riku taking her here and forcing her to shatter the very promise she had made to him not six weeks ago; having to fight both the Sorcerers and Avengers, knowing what their presence signified; dealing with Copperhead and nosy townspeople; wondering about Falcon and why she reminded Char of her old self; how she was already longing for Sora, Donald, and Goofy's voices emanating from outside the door instead of Falcon and Riku's coming from downstairs.

Before Char knew it, though, her mind, assisted by the presence of a sleeping surface beneath her, yielded to the fog of tiredness that had tugged at her senses for the past few minutes and allowed it to pull her under.

* * *

Sora spent an unnaturally long amount of time quietly sitting at the table, picking at the rice Goofy had cooked with a kind of weary obligation the dog had never seen in the boy before. Perhaps because of that obligation, Sora chewed – actually _chewed_ – with his mouth closed before swallowing. Goofy remembered how Char would always chide Sora for failing to gulp his food down before speaking and felt a pang of sympathy for his leader.

When Sora had trudged over that snowy hill toward him, Donald, and Mulan and told them just what had happened to Char, shock had kept the knight from doing much more than clasping Sora's shoulder in concern. Donald had been verbose enough for the both of them: first demanding if Sora was sure, then cursing the Organization for what they had done – which Goofy thought weird, since the duck and the redhead had never exactly gotten along; maybe just Donald's roundabout way of showing he did care – and then scratching his head in frustrated bewilderment when Sora informed him in a panicked tone just what stance his opponent had fallen into.

And yet Goofy couldn't believe Riku had done it. For one thing, he didn't understand what Riku would want with Char; and for another, why would Riku be working with the Organization and wearing their garb? The whole thing was enough to give the knight a migraine normally reserved for the more arduous workouts at the castle.

Thinking of Disney Castle – of home – made Goofy wonder if the king had succeeded in following Xemnas to the dark realm, or wherever the Organization called their lair. Mickey had made it, for sure; the dog just prayed fervently that the monarch could survive in the Nobodies' domain until he and his comrades got there.

Shaking the heavy thoughts away, Goofy busied himself with cleaning up the dishes that had already piled up next to the sink. _Donald and Sora sure ate fast,_ he thought, casting a glance over his shoulder at them and trying not to wince at the conspicuous lack of female among them.

Donald spoke to break the silence, clearly uncomfortable at the way Sora was staring despondently at his lap, unspoken thoughts flickering like minnows in the sapphire of his eyes. _What's he thinkin' about, I wonder?_ "Where should we go tomorrow, guys?"

Sora shrugged, and Goofy gave Donald a stare that told him to be a little less blunt about it. The mage slouched down in his chair in a way that made him bounce slightly, folding his arms and grumbling something under his breath. Goofy thought he caught something like "sorry for being curious" and immediately felt a bit guilty.

"W-what Donald's tryin' to ask is, what's the next world on the map?" he gently prodded Sora.

The brunette lifted his head; the pathetic attempt at a smile that seized his lips loosened the already-precarious floodgates of Goofy's sympathy even more. Sora never had been good at putting on a brave front. Especially not when he was clearly hurting as much as now. "I'll go check," he decided, tossing the words over his shoulder as he got up – almost too hastily, as if trying to distract himself with moving around – and walked over to the control panel to look at the screen.

While Sora scanned the screen, Donald hopped down off his chair and trotted over to Goofy. One tug on the knight's apron made him lean down so Donald could properly whisper to him. "He's not doing so well," his longtime friend muttered.

Goofy nodded, casting what he hoped was a furtive glance at Sora. He still seemed deep in concentration, his hands placed on either side of the map as he leaned down to watch it, but one never knew with the Keybearer. Maybe that was why such a powerful weapon had chosen him in the first place.

Ironic, then, that something as simple as the girl he loved getting torn from him had frayed his resolve this badly.

"Yeah," Goofy said. "I just wish I knew what could get him back to normal, a-hyuck."

Donald folded his arms, leaning back slightly. "I know what will," he murmured. Goofy nodded, making a noise of rueful acknowledgment. Kairi and Riku and Char.

"But, uh, we still need to find a way to the Organization before we can get that far. Like Char told us to do," he reminded Donald.

"That's why I asked where we should go next!" Donald hissed, desolation turning to annoyance at once. "Geez, you big palooka, _try_ to understand, why don't ya?"

Of course; that much had been obvious. Goofy flinched and let a sigh fade out of him. Only after it had escaped him did he realize the breath had sounded more loudly than he would have liked. "Sorry, Donald," he whispered. "Just tryin' to be helpful."

Dark eyes glared at him a moment longer; then Donald deflated visibly, like a feathery white balloon having all the hot air let out of it. An accurate comparison, in Goofy's opinion: with all the anger laid out in the open, with his temper exhausted and sizzling out, the duck looked his size all the more. "I didn't mean it," he grumbled. "Just worried, is all."

"Guys?" Sora's voice made them glance up from their conversation. The boy stood there with a fairly neutral expression, but the tentative clenching of one fist told Goofy that he heard at least a tiny bit of their conversation. If Sora had detected Goofy's overly loud sigh or Donald's furious attempt at making Goofy comprehend his words, though, he said nothing about it. Instead, he addressed the matter at hand much more levelly than someone as broken as he should have been able to. Char would have been proud. "The Olympus Coliseum is next. Do you want to head there tomorrow?" he queried, casting his eyes over each animal in turn.

_Oh yeah,_ Goofy thought, _we went to the Coliseum third last time, too. _When he voiced this, though, he instantly wanted to snatch the words back again as memories and sad nostalgia clouded Sora's features and made his mouth twitch first in a grin and then in sorrow. Char had flown the Gummi ship and ended up landing them in the Underworld; that memory was particularly vivid, and Goofy put one hand instinctively to his belly at remembering the way his stomach had dropped and rolled inside him at her driving skills, or lack thereof. _Severe_ lack thereof.

Then they had met Meg, and Auron, and gotten the stone that was the key to their vitality in the Underworld from that Organization member – the one that, come to think of it, the group had taken down in Hollow Bastion. And then they had had to fight the hydra that Hades had sent…

Hades…

Right then and there, Goofy understood the source of Sora's mental tug-of-war between redolence and melancholia. Char had pushed Sora out of the way of Hades' fireball and almost lost the use of her leg due to his carelessness; gratefulness and guilt for the incident had quite obviously plagued Sora ever since. Goofy had always caught the times Sora's eyes wandered down to her burned leg, to the scar that lay beneath the fabric of her clothes. Every time Char so much as stumbled on that leg.

Now, having to return to the scene of the incident, Sora clearly didn't know how to feel.

Spurred on by commiseration, Goofy reached out and rested his hand on his leader's shoulder. The brown-haired boy tensed at the sudden touch – almost as Char would have – before relaxing. "We're gonna find her, Sora," the knight promised lowly, suddenly seized with the desire to make sure every word rang true.

"Yeah, and the King and Riku and Kairi too," Donald added, determination all the more awkwardly loud in comparison to Goofy's quietness.

Mentioning their other missing friends proved a mistake, for Sora's brown spikes swayed as he lowered his head to gaze at the ground. Giving Donald a look, Goofy lowered his hand from Sora's shoulder and crouched to meet the Keybearer's gaze. To his surprise, those sapphire irises had a much brighter sheen to them than usual.

"I just miss them, you guys," he confessed, so quietly that even Donald strained to hear.

Maybe that was the moment Goofy truly understood the reason why Char's absence had dealt a particularly hard blow to Sora's confidence. Her getting kidnapped had served as the final burden on top of an already-towering pile of fears on Sora's shoulders. _The straw that done broke the camel's back,_ the dog thought. When he considered things that way, Sora's emotional compass possibly changing direction from Kairi to Char notwithstanding, their unspoken leader's behavior made all too much sense.

"Sora…" Donald breathed.

Said brunette swung his head from one companion to the other. "Don't you guys miss your king?" he asked, desperately. Every ounce of his need to hear his feelings weren't totally unfounded shone on his face.

The duck opened his mouth, only to close it again, as if reluctant even to share this much of what he had kept well-buried since that very first night in the Gummi ship. Since they had joined hands, one on top of the other, and vowed fiercely to look after each other no matter what. _All for one and one for all._

If that was really how they still felt, Goofy couldn't help wondering, didn't this apply, too?

"Of course we miss him, Sora," he said, softly. Even as he spoke, multiple memories imprinted themselves along the back of his eyes, so that even though his surroundings remained the same, he could see everything he had gone through with his king and Donald by his side. Mickey dubbing him his head knight and guardian; listening to Minnie tell stories; laughing as his son, Max, cringed at something embarrassing his father had said or done.

Donald had kept silent on answering Sora's question, but when Goofy nudged him, he sighed and relented. "Yeah," he muttered. "Every single day."

"We know how you feel, Sora," Goofy said, his hand returning to the boy's shoulder. Sora's pupils darted down to his friend's grasp before meeting those worried eyes again. "But, y'know what? All we kin do is keep going. For them. Right?"

He meant every word he said: not just to buoy Sora's spirits back up again and return him to the leader they knew, but to encourage himself as well. Because remembering the good times he had spent in the castle, long stifled and pushed to a corner of his mind by these journeys, had reopened an ache in his heart he thought he had forgotten.

_No time for that now,_ he told himself firmly, _we just gotta keep going._

But his determination couldn't last on a tired mind, so after Sora gave a nod of agreement – a silent vow to heed his comrade's words and fight twice as hard – the knight excused himself and headed off to bed with his thoughts echoing in his mind.

* * *

Like I said: editing later.

_**Please review saying more than "so good" or "I loved it, update soon!"**_


	67. Chapter LXVII

FFN document editor, y u hate me so much? Now it's not even giving me the alignment/text formatting bar up top. D: Oh well. As promised, next chapter update of the month has arrived! I'm planning on churning out another chap or so before November is over - currently I'm at about 25k, and I told myself I'd get 40k done for NaNo - so here's hoping that goes smoothly.

Anyway, you guys don't care about my NaNo ramblings, so here's chapter 67. Enjoy!

_**Disclaimer-**_ I do not own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

_Cloudy night blanketed the sky in a mixture of black and navy hues, the stars almost totally hidden by the clouds. Char shifted restlessly behind DiZ, hissing in annoyance at the cold and rubbing her Organization cloak-clad arms. She hated how she had to garb herself in the attire of her enemies - she didn't give an honest damn _what_ her master said; they shouldn't need these cloaks to "combat the darkness" or whatever - but at least it was long-sleeved and kept her warm._

_ "For the love of the gods, when are they gonna get here?" she complained petulantly, tilting her head back so she could glower into DiZ's single, visible eye._

_ Just the one eye was enough to convey his stern admonishment of his single remaining apprentice, though. Char wondered if that was significant: the fact that with his six apprentices gone, he now felt the need to swathe his other eye in the red cloth that covered almost all of his face. She knew he had done that to properly hide him from his enemies - and his friends, if Mickey's lack of recognition for the man he had known was any indication - yet the feeling of a deeper meaning behind her master's decision made her shiver even more._

_ "They will arrive when they arrive, and not before," DiZ growled. Suddenly, his pupil shifted a little to one side of Char, and the amber iris widened slightly. "Ah. Here is our guest."_

_ Char followed his gaze and immediately saw who he was looking at; the silvery hair of the taller being walking beside Mickey's own black-furred form gave him away. Turquoise eyes surveyed the dark, grassy surroundings of the field between worlds as the owner of those eyes continued moving forward. The determination clear in those orbs - almost as if the young man had just overcome an ordeal that he knew was far from over, yet that he was ready to face - reminded her inexplicably of Ienzo. The thought of the boy who had been her best friend sent an icy cold current of sadness and anger roiling through her, and she gathered her coat around her to warm herself._

_ The mouse and his companion halted before DiZ and Char. "So you've come," DiZ said quietly. Char couldn't blame him for speaking so softly - the sanctity of this place almost demanded it._

_ A sanctity that was broken instantly when the young man - Riku, she guessed - spoke, in such a harsh and strident tone she almost shrank back. Almost. Her pride stopped her before she could._

_ "What are you making me choose now?" Riku demanded._

_ DiZ gave Char an almost undetectable sidelong glance before looking back at the silver-haired boy. "Between the road to light, and the road to darkness," the older man said, gesturing to the diverging paths on either side of him._

_ Char couldn't hold back a snort at her master's deliberately cryptic words, but huffed and rolled her eyes when he gave her a simple, chiding look._

_ Riku eyed them for a few moments before speaking, and his words even shocked Mickey, who stretched up to deliver a wide-eyed look to his companion. Char's eyes widened as Riku's words echoed off into the silence._

_ "Neither suits me."_

_ Without hesitation, he strode on past DiZ and Char, only looking at the latter once on his way by. "I'm taking the middle road," he announced._

_ DiZ's lips quirked almost imperceptibly, as though Riku's words amused him. "Do you mean the twilight road to nightfall?" he chuckled._

_ Riku stopped in his tracks and turned. "No," he answered levelly, coolly - almost like he'd rehearsed this whole thing in his mind before coming here, Char thought. Her brow furrowed at his brazen comments. _

_ "It's the road to dawn," he continued peremptorily._

_ His words echoed in Char's head as she watched him resume his walk down the dirt path. _The road to dawn. _Was that really a middle ground? she wondered._

_ She didn't realize she had spoken aloud until DiZ responded. "I am not sure," he murmured, and the uncertainty in his voice startled her._

_ She shook that off when Riku turned around. "Your Majesty, are you coming?" he called to his animal companion._

_ "Oh! Right!" The mouse straightened and bounded after the young man; Char could only watch the dark-clad, black-pelted mouse's tread because of the silver chains that flowed out behind his hood as he ran. As he caught up, she could hear him ask something along the lines of why Riku was still referring to the king as "Your Majesty." The King's high-pitched voice echoed around them until distance silenced it entirely._

_ Char let out an irritated breath. "Well. That went well."_

_ That effectively earned her a glare from DiZ, which she gladly returned._

_ "He will come to us soon enough," he muttered, in such a vehement tone that Char blinked. "He cannot restrain Xehanort's Heartless forever, and he will need his friend to help him."  
_

* * *

Ansem's deep voice still echoed in the crevices of Char's mind as her eyes flickered open. For a brief, disorienting moment, she expected to see the window of the Gummi ship offering a view of the world outside, perhaps of the wispy green clouds of the world between worlds or the shrine-like buildings of the Land of Dragons – _not_ a wall just to the right of her bed. And even the area smelled different…

When her memory caught up with her emotions, though, she closed her eyes again, sleepiness clearing away at once despite the action that should have heralded the opposite. A groan escaped her as the frustrations of yesterday poured back into her at full force, and she considered summoning her blades and taking out her stress on the wall.

Even her temper stepped aside long enough to realize what a terrible decision that would be, though.

She ended up just opening her eyes and pushing her head back against the pillow. Although she had fallen onto the bed in Falcon's guest room without bothering to warm herself with the quilt and sheets, Char had apparently moved around enough during the night to have dislodged said sheets very soundly from their former tidiness. _I should probably fix that before I go downstairs,_ she reflected with a muted, closed-mouthed sigh.

Rolling over to face the room's entrance, she folded her arms across her chest as a sudden, unwelcome chill rippled across her back. Why, she did not know; but any attempt she might have made at figuring it out faded instantly when a familiar scent drifted into her nostrils, that of something Goofy had only cooked for breakfast once.

_Not too fond of eggs,_ Char thought, _but I'll take it. _Only now that the fragrance of food had made itself known to her did her body remember she had neglected dinner last night in favor of satisfying her exhaustion. A hollow feeling coalesced in her belly, and she felt more than heard its rumbling.

Aloud, she muttered, "All right, already," and moved to sit up in bed. Ignoring the dizzy spots that swarmed her vision, she rubbed her eyes for a few moments before rising and glancing around for the nearest mirror. As fate would have it, right next to the bed lay the doorway to the restroom, from which her reflection was visible, lit by the morning sunlight as it was.

Vanity aside, Char had to wince at her rumpled jacket and disheveled hair, as well as the obvious crimson veins streaming starkly from her irises. Had she cried in her sleep last night? Considering she couldn't remember any concrete dreams other than the memory of when she had first met Riku, the certainty of that possibility remained unknown to her. She brought one hand to let her fingers brush over her cheek to be sure, but for the most part she couldn't feel tear trails.

_The same cheek Sora had touched as he had leaned in –_

Quickly, Char turned away from the mirror, running her fingers through her hair to untangle it and wincing when she caught a snarl. In a vain attempt to stave off the misery that remembering the last time she had cried had ushered in, she thought, _Couldn't Riku have let me grab the hairbrush from the Gummi ship before he took me?_

The dryness sounded strained, even in her thoughts, and she shook her head, eyes slipping closed, trying to ignore the brown spikes and blue eyes that imprinted themselves onto the inside of her lids. Drowning in her emotions had never proven lucrative in the past, she told herself firmly; the same would hold true now. The sooner she and Riku found the machine, the sooner they could leave.

Unfortunately, that resolution couldn't stagnate the flood of curiosity that washed over her at where Sora could be heading next. Knowing him, he was probably still asleep, despite the sun's peeking over the horizon and her own internal clock suggesting the contrary. Unless Goofy was already making breakfast, of course, in which case he definitely would have made a beeline out of bed.

Char's amusement faded and the pathetic chuckle that had oozed out of her died when she realized the similarity to how she had awoken this morning; after all, only the promise of food had gotten her out of bed. She let out a quiet, shaky sigh, pushing her bangs off her face only to have them fall back again. _He _has_ rubbed off on me more than I thought._

Pushing that thought away, she wondered if he had left Beast's Castle yet – and, moreover, what had happened to that castle's residents. If Beast had found redemption yet; if he had dredged up the courage to tell Belle his feelings for her; if the servants had remained within the castle after what he had done; if Xaldin had done anything unsavory. Char's eyes narrowed at thinking of Dilan's Nobody and the man he had been before the darkness had gotten him. For the most part, the smug bastard hadn't changed much between dying and now; except the slightly softer gleam his eyes gained when lighting on her had suffered a distinctive decrease.

_No._ She shook her head, hoping that would clear the remnants of long-buried grief that had suddenly flared up. Just because Dilan had taught her how to fight – had given her the twin swords she had used before the Hydra had snapped them in half with its teeth – didn't mean she owed him anything. Least of all sympathy and mercy.

Heart or no heart, he and the others were her – and Sora's – enemies now.

Which made her all the more determined to return to him: if not for her love, then for her hatred.

Turning on her heel, she started to make her way toward the stairs, whose presence hovered only vaguely near the more prominent annoyances of yesterday, only to hiss in surprise as her burned leg – yet another reminder of her promise to protect Sora – suddenly decided to make its presence known. Of course, now she knew where they had gone after Beast's Castle.

_I don't think Char should pilot the ship again._

_ Leave it to her to land us in the wrong place._

_ Name's Megara; call me Meg._

_ Get out of the way…_

_ If Sora were killed, I would be sad._

The old wound twinging had served as a subconscious switch to recalling which world Sora would probably go to now, at least if the map behaved the same way it did the last time they made rounds to the worlds. Struck by a sudden thought, Char settled into a sitting position on the floor and drew the knee on the uninjured leg up, allowing the burned one to remain extended. Out of morbid curiosity, she pushed the hem of her pants back to get a look at the afflicted area.

For the most part, it didn't resemble a laceration that would send as many little needles of pain coursing up her calf like it was doing now. Since it had healed a relatively short while ago, though, crimson still mottled her skin there and told her that yes, a legitimate fireball had assailed her flesh, and yes, the sign of it wasn't going away anytime soon. Char felt a little foolish at thinking the evidence of nerve damage that only Merlin and Aerith's continuously-applied Curaga spells had kept at bay would show on the outside.

She carefully stood, putting one hand on the side of the bed for balance. Thankfully, she could do at least that much without aggravating the reminder of what she had nearly sacrificed for Sora.

Before heading downstairs, though, she made sure to pull her pant leg back down over the area. If Riku caught sight of that, his concern would definitely prove too much for him to hold back, and she didn't know how she could explain the story behind that without giving too much away about the irony of the whole situation: her protecting Sora before she had even regarded him as a friend, let alone someone to love.

_Would it be so bad to tell Riku about it, though?_ a voice prompted gently in the back of her mind. Just like it had yesterday. Char cursed aloud and lightly kicked the floor, pretending it was the nebulous identity of that voice.

_Because I'd never hear the end of it from him, that's why,_ she thought irritably.

_That's a lie and you know it._ In an instant, the reasonable tone had swapped to a much more brusque, insistent one. _It's only a key reason why you've stood by Sora for so long. And besides, if Riku knew about you and Sora, he could stand a chance with Kairi._

Char blinked at the oddity of the altruism in that last unbidden notion. She had caught herself wondering what it had been like for Riku, growing up as an extra hindrance to Sora and Kairi, but not to the extent of considering pushing him and Kairi together. That would never be the only way to get Riku to act on his emotions, and Char knew it. He'd spent his entire life as a leftover piece, after all; she didn't want to enhance any inadequacy even more.

Her mind slammed itself down over any more possibilities of telling Riku why she had hated his taking her from Sora so much today. How would she begin, anyway? _No leads, this sucks, hey, by the way, I'm in love with your best friend and he's kind of in love with me too? _

Besides, Char still had to figure out how to tell Falcon that she could give less of a damn about the dark-haired girl's feelings for him.

With that thought in her mind, the redhead headed toward the stairs.

* * *

Char emerged from the hallway connecting the spiraling staircase to the main part of the house and saw Riku already settled at the glass-top table in the living room, a steaming plate of eggs already half-demolished in front of him. In the kitchen, Falcon stood, back to them, apparently deep in concentration scraping the leftover eggs onto one plate with a spoon. The overhead light caught off another plate sitting next to Falcon's, and Char couldn't help raising an eyebrow at the fact that Falcon had actually taken the time to set her breakfast out for her.

"Do you know how Char likes her eggs?" Falcon was asking without turning around. A considerate question that sounded almost exasperated, as though it carried an obligation she didn't want to feel. The redhead's frown deepened at that.

Riku didn't see her approach, absorbed in swallowing another mouthful of scrambled egg as he was. "I'm not sure, really," he answered, after swallowing his food, a courtesy Sora had never extended. "She's not so fond of eggs."

"Oh." Falcon's arm halted in its steady movement for half a second before it resumed, her elbow bending at a sharper angle as the spoon encountered a particularly difficult piece of egg. Soon, it yielded to the larger amount of pressure and fell onto her plate. "I'll just make something else then. There's not much in the fridge, but I can figure it out."

Char decided the conversation had dragged on long enough and chose to interject. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here," she said, only half-joking.

Riku glanced up and saw her approaching, while Falcon twisted her head to look over her shoulder. "Morning," the gray-haired young man greeted.

Char gave a brusque nod in response, stopping in her tracks as it occurred to her that she had no idea where to go next. Her uncertainty must have shown on her face, because Riku's lips quirked upward just so and he patted the space on one side of him. "Sit down; Falcon's still cooking."

Holding back the gratefulness she didn't want to admit she felt, Char sat down at the side of the table that faced the door to the house: the only one, apparently. She caught sight of the vestiges of Riku's grin vanishing and elbowed him a little in the ribs. "Relishing my awkwardness much?" she muttered.

"Hey, someone has to."

Char rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at her lips as she did so. At least one of them hadn't changed a bit.

"So," Falcon suddenly said, and the two of them turned to see her walking toward them with a plate full of eggs in tow. She settled down on Riku's other side and, setting the plate down with a muted clatter, tilted her head to the side at Char in a disturbingly familiar gesture. "I hear you don't like eggs?" she queried innocuously enough. Maybe she had decided to set aside any animosity she might feel for the time being.

Char shrugged, suddenly mildly self-conscious under that steady green stare. That, too, struck a chord of déjà vu within her, though not for the same reason the short, dark hair brushing her shoulders in a different way than usual had. Strangely, Char felt herself trying not to quail under the intensity of those eyes on her. Which was weird as all hell, considering everything Char had gone through; she could not begin to fathom why just having this girl look at her would facilitate the amount of fear shaking through her body that it was.

She shook it off and responded with a shrug that she hoped carried enough nonchalance to sweep away her _completely_ unjustified fear as well. "I'm not fond of them, really, but I'll eat them scrambled if I need to," she said.

Falcon shook her head. "I'll just make something else. It's no big deal, really."

Char narrowed her eyes. Gods willing, this wouldn't turn into a test of which girl could demonstrate better hospitality in front of Riku; especially since what Riku thought lay so far beyond the things she cared for at this point. "Fal, come on," she growled. "Just scrambled eggs are fine."

She hadn't meant for any annoyance to slip into her tone; nonetheless, it had ended up in her words, making them sound more belligerent than they were. However, Falcon's reaction went beyond trying to rebuff any unintentional aggravation. She narrowed her eyes – another warning bell went off in the back of Char's mind, almost trying to say _this is familiar this is scarily familiar why is it _so damn familiar – and seized her fork from the table, her ungloved hand going white in the knuckles as she clenched her fist around it. "I told you yesterday _not to call me that," _she hissed.

Too late, Char recalled what Riku had told her about Falcon's aversion to that particular nickname: how Copperhead had dubbed her with the shorter version of her name when they had spent better days together. As those furious emerald eyes glowered into hers, it hit Char, absurdly, idiotically, that she almost expected those eyes to begin glowing gold at any moment.

Her eyes widened. _Of course! _The way Falcon had lowered her Keyblade, a blazing, angry look on her countenance, during the battle yesterday had reminded Char inexplicably, strangely, of Anxclof.

Before she could begin any letter-arranging to see if her comparison was accurate, though, Riku, whose presence had completely vanished into the recesses of the moment, reached forward and seized Falcon's wrist that gripped the fork. "Calm down," he murmured softly. Char barely caught his words, but apparently they sounded loud and clear to Falcon: her entire body stiffened, then relaxed. Astonished at how calmly he had subdued her, Char watched as he continued. "She didn't mean anything." Dryly, he added, "I told her about how much you hate that nickname, so it's not like she did it on purpose."

The redhead thought about repeating her prior statement – demanding he not act like she didn't sit right there, watching Falcon's eyes grow the size of the egg-laden plates in front of them and the crimson dust over her cheeks as her pupils flickered down to his ungloved hand wrapped around her wrist – but decided against it.

Then Falcon sighed, tugging her arm away from Riku's grip. "You're right. Sorry," she added to Char, genuine contrition in the apology. Although it rankled Char a bit that only Riku had solicited that contrition, she said nothing of it, only shaking her head in silent acceptance of the apology.

"Well," she said, "I'm just really hungry."

Falcon nodded. "Right. I'll get you a plate. Sorry," she repeated, and quickly got up to gather the remaining eggs onto the still-empty plate in the kitchen. She cursed once as her knee bumped against the underside of the table in her haste, but recovered relatively fast and bustled off to the kitchen again.

Riku lowered his hand back to the table and couldn't help raising an eyebrow at Char's awkward, painfully obvious attempt to steer the conversation away from the past and back to food. In this whole situation, what exactly to do eluded him: siding with either of them was a stupid idea, and yet _taking sides_ seemed like such a juvenile response to the tension that coated and thickened the air between Char and Falcon.

To distract himself from the whole thing, he took a sip of his coffee, inwardly grimacing at the bitterness that lanced across his taste buds as he did so. He would have wondered why Falcon kept something with so much caffeine sharpening the flavor in her house when she barely drank it, but he already knew why. He could still remember the day when he had asked her about it a couple of weeks ago, when an embarrassed smile had marked her words as she told him.

_"Copperhead used to live here, and he brought all that strong stuff with him." _She had laughed a little self-deprecatingly, as though she could barely believe she had once loved such a man, and stared down into the impassive dark surface of her drink. Trying to find memories in its depths, maybe. _"I just never really felt like throwing it away after… he left. And besides, putting a ton of milk in it is usually enough to balance it out."_

Riku held back a sigh. Despite her insistence of having grown used to having that specific kind of coffee every morning, he had seen the shadow that had flitted across her features at mentioning Copperhead's name. A mild tremor in her voice had accompanied that shadow, shaking through her words even as she paused. Recalling that day only shoved the fact that he still didn't know the source of her acrimony toward Copperhead into Riku's mind all over again.

He set his mug down and risked a sidelong glance at Char, who now fidgeted under the table, fingers tapping against her crossed legs in a show of uncertainty. Falcon had brought her a plate back and was now fastidiously consuming her breakfast, but Char remained staring at seemingly nothing, her eggs remaining untouched. Even though Falcon's moment of ire had passed, he found himself wondering about the way Char's eyes had widened at Falcon's fierce glare. Despite the fact that he could have just chalked the gesture up to surprise at the older girl's ferocity and left it at that, Riku liked to think he knew Char well enough to notice when realization flitted across her features.

And her expression just now fit _realization_ all too well.

The redhead's icy eyes flicked toward him then, as if detecting his gaze burning into her. Upon seeing how he failed to look away, she raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question, albeit with an odd expression darkening her face.

Sensing that now was not the best time to discuss any possible revelations, Riku shook his head. _Later._

The fine, crimson eyebrow lifted further, but she made no attempt to pry. Her hunger became too powerful for her to fight any longer then, and she lifted her fork and began to eat.

Char fought back a sigh, even though the amount of food in her mouth would have muffled it anyway. She loathed admitting it, but Sora had darted briefly across her mind when she had seen Riku watching her. How he would have jolted in shock before staring down at the ground, while his best friend just looked on impassively, waiting for her response.

_The sooner we get this done, the better. Gods, I hate missing someone this much. _She hadn't even missed Riku this much when leaving him.

* * *

_What's Auron doing talking to Hades?_

The incredulous question raced through Sora's mind as he poked his head out from behind the blue-swirled stone door. Pointing his Keyblade at the door had allowed it to open, dividing by the jagged line at its center, but when the brunette had caught sight of just who stood behind that door, he had quickly pulled Donald, who had peered around his legs to get a better look, back behind him.

"Hey!" Donald squawked indignantly. "What was that –?"

Goofy clapped a hand over the duck's beak. "Shhh," he whispered, nodding fiercely toward the man and the god standing just within.

When the perennial mist cleared just enough for Donald to catch sight of why they were hiding, his eyes widened and he clamped his bill shut.

"Okay," Hades was saying to Auron, "let's review. State your crime, prisoner."

"Prisoner?" Sora murmured, surprised. Even from here he could discern the smirk in Hades' voice and fought the sensation of disgust slithering up his back. When he thought about what this guy had done to Char – and, really, what he had almost done to _him_ – revulsion tempered the shock that permeated his being at Hades' moniker for Auron.

"Remember when you guys fought Cerberus?" Goofy asked quietly. "I bet Hades caught him again."

"But that can't be right," Donald said around the hand still over his mouth, making his words muted and all but undecipherable. "Auron's a warrior, remember?"

But then Auron was speaking, and the three of them leaned in to hear better.

"I exist," he muttered, eyes trained steadily on the ground in front of him. "That is my crime. It is… inexcusable."

At that Donald swiped Goofy's hand away from his face so his gaping in bemusement could be visible. Sora couldn't stop the incredulity that filled him as well; last time Auron had said a few self-deprecating words, yes, but not to the extent that he found just existing in and of itself something condemning…

"What's with Auron?" he thought aloud. "He never acted that way before."

Before either of his friends could silence him, Hades turned away, the movement shifting their attention back to him. "Okay," he waved one hand dismissively, "so you made one lousy mistake: you exist. Hey, no big deal, right? I'm a forgiving guy." He folded his arms across his narrow, black-clad chest. "You keep up the end of our little deal, and I'll overlook a transgression or two." He pivoted back around to face him, dim light catching on his sharp teeth as he bared them in a grin. "We understood?"

Auron nodded. Even though his back faced them, Sora thought he caught a glimpse of the warrior's muscles tensing. "Right. Defeat Hercules."

"And his meddling friends," Hades added.

That crimson-clad form stiffened – and now Sora _knew_ he could see a hint of hesitation in Auron's stance. "No," he argued, shaking his head. "Just Hercules."

Sora's eyes grew huge, and it took every ounce of self-restraint in his body to hold back a gasp. At least he remembered fighting the monstrous Cerberus at his side; making sure Hades' fireball hadn't removed Char from the world of the living entirely; offering to become their guardian as Sora carried her back to the Coliseum. That ruled out the possibility of Hades wiping Auron's memory, at the very least.

When he voiced this to the others, Goofy blinked at him. "But Sora, uh, I don't think Hades can do that."

"It was worth thinking about, right?" the Keybearer protested.

Ironically, Donald ended up hissing at them to stay quiet.

Hades brought a finger to his chin, tapping the grisly nail against his face in thought. Sora just thanked the gods that Hades' tirade hadn't permitted him to detect their presence yet. "Oh, I'm sorry, have you forgotten who's in charge?" he purred. As he spoke, he leaned one elbow on Auron's shoulder, pulling it back to seize the man in a vice-grip. His fingers tightened, allowing multiple chains of red-violet energy to circulate over the place of contact. While Auron snarled in pain, Hades brought up his free hand, and Sora, Donald, and Goofy could only look on, horrified, as one, two, three fingers sprang out.

Then he brought up his hand, and a miniature version of Auron appeared in his outstretched palm. The fiery striations surrounded the smaller Auron as well, stretching out to the end of Hades' elbow and making the end of his short sleeves ripple in the resulting gale.

"Hercules _and_ the other four," he spat. "I haven't seen Key-boy's little princess yet, but I'm sure she's lurking around here somewhere."

_You're one to talk about lurking,_ Sora thought, fury clouding his common sense and very nearly making him spring forward, Rumbling Rose first. Thankfully, Goofy grabbed the boy's arm before he could act on that impulse.

"Are we clear?" the god of the underworld growled into Auron's ear.

"Yes," Auron croaked. "Hades."

_"Lord_ Hades?" the other prompted, tightening his grip on Auron's shoulder and causing the tendrils of flame to multiply rapidly.

"Lord Hades." The words emerged sounding as though he had ground them out through clenched teeth.

"Good," Hades praised him, releasing him at once. As the light from the flames faded, Auron slumped down just slightly, in as large a display of pain as he would let himself show, even oppressed by Hades. The god turned on his heel and waved a hand over his shoulder, flicking off a stray bit of energy as he did so. "Now get to the tournament. Hercules first, then the others."

"Understood," Auron muttered.

Sora craned his neck and saw Hades lift up the now clearly-tangible, miniature version of Auron. As their enemy's shoulders shook in a few sadistic chuckles, Sora whirled back around to face his friends. "That's how he's controlling Auron!" he informed them, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "That doll… statue… thing."

Another pause ensued, during which he knew he expected a female voice to comment on his lack of articulation. Trying to shake off the sorrow that yawned inside him at her absence – it wasn't bad enough that he had spent just about all of this morning keeping every mental image of her staunchly out of his mind, only for it to hit him just how much avoiding her memory hurt – he heard Donald huff out, "Man, what a jerk."

"Who, Hades?" Goofy asked.

Donald gave him a sardonic look. "No. Auron. Of course Hades!" he shouted suddenly, startling the knight to the point where he nearly fell over. Sora cast a brief, panicked look at where Hades and Auron were talking, but apparently the former had vanished and the latter was approaching them.

"Guys," he hissed out, prodding Donald with one foot to get the irate duck's attention. Donald whipped his head toward him, as did Goofy, one with annoyance and the other with confusion. Both expressions sluiced off their faces at once when they saw Auron striding toward them.

"Are you okay, Auron?" Goofy asked, but to their confusion the warrior stalked right past the trio. Sora followed the man with his eyes and felt dread settle thick and dark in the pit of his stomach as Auron crossed the threshold of the stone door mottled with blue patterns, passing the group entirely.

Heading straight toward the two demons that served Hades most closely, who according to Hercules ran the Underworld rendition of the upper realm's tournament.

"He's not really…" The boy gulped.

"Come back!" Donald yelped, setting off toward Auron at his equivalent of a breakneck speed. Sora and Goofy followed close behind the mage, eventually passing him up with the Keybearer at standard point position.

He risked a glance back, seeing his two comrades loping steadily along close by, and the thought crossed his mind that maybe he didn't deserve to be the one at the front.

Not if he kept losing his friends the way he did.

* * *

"You guys need more leads, right?" Falcon asked, turning around from where she had just rinsed off their dishes. "I've got a few places we could walk around and search."

Riku and Char exchanged a glance. In light of their conversation yesterday, when Char had spotted the citadel's silhouette creeping ominously up from the distant, tree-dominated horizon and learned just why Riku had never ventured near it, the gray-haired young man could almost hear Char's thought process. _I'm guessing the citadel isn't one of those places. _

He spotted her opening her mouth to speak and immediately gave her a glare, narrowed golden eyes carrying a peremptory aura about them. "Don't," he muttered, so only the redhead could hear it.

She met his glower in kind, before seeming to figure out just why he had cut her off and huffing out a sigh. "I was just going to ask where all these places were," she growled. "Calm down."

Falcon blinked, emerald-surrounded pupils shifting from one teen to the other and back again, but she said nothing of it. "I was thinking we could ask the mayor if he's seen anything strange about," she explained. "He tends to keep pretty close tabs on all the troubles in town. Well," her voice obtained a distinctively scornful tinge, one that permeated her next words and made them more venomous than they should sound, "Copperhead does for him, anyway."

Char noted the way Falcon all but spat out the name and shoved down the most obvious question before it could cross the fat, glow-in-the-dark line between the tip of her tongue and audibility. She had loathed and rebuffed all of Sora's attempts to worry her past out of her, after all; she figured Falcon probably wanted the same courtesy extended to her.

Didn't stop the need to know from needling and burning at the redhead, though.

At the very least, now she knew what Copperhead did in his work for the mayor.

"Anyway," Falcon went on, briskly, as if trying to shake her caustic attitude off, "we can check city hall first." A moment passed, and Char wondered if Falcon was contemplating whether or not Copperhead was working today.

It proved to not matter, in the end, because Riku chose that moment to interject. "Actually, it might be better that we're going there first," he confessed.

Falcon blinked, eyes immediately gaining a newfound glow as his voice reverberated throughout the house. Char noted that the extreme oddity of a teenage boy's relatively young-sounding timbre resonating from the body of a man in his twenties had all but lost itself on Falcon. That, or she had just spent the entire month she had known him growing accustomed to it. With a thrill of mild guilt, Char reflected on the odd taste left in the back of her mouth whenever she caught a distinctively Xehanort-esque expression on Riku's countenance. Then again, that might have just originated from the fact that she had known the true identity of Riku's current form in another life.

"And why is that?" the dark-haired girl asked, tilting her head to the side.

Riku must have noticed the glimmer in Falcon's eyes, for he cleared his throat a little awkwardly before speaking. "I… well, we…" He hesitated, then – actually _hesitated,_ and Char had to do a double take before it sank in. Of course: they had enlisted Copperhead to help them look only yesterday. Due to his connections, Char knew she had to push aside the annoyance she, personally, felt toward the blonde-haired man; if he could facilitate finding the machine, more power to him. Falcon, however, was another matter entirely, what with her obvious enmity toward him.

Whether Riku's tentativeness arose from knowing about Falcon's not-so-little crush on him or having to tell her just who would be joining them today, Char did not know. Either way, it kept him from giving the most important piece of news.

Recognizing that he wasn't going to say it before her and Falcon's hair matched his, Char rolled her eyes and, placing one hand on the table, stood up to face Falcon better. The older girl stood a few inches shorter, but she managed to meet her curiosity-filled eyes anyway. _Almost a shame that I'm going to piss her off beyond all rational thought in a couple of seconds. _"We may or may not have asked Copperhead to help us out yesterday," she announced.

As she spoke, Falcon's face underwent a not-so-subtle transformation: from genuine interest, to blankness, to widened eyes at the mention of Copperhead's name, and finally to distortion into fury. "You're kidding me, right?" she spat, striding forward and glaring right into Char's eyes. It reminded the redhead of Anxclof all over again, but much to her own relief, she managed to stand her ground against the fiery anger that surged all around her and darkened the room.

"Unfortunately, no," Riku muttered. Char heard his cloak swish as he stood and could feel his incredulous glower searing into her.

Falcon spared him a brief glance; for once, her attention had focused itself completely on Char. Apparently this revelation had left her so furious she could barely speak. "I… Just… _Why?"_ she snarled at last, all her anger pouring and distilling itself into that one disbelieving word.

Riku's head turned just a little to look at her. "He's got connections, Falcon," he pointed out, weariness rather than intimidation buried in his voice. It gave Char the distinct impression that he had dealt with Falcon's outbursts about Copperhead before. "Besides, it won't hurt to have the extra fighter if we run into Heartless."

Falcon hesitated, as if knowing his words held more than a tiny grain of truth to them. In an instant, though, the faltering mask of aggravation had affixed itself back in place again, and she shifted her glare from Char to Riku. "Connections or not," she said through clenched teeth, "you couldn't have asked me before you went and blabbed everything to that greasy-haired ass?"

"No, I couldn't have. Because you would have said no, and then we wouldn't get anywhere," Riku cut in quickly as the older girl opened her mouth to shove an indignant interjection into his reply. Her jaw clamped shut at once, and she made a guttural noise of irritation deep in her throat as she glowered down at her feet. From the viciousness with which she did so, Char figured she was probably imagining the floor was Copperhead's face.

More gently, Riku went on. "Look, we have to do all we can to find this thing Char's master made. If Copperhead helping us out means the worlds can be saved, then it's worth a few minutes of your discomfort. Right?"

"Word that a little more bluntly, why don't you?" Char muttered. She caught Riku's muscles tensing very slightly, as if he had forgotten she still stood beside him; but his turning and giving her a stare that said _you're one to talk_ stemmed her flood of annoyance.

Falcon remained silent a moment longer, then her shoulders slumped from their stiff position and she sighed; this time persistence and rage did not shape the sound into more of a huff, but resignation and exhaustion turned it softer. "You're right." She lifted her head, every trace of vexation sliding off her face with the action. "Let's get this over with," she sighed, already making her way toward the door and grabbing her black jacket off the hook hanging off the back of it.

Blinking, Char exchanged a glance with Riku – not out of bemusement, but out of slight exasperation. As odd as it may have seemed, Falcon's attitude about this whole situation – about having to spend such close time with someone whose very name she abhorred – had swept over the room and seeped into the hearts of the others there. Accordingly, the amber stare that met Char's carried a bit of mild annoyance that he probably didn't mean to feel as well.

_She really hates him,_ Char thought. The puzzling nature of Falcon's reactions today – practically using her fork as a weapon when Char made the mistake of shortening her name; all but lashing out when Riku had informed her exactly why heading to the city hall first was the best decision – cancelled out some of the blatant obviousness inherent in that thought.

Of course, thinking that brought her nose to nose with the main question screaming silently behind all this – _why why _why – and so Char put a firm proverbial muzzle on her thoughts before they could tempt her into becoming a hypocrite.

Some amount of her internal conflict must have darted across her countenance, because Riku raised an eyebrow; like before, though, when she had denied him the chance to see her realizing how much Falcon's temper resembled Anxclof's when roused, Char shook her head firmly at him. _Later. _

He reeled back a little then, mild frustration etching itself into the downward curve of his eyebrows and the set of his jaw. Char wanted to promise to tell him later – only those two thoughts she had just denied him, though, and not the real reason why bitterness overtook her at thinking of how Riku had taken her from Sora – but before she could open her mouth to at least entertain fulfilling that urge, Falcon turned around.

"You guys coming?" she queried, though the hollow quality to the inquiry suggested she could really care less.

"Of course." Riku swept forward, his cloak rippling like a telltale shadow in the sunlit living room as he moved toward the door.

It took Char a couple of seconds to realize she should probably follow.

Hastily, she started along close behind, nearly tripping over the rug in her lack of regard for where she was going. Falcon had already opened the door and headed out at a brisk trot, allowing the soft spring air to drift in; but Riku already had one foot positioned outside and so caught the startled grunt from Char as her foot caught. He glanced over his shoulder at her, and shame prickled up her spine at the amusement tugging his lips upward.

"Don't hurt yourself," he chuckled.

Char huffed and pushed past him, assuring that her shoulder shoved into at least his bicep as she left him behind. Dammit, but she had forgotten just how tall Xehanort had been compared to her in the past, how she had had to crane her neck just to look him in the eye.

_And now he's our greatest enemy,_ she reflected with a shudder of revulsion.

No sooner had her foot crossed the boundary between the house and the front yard that a spurt of agony lanced up her leg. Before she could stop herself, Char let out a hiss of undisguised surprise and pain; for as it turned out, her injured calf had picked that precise moment to flare up.

She froze as a bemused noise emitted from behind her. So many possible explanations for her uncharacteristic outburst rushed through her head at that moment, but as Sora was so deeply entwined first and foremost with that particular scar, all of said explanations tripped over each other and fell flat. "You okay?" Riku queried. "I did tell you not to hurt yourself."

Char managed to shake her head. "It's nothing," she ground out, hoping with every ounce of her being that her failing to turn around would conceal her emotions. Allow her wistfulness at thinking of Sora and physical ache at remembering that day to remain invisible to Riku.

Panic seized her then, keeping her from gauging Riku's response other than a doubtful "hm." The injury gave an insistent pang that shook through her calf as she took off ahead, leaving him to catch up.

Riku blinked a couple of times, reached out a hand and considered calling out her name to at least set some sort of tether on her, but the leaves of the trees surrounding Falcon's house had already pretty much swallowed her up. With a sigh, he had to wonder how long it would take Char's mind to process that she had no clue where she was going without either him or Falcon.

Then again, he had never been here before, so he had no room to mock Char about her hasty flight.

However, the fact remained that he did need to follow them, before Falcon turned a corner and the gently-swaying leaves of the forest surrounding her home all started to look the same. With a weary grumble, Riku moved to catch up.

Char didn't slow up in her sprinting until the sight of a distinctively female, black-clad shape loomed up in her vision. Due to the clouds currently concealing the sun high above, the dappled shadows from yesterday had made an exit, allowing Char to catch sight of Falcon that much more quickly.

The sound of the redhead's heavy panting made Falcon turn to see just who was charging up behind her. As Char slowed to a rather clumsy trot to match the other's, she glimpsed something like eager anticipation die down to a faint disappointment that nearly matched apathy.

Falcon stifled a growl of annoyance as she found not the fabric of Riku's dark coat greeting her gaze – because he stood so much taller than she it was almost ridiculous – but the exhaustion-clouded icy eyes of the latest stranger here. She still felt a vague tinge of embarrassment over what had happened at breakfast, but somehow, in light of Char's closeness to Riku, couldn't quite find it in herself to give more of an honest damn than that.

Still, though, she figured if they had to work together, envy would only hinder the both of them. That and Falcon fully intended on saving every ounce of aggravation for when they saw Copperhead. Crimson flashed across Falcon's vision at the slightest notion of it, but she tamped it down, allowed the sunlight whose rays were beginning to penetrate past the clouds to eradicate the fury from her eyes. "Morning," she greeted briskly.

Char blinked; clearly she had expected a flatter response, an obligatory request as to what exactly the redhead was doing here. However, the curiosity behind Falcon's next predictable response got the better of her, and she queried, "Where's Riku?"

"What? Oh." Char shook her head as her mind caught up to her words, and Falcon fought the mighty urge to roll her eyes. _At least _pretend_ you were listening. _The redhead shrugged, one foot lightly kicking at the ground as she kept pace with her elder; the movement dislodged a pebble and it went rattling to the edge of one of the tree roots nearby. "He's back there," she announced, hitching a thumb over her shoulder to indicate behind her. A beat, then, "We had a minor issue, is all," with more than a hint of discomfort marring the seemingly-dismissive words.

To Falcon, the term felt like a lamely used euphemism more than anything else. She raised an eyebrow, the few manners she cared about anymore receding into the back of her mind. "Just a minor one?"

Char raised and lowered one shoulder, not meeting Falcon's eyes. "Yeah. I guess."

Falcon grunted in acknowledgment, before silence fell over the two of them. The quiet oozed into the air and permeated the atmosphere between them, amplifying Falcon's already-heightened discomfort. She gave Char a sidelong glance, only to look back down again when she saw the uneven pace of the redhead's walking. Despite the fact that she matched Falcon step for step, from the bulge of her jaw, it looked like pain lanced through her leg with every step.

Then Falcon frowned. What was she doing, being curious about someone whose connection with Riku rivaled hers? For all she knew, Char could destroy the chance at happiness that Riku's arriving at the Shadowed Desert and befriending Falcon had given her; could snatch away the tentative, proverbial hand of friendship whose grip Falcon had shunned since that bloody night with Copperhead and Xemnas and her parents.

_You stupid girl, you might as well just call them Heartless and leave it at that. What was left of your parents died that night, and you know it. You know it, Copperhead knows it, Riku _would_ know it if you trusted him enough._

The thought reached into Falcon's heart and ripped open the wound she had thought long closed, albeit badly healed and numbed with time, with talons so agonizing, so damnably _real,_ that she almost gasped aloud.

She didn't realize her vision was beginning to blur until Char spoke her name and she glanced up to find a distorted view of the redhead watching her.

Char's eyes widened a fraction as they met Falcon's, the force of her surprise halting her unsteady limping in its tracks. It took a couple more steps on Falcon's part before it hit her and she stopped as well. The girl of eighteen months ago might have spared Char a couple of blinks and a query as to what the problem was; now Falcon just felt dull. Tired.

So damned drained.

And the day hadn't even properly begun yet.

The girl of now just stared wearily back at Char, whose fingers had begun to twitch at her side.

The redhead hesitated; the proper thing to do would be to step forward and embrace Falcon, whose tears had come so suddenly, but somehow, she got the feeling the dark-haired girl would just shove her back. Besides, getting this particular fact off her chest took precedence over whatever emotional issues plagued Falcon.

Her heartbeat accelerated, despite the simplicity of the thing. _I don't like Riku._ Simple as that. However, even with all the evidence to the contrary, Char found herself wondering how in the name of the gods she would lead into it. _I've seen the way you look at him_ sounded almost accusatory. _I need to tell you something_ was just cliché as all hell, and _he's all yours_ was a blatant lie, considering whose heart really held sway over him.

Char sighed. The Sora in her told her she was probably overthinking this whole matter, which, really, would prove counterproductive to the point she wanted to get across anyway. And yet she had to wonder why she felt she had to tell Falcon this in the first place. Somehow, she felt like it wasn't to gain Falcon's friendship. Friendship seemed a little too strong for what she wanted from the other.

Trust, maybe, was a more fitting moniker.

Either way, the sound of footsteps from the forest behind them began to echo in Char's ears, insisting she had to do this _now._

"About Riku… I don't…" She swallowed, stared down at the ground. Why was this so damn difficult? "I don't like him like that," she finished, at last. Pathetically. "Not the way you do."

_Maybe once. But Sora changed that._

Falcon's tear-filled eyes widened as Char mentioned Riku's name, and a noise that sounded suspiciously caught between a grunt and a gasp tore itself from her, seeming to tunnel up from a barely touched place deep inside her. Just as suddenly, though, that shock faded, replaced by a show of apathy that came across as more obligatory to Char at this point. "I don't like him that way," she demurred. Evaded.

Char rolled her eyes, annoyance sweeping the remnants of her sympathy under the figurative rug in her chest. "Sure you don't. And I'm here because I want to be."

The two of them stared each other down for a moment, during which Char suddenly, with a thrill of almost-maybe horror, considered telling Falcon the real truth. That the reason Char herself had never acted upon her feelings for Riku in the past, vehement denial aside, was because his memories of Kairi had always shadowed her.

But then a voice behind them called out, "Hey guys!" As one, the girls turned and saw the very boy – man? Person clad in the form of a Heartless? The terms to describe Riku had snarled themselves so intricately together in Char's mind that she suddenly had no clue what to call him – that had taken precedence in their discussion only moments before. Black fabric swished as his coat swung in response to his halting in his tracks, and he leaned over to catch his breath, only lifting his head to give them an annoyed look. Watching Xehanort's form running like Riku had would almost amuse Char, if not for said discussion.

"Char," he growled, speaking around a series of pants, "the next time you run off like that, I'm just gonna open a portal in front of you and send you to someplace dangerous." Although the threat was an idle one, the irritation on his face and drawing his brows down gave all evidence to otherwise.

Char raised an eyebrow, hoping a show of nonchalance would hide her previous indecision. "No you won't. I'm still your friend." Tacking that last part on proved a mistake, for the flippant words turned into a desperate plea as her mind echoed them. Kidnapping and precarious truce aside, she liked to think some vestige of their friendship – some memory of the days when they had eaten sea-salt ice cream together, when they had dragged Namine away from her work for a day to spend together, when the numbers on the computer screens regarding Sora's memory progress had engraved multiple lights into the inside of her eyelids – lurked in the back of Riku's mind.

She pushed her doubt away, though, knowing it was unfounded. Yet even with that attempt to eradicate its presence from her, it only seemed to grow.

_Gods. I must have gone soft, if I'm worrying about this._

If he detected her shift in mood from affability to melancholia, Riku said nothing. He just looked to Falcon, who straightened immediately at having his gaze focused on her. Green eyes focused intensely on him, her mouth opening just slightly, as if in light of what Char had just said, merely making eye contact rendered her breathless.

Watching this, Char couldn't help but wonder if revealing she would not compete for his affections had been one of her better decisions. If anything, now Falcon's hopeless dedication would only increase, and Riku's discomfort was directly proportional to that.

_Hopeless dedication, huh? _Char thought of Sora – of how she had been so willing to throw herself in front of Anxclof's Keyblade, to take the brunt of every blow and bear the pain of every radiation ray that sliced into her, to die for him if that meant he escaped the Nobody's wrath unscathed – and found herself choking on a self-deprecating sigh. _We _are_ more alike than I thought._

"You know the way to the city hall, right?" Riku was saying. Pulling herself out of her thoughts, Char focused her attentions on the conversation at hand. Riku had come forward while she had pondered about Sora, and now he stood in front of Falcon, gazing down at her as he spoke.

Falcon nodded, a bit of sardonic exasperation overtaking her prior nervousness. Only the notion of her old love could break the trance lowered onto her by her new one, it seemed. "Yeah," she muttered. "Unfortunately."

More than a hint of bitterness crept into her voice, along with the same sorrow that had wrapped its agonizing shroud around her and coaxed those tears to her eyes. The extent of its grip on her now, though, struck a raw and deep chord within Char, and she opened her mouth to speak, not knowing what to say. After all, only a few days before she had reflected on the futility of trying to soothe grief that would never go away.

Perhaps, in her involuntary response, she was channeling Sora again.

She heard a distinctively masculine voice cut in then, and almost perfunctorily turned her head to look at Riku. The emotion that unwound the tight furrow created by his eyebrows and pushed every ounce of discomfort or awkwardness brought to him by knowing how Falcon felt sent a wave of surprise crashing over Char.

Because she would never have anticipated that extent of sympathy from him toward anyone other than Sora or Kairi.

_Maybe because he understands what it feels like to lose someone he loves. To have never had that person's love in the first place._

It made Char wonder, and then promptly condemn that curiosity, about what had happened with Falcon and Copperhead all over again.

"We need all the help we can get," Riku reminded her, gently. Folded his arms, and waited.

Falcon drew in a deep, shaky breath that rattled on the way down. Her eyes slipped shut, as if the tall silhouette on the inside of her eyelids could assuage her, and then opened again, obviously brighter even from where Char stood off to the side. "I know. But just…" She hesitated, head angling down to stare at the ground. "Why _him?"_

"He's all we've got, Falcon."

Those five words seemed to snap her out of a stupor: she jerked her head up and stared at him, almost as if that one sentence carried more weight and significance than he could ever realize. It dawned on Char that she almost expected Falcon to shatter right then and there and bury her face against the front of Riku's coat. Inanely enough, the first thought that came to Char's mind was _she won't want to cry there, the leather's terrible at absorbing things like that._

Not that she knew, or anything.

Not that the first few nights after her and Ansem's hasty flight from Hollow Bastion had taught her that.

Falcon did nothing, though: just looked at him with anxiety and terror clear in her watery eyes and her countenance. To Riku's credit, he stared back at her fairly evenly, only the slightest shift in his arms crossed over his chest belying any sort of nervousness of his own. It took a few agonizing, overly long moments, but Falcon eventually sighed in defeat and turned away. "No. You're right. If he's with us, we can find the machine that much faster."

Riku gave a brisk nod, before seeming to remember she couldn't see it and quickly following it up with words. "Lead the way, then."

Before he had even finished, she was trudging off, moving down the dirt path at a speed that contradicted her previous reluctance so completely it made Char blink. Just like that, the fact of what had just happened sank in, and she fought back a cringe. _Reduced to the third wheel. Again._

However, she repressed the annoyance that rode the coattails of that thought and fell into step beside Riku instead. The pain in her leg had gone, she noted, and felt mildly guilty at just how grateful she was that it had stopped after his arrival.

"What were you guys talking about?" he asked, before she could steer the conversation soundly away from the memory of the trembling glimmer in Falcon's eyes.

Char froze for half a second – just half a second – but began moving again at once. "Not much," she replied, just as brusquely. "Girl stuff. You know how it is."

She didn't dare look over at him, but she did hear the eye-narrow in his voice, the upcoming affirmation that she had spent the last sixteen years not worrying about said _girl stuff_ and why she was starting now was beyond him. "Char…"

"Riku…" she parroted back at him, casting him a glare that told him _Not now._

_ Not now?_ Riku thought incredulously, clenching his fists. Making sure she could see the sign of his frustration in that gesture. She was leaving so many things for _later_ – the future, that fleeting, ephemeral concept that always lay closer on the horizon than one would assume – and the amount of irritation that filled him at her continuously dodging his queries almost got the better of him at that moment.

_What else are we going to leave to "not now?" First Falcon's outburst this morning, then her running out the door, and now this?_

_ Not to mention her feelings about Sora._

He held in a snarl with more than a little difficulty. As it was, the weight of his anger held itself against the back of his throat and threatened to choke him before he could swallow it down. Expressing this much concern about someone other than Sora or Kairi was an odd feeling, and tasted odd on his tongue, but the feeling did exist, much to his chagrin.

_Focus,_ he told himself. _City hall first, dealing with Falcon's emotional issues with Copperhead. Later you can ask Char…_

_ Later…_

So many things left to later.

But the problem lay in the future's arrival.

* * *

For some reason, Sora hadn't expected the miniature statue of Auron to feel so light and soft in his fingers. He'd thought it would match both the fortitude and hardness of the warrior – and, now that what seemed like his memories had coursed from the statue into the minds of Sora and his companions, the difficulties of his past as well.

"This must belong in Auron's heart," he realized. "Everything he's been through, everything that made him what he is…" He turned to Donald and Goofy, who still stood behind him and eyed him curiously as he went on. "Once Hades took that away, he made Auron his puppet. Right?" he added tentatively.

_Sounds about right,_ phantom Char remarked.

Donald completed that mental remark with a nod in reality. Then his recognition faded into sympathy. "Yeah, but if those were Auron's memories…"

"He must've had a pretty rough life," Goofy finished, bringing one hand to his face and curling his fingers over his chin.

Sora nodded in agreement, and empathy for the man who had fought at his side only once. "In the end, though, that made him stronger," he mused. In spite of himself, he couldn't help wondering if all this would make him stronger in the end. Losing his home, discovering he wielded such a powerful weapon, finding his friends again only to lose track of them…

Looking at the statue in his hand, though, the brunette knew that saving Auron – and Hercules – came first. According to Hercules, the statue held in the brunette's hand housed Auron's free will. However, this revelation had only occurred after the brooding warrior had crossed the lake of noxious fog to the dome beyond. Hercules had gone into Hades' arena to stall while Sora, Donald, and Goofy fetched the statue back, but Sora knew their friend's stamina could only last so long.

He lifted his head and met each Disney resident's eyes in turn. "Let's give this back to him."

"Yeah!" Donald nodded vehemently.

Pocketing the statue, Sora turned, only to yelp in surprise as a Dusk rose up practically on top of his foot. Donald echoed the Keybearer's sentiment when three more appeared between him and Goofy, who sprang apart, weapons in their grips in an instant.

The three of them inched together until Sora could feel the back of Goofy's shoulders shifting as he adjusted the shield in his grasp. With a flash of light, the Rumbling Rose Keyblade materialized in his hand.

As if on a silent signal, one of the Dusks that had surrounded the trio leapt forth, straight at Sora. He flung it off him in an instant and charged after it, a sense of freedom lightening his body as he lay into the Dusk with all his pent-up frustration. Every Heartless that had fallen to his Keyblade sent Saïx's words from two days ago ringing through his head – _every Heartless slain releases a heart, create Kingdom Hearts, we can exist_ – reminding him loud and clear that every pink heart floating up to the sky, every bit of ichor that clung to his Keyblade after the fact, only helped their enemies.

Nobodies, however… Nobodies were more than fair game.

The part of Sora that still felt slightly obligated toward Roxas' existence – at knowing that he had one of the enemies he was currently tearing apart residing within him – protested weakly before vanishing in the face of Sora's resolve. He couldn't afford to falter now, he told himself; Roxas' life aside, these Nobodies were threatening the worlds. _If they want to find a way to exist, they need to find a better way to do it._

The Dusk yielded to his steady onslaught at that moment, and he whirled to see what his friends were doing. As it turned out, three more Dusks chose that moment to leap onto him. If they weren't what they were, he would almost have called it vengeance for their fallen comrade.

One of them managed to score its talons across his forearm, and he recoiled, crying out in pain. Ignoring the heat that rushed to the wound, he concentrated briefly before allowing his magic to explode forth from him. The resulting release of energy caught all the surrounding Nobodies in the crossfire and effectively destroyed him.

Bereft of enemies to fight, Sora glanced around, eyes eventually lighting on the white-feathered shape frantically casting in all directions to combat the multiple Dusks converging on him. Sparks flew in all directions, but the Nobodies were seemingly immune to every lightning bolt that cascaded down through them.

He made as if to assist Donald, then pulled himself up short as Goofy shot forward in a blur of pale green. The Nobodies caught on the edges of the shield, and, recognizing his chance, Sora dashed forward, slashing into them just as multiple flames met the Dusks' bodies. The heat of Donald's Fira spell seared into Sora's skin, but he remained unburned, miraculously enough.

"Be careful, Donald!" he called, wincing as the laceration on his arm began to send insistent pangs throughout him.

"Sorry," the duck said, genuinely contrite. He tossed a Potion in Sora's direction, which the brunette caught gratefully and gulped down. Wiping some of the blue liquid off his cheek, Sora tossed a "thank you" in Donald's direction before reassessing their adversaries.

It was almost unnerving, how easily they had slipped back into only supporting the three of them; then again, they had spent the entirety of their last journey like this, growing used to looking after each other in battle. Only the arrival of Char and her respective battle skills had forced them to shift their priorities.

Despite the loss, though, the loss that still sent needles of fear and worry and self-deprecation into Sora, he, Donald, and Goofy were beating back the Nobodies fairly steadily.

At least until six more appeared and advanced on them.

"Oh, come on!" Sora groaned. Behind him, Donald uttered a frustrated squawk, and Goofy looked up long enough for his eyes to widen at the sight of all the Dusks.

Ironic, then, that an instant later, a dull white blur sprang from out of nowhere and collided with the Dusks. Sora could only look on, eyes growing wide with shock, as the blur swung around, and was the dim light of the Underworld catching on a blade and making it glimmer as it heaved into the Dusks?

More white shapes were leaping from the window that looked out at the swirling vortex of souls just outside. Sora heard Donald and Goofy's cries of surprise and fear, but only now understood why.

The Avengers converged on the last remaining Dusk, two pushing it into the corner with their swords even as the third swept out to the side and thrust outward. One quick blow, and it was over; the lesser Nobody yielded with a squelching sound that sounded almost nauseating.

If the Avengers were here…

Sora froze up, horror permeating every fiber of his being as his battle adrenaline began to wear down and his mind began putting the pieces together.

Then that meant…

"I shouldn't have had to do that," a sickeningly familiar, decidedly _sane_ voice commented.

Roxas stirred inside Sora's heart then, the trace memories of the days he had spent with the owner of the voice currently reverberating throughout Hades' chamber flickering inside the true being's mind and heart. Eating sea-salt ice cream with her and Axel at the top of Twilight Town's clock tower; Roxas blocking a boulder that had dislodged and come crashing down from the roof of an Underworld tunnel; Anxclof shyly accepting the emerald-adorned necklace that Roxas and Axel had helped her steal from the greedy Agrabah merchant; Roxas watching Anxclof attentively from his throne as she milled about behind Xemnas.

Just like that, every bit of resolve Sora had just instilled in himself about what he had to do to the Nobodies shuddered violently within him.

Sora was dimly aware of Donald and Goofy immediately moving to stand at his side, staff and shield ready to protect him if Anxclof chose to attack. The former narrowed his eyes into an intimidating glare, yet with a hint of concentration as well, as though mentally running through all the spells he knew. Goofy tightened his grip on his weapon and stared determinedly out at the opening to the souls beyond, where the voice originated.

Sure enough, the girl Sora had hoped – no, _prayed_ – never to see again lay stretched out, form easily slipping into the curve offered by the circle-shaped window. Its sill, if Sora wanted to put such a mundane term to the vision to the true world of the dead. The green light of said world lined her white-clad body in a preternatural, eerie glow.

"Morning, boys," she greeted, one eyebrow cocking lazily over an emerald eye. She waved a hand then, and confusion assailed Sora only briefly before multiple lights flashed in his periphery. He turned just in time to see the Avengers vanishing at her command.

"I thought… Char said she wouldn't be back!" Donald growled, shaking his staff furiously at Anxclof. Sora could vaguely recall the redhead announcing that as she had staggered up to them in the castle courtyard, just after the others had fled from King Mickey and his desire to let Sora search for Riku and Kairi alone. More vividly in his memory, though, he recalled her tears soaking into his shoulder, the first liquid expression of her emotions since their journey had begun, and how his fingers had found purchase against a tangle of her hair.

And were those tears pricking at the back of his eyes too?

Anxclof sighed, straightening and pushing off the windowsill. Her feet hit the ground, creating a thud that drove right into Sora's ears and knocked him out of his reverie and brought him back to the situation: The girl who had tried to kill him more than once, the girl that one part of him loved, was standing here, now, right in front of them.

And walking toward him.

She didn't falter in her step in the slightest as the three of them raised their weapons at her. "What do you want?" Sora demanded.

"Calm down," she said, fairly ironic considering her behavior from just a few days ago. Considering the way her mentality straddling the glow-in-the-dark line between rationale and complete loss of control had shown in every word in Hollow Bastion's corridors.

_ I will kill you, and then Char, and then you other two idiots. And, hey – if that doesn't work? Whatever. I'll kill you as many times as it takes until you _stay dead.

_You know, stepping in front of someone who's getting ready to kill you? _Really _not such a good idea._

Feral rage had flickered across Anxclof's eyes then, and yet now she seemed relaxed. Calmer. Sora narrowed his eyes, muscles coiling, ready to lash out at any moment if this show of nonchalance belied a deeper fury.

"I'm not going to try to kill you," she went on, earning a skeptical snort from Donald. She cast the duck a glare. "It's true. Look." To prove her point, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a chain with a lightning bolt-shaped charm attached at its end. Only Roxas' presence told Sora this must be her Keychain. The sudden movement of her dropping it on the ground made the three of them jolt up, startled.

"How do we know you don't have something else you can hit us with?" Goofy asked, in as close to a growl as he could get.

Donald gave a sound that sounded caught between a squawk and a snarl in agreement.

Anxclof shook her head. "You guys don't know how to listen, do you? I said I'm done with revenge." She sighed, bitterness ingrained so deeply into the sound that Sora had to blink; had to wonder what introspection she had done between fighting Char and now, to change her attitude this much. "Really," she murmured.

Maybe it was that moment that Roxas chose that moment to flare up in Sora's heart and inject a stream of desperate sympathy into the suspicion that filled him. Maybe it was just Sora's own capacity for empathy kicking in – not likely, considering what he knew he had to do to the Nobodies, but not too far out of the realm of possibility.

Either way, he forced himself not to leap up, Keyblade swinging, as Anxclof reached out and touched his injured arm. He did wince as the contact, gentle as it was – Anxclof being gentle toward _him_ wouldn't have even gone together if it weren't for Roxas – sent a dully aching pang throughout the afflicted spot.

"You guys really are hopeless without Char, aren't you?" she commented.

"Hey!" Donald shouted indignantly, staff raised and magic already beginning to percolate at the bristly tips of the broom head; but Goofy stuck his arm out, shield first, to dissuade the mage. Grumbling, Donald lowered his weapon and peered around the star-shaped shield to hear the conversation properly.

Sora blinked at the lack of animosity in the female Nobody's voice as it formed Char's name: almost obscene, in light of recent events, but missing nonetheless. Like with Saïx before Anxclof, the boy felt something inside him collapse as she mentioned the girl he cared for and missed so much already. Perhaps his grudge toward her, perhaps his pride; still, he felt he had to ask his next question anyway. "Do you know where she is?" he begged.

Anxclof hesitated. Only when her hand dropped back down to her side did he see that she had failed to let go of his arm after first assessing the remnants of the wound that had escaped the healing comfort of the Potion.

"She's safe," the female Nobody admitted at last, and Sora let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Behind him, Goofy uttered a murmur of relief, and even Donald relaxed a bit, before seeming to recall the others could see that much and just smirking instead. As if to say _ha, I knew it all along._

"Thank goodness," Sora sighed, Rumbling Rose growing slack in his grip.

He caught a glimpse of those green-surrounded pupils darting down to the floor, where her own Keychain lay out of reach. Seized by a sudden wave of panic – something that told him if he didn't ask her the next question now, he would not find out until it was too late – he blurted, "Is Riku with her?"

The part of him that Char had left her influence on began to berate him at once at just how little sense the question made; after all, Anxclof could hardly know who Riku was. Much to his surprise, though, she only stiffened for a moment before shaking her head. "I can't say," she answered, quietly. Evasively.

So completely the opposite of who she was that Sora's confusion and eager anticipation warped into frustration at once and made him want to stride forward and shake her until she told him the truth.

"She can't say," Donald mocked in a stage whisper, with a huff of disdain.

That earned him a raised eyebrow and irritated stare, the only point in this entire conversation that Sora could fully recognize the girl who had followed him and impaled him with her Keyblade and managed to accomplish her goal only twice in the last month. She folded her arms, all the while not taking her eyes off Sora. _Is she seeing Roxas in my face right now?_ he couldn't help wondering, and also couldn't help wishing that weren't the case. No matter what the Organization thought, he wasn't his Nobody. He knew it, Char knew it, and Anxclof knew it. Hadn't she chased him this far for that very reason?

Anxclof, former Number XIV, Blade of Vengeance, lovesick Nobody, met the eyes of Sora, Keyblade wielder, savior of the worlds, lovesick boy, and spoke the words that would both lift his heart and drag it down at once. "I can say that she does miss you. She already misses you, more than anything.

"And for that," she added, a spark of her old fire flaring in her eyes, "you have to keep going and persevere. I already know what I'm living for."

Listening to the determination that crept into her tone, Sora thought at first she was referring to Roxas. Yet the shadow that crossed her face, the darkness that served as the complete opposite of the desperate hope and happiness when she mentioned Roxas and avenging him and gathering him to her side again, told him this wasn't about his Nobody anymore. Her countenance matched… _resignation,_ more than resolve, now.

As if she knew what she had to do, and would adhere as staunchly to this new resolution as she had her old one. Would cling to this as easily as she had clung to hatred for Char and Sora born from love of Roxas.

She leaned down, retrieved her Keychain from the ground, and turned away. The dim light catching on the bolt-shaped charm brought all three of them back to attention – especially Sora, whose mind had delved far more deeply into puzzling out Anxclof's emotions than he would have liked to admit – but she only shoved the chain back into her pocket, not even bothering to turn to face them. "You've got somewhere to be, right?"

Auron, and Hercules, and Hades. The boy's fingers slipped into his own pocket, scraping against the contours of the statue that held Auron's free will. Predictably, the extra reminder that they were operating on borrowed time didn't help Sora's predicament, didn't magically alleviate his lack of understanding on why Anxclof was here and why she hadn't shoved her Keyblade between his ribs yet. "Yeah, but…" To his own embarrassment, he trailed off, not knowing how to finish.

"I don't get it," Goofy said, speaking for all three of them. "Why ain't you attacked us yet?"

This time, she graced them with a view of the side of her head as she glanced back over her shoulder. For some reason, the lack of brightness to the one visible eye confused Sora, as if he had expected tears to slide down her cheeks.

_She's not like that,_ Roxas whispered in the back of his heart, and it hurt to hear that soft voice sharpened with a defensive edge the way it was.

"I told you, I'm done with vengeance," she repeated, very softly. Subdued. Trembling, almost. To Sora, the words didn't translate into _I'm done with Roxas._

They translated into _I'm done trying to bring back something that will never be the same._

She extended a hand to open a dark portal and stepped into its unyielding depths, heading to gods only knew where.

* * *

Sora found he couldn't share in his comrades' glee as their constellation-selves up in the sky glittered. No matter how much he tried to shake the hollow feeling at knowing a certain red-haired girl didn't stand at his side, no matter how much amusement he tried to muster at seeing Phil's dropped jaw and hearing Meg's amused chuckles, he could accomplish neither of these things. The only thought ringing through his head was _she should be up there too._

_ And down here, as well.  
_

* * *

So I can't blame any of you for wanting to kill me for slipping in so much SoraAnx. Really, I can't. Also Char/Falcon, which I find myself shipping a bit and hate myself for.

P.S. If I got to 300 reviews by the end of the month, it would kind of rock my world a tiny bit. ;)

Review, please!


	68. Chapter LXVIII

Chapter 68, everybody! A little Thanksgiving present from me to you all. ;) I'm thankful for all of you guys; really.

In the grand scheme of things, not much really happens here. A ton of scenery porn, and Luxord being a smug mofo, and how Riku and Falcon met - but not much else. Yeah. I tried? Well, in my defense, if I'd put everything that I want to happen at this particular day in this chapter, it'd be nigh on 30 pages. Not even joking.

Anyway, I know you're not interested in me ranting, so enjoy!

_**Disclaimer-**_ I do not own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

The Shadowed Desert's town square proved significantly more crowded in the height of the morning. Multiple shopkeepers – most of the people Char and Riku had spent yesterday afternoon talking to, in fact – bustled about, calling out their wares and advertising even as they brought one hand over their eyes to block out the blinding brightness of the noontime sun.

As Char, Falcon, and Riku passed, the redhead couldn't help but think of the marketplace back in Hollow Bastion, how this place and its general air of brisk business reminded her of her days as an apprentice. In particular, the days she and Ienzo would trail after Ansem and tug on his coat and beg him to purchase whatever inane triviality they had picked up floated to the front of her mind.

She fought back a sigh at the flood of nostalgia and wistfulness that assailed her at the memory of Ansem's frequent refusal, albeit not without a shred of contrition, and her and her best friend's disappointment. Even though the sting of knowing the men she had grown up with had succumbed to the deepest kind of darkness, she figured the old days wouldn't stop haunting her entirely.

Not unless she let them.

Odd, she mused, even as a burly man clad in a sleeveless top shouted something about cheap necklaces and his voice faded into the dull roar of the street shops behind her. _I've gone from avoiding thinking about it, to loathing them for it, to missing them._

"The city hall's pretty close," Falcon called over her shoulder from the front of the group. A couple of people tossed their greetings at her, and she gave them a returning smile that didn't quite reach the rest of her face. When she looked back to Char and Riku, though, her expression became neutral again, albeit tinged with a bit of the bitterness that had marked her just before the forest had thinned out and given way to the brick buildings and pavement of town. "On the other side of those buildings over there."

She gestured vaguely toward a cluster of what might be the Shadowed Desert's equivalent of skyscrapers. The three buildings leaned close together almost conspiratorially, which puzzled Char at first until she, Riku, and Falcon finally cleared the throng of citizens and, in the very latter's case, paparazzi.

A better look at the structures revealed that whoever had designed them had connected the three buildings with a series of glass-encased walkways. Even now, facing the back two of the triangular formation, she caught a glimpse of multiple shapes shuffling about within the walkways between buildings.

"So what's up there, exactly?" Riku queried.

Char didn't glance back from watching the ant-like people crossing the expanse, but she did hear Falcon's response. "Offices, mostly," the dark-haired girl said, almost too dismissively. Of course, an instant later, she all but confirmed Char's suspicions by adding, "My dad used to work there," in a significantly strained tone.

Riku had followed Char's gaze and become similarly fascinated by the sight of the impressive structures looming above them, even though the majority of its stucco-bricked exterior had already given way to the underside of a catwalk above them. Although he knew he should be at least slightly embarrassed at his unabashed staring, he figured he could let it go for now; after all, even Destiny Island's most urban area paled in comparison to this.

However, when Falcon spoke, he glanced down at her, curiosity riding in behind his surprise. In spite of himself, his heart began to beat ridiculously quickly, and his startled feeling only amplified when he realized just how much he wanted to hear whatever she had to say. She had never mentioned her parents before now; in fact, when they had first discussed parents and he had brought up how he lived with his father back home, she had looked away uncomfortably before changing the subject. "Your dad?" he asked, raising one eyebrow in his equivalent of tilting his head to the side.

Falcon nodded, yet hesitation filled the halting manner in which she did so. "Yeah, he used to work here. Before…"

She trailed off then and stared down at the ground, rubbing her arm with the opposite hand.

Riku felt mild frustration replace his prior interest. _So much for that. _Not knowing what to say, he looked back in front of them again. In the center of the triangular formation created by the three buildings, a miniature courtyard stood. The bright sunlight caught off a jet of water streaming from the small fountain in the center, only for said jet to lose its blinding quality when a cloud passed overhead. All around the fountain, trees swayed gently in the afternoon breeze.

The three of them passed by, with Riku taking in the scenery as best he could with the swift pace Falcon had set; even with the increase in height and leg length Xehanort's form brought him, he had to walk a bit faster just to remain behind her. As for Char, she trailed a ways behind, head tilted downward just slightly; only when he turned his head and dipped it down to get a look at her mien did he see the contemplative expression there and decide to leave her be.

It was odd, though: he would have thought she would hate getting stuck at the rear of the group. By the way she walked now, though, it would seem she had grown accustomed to that position.

_What else has she gotten used to with Sora?_ Riku wondered. The thought heralded an unexpected wave of… what was that, _sorrow?_ It definitely resembled what he had felt over a year ago, when he and Sora and Kairi had first gotten separated and he had wandered lost in the darkness, all too closely. For some reason, the notion of his missing the old Char as much as he missed his closest friends in all the worlds rankled him.

Then again, despite his attempts to keep her relatively distant over the year they had spent together, they had become friends nonetheless. Riku had even allowed the shell he constantly crawled into around her and Namine to drop, that day when Sora had turned fifteen and he had desperately sought out at least some source of comfort. Char hadn't squeezed his hand back, but at least she hadn't torn it away. Her obvious crush on him from back then aside, at least she hadn't rejected that out of embarrassment or disgust.

_"Back then" being the key words, obviously…_ A sigh rose up, thick as bile, inside the confines of Riku's throat, but with a herculean effort he swallowed it back down again. The weight of all the emotions carried behind that repressed breath crashed inside him almost tangibly, causing him to fight back a wince.

Because incredulity at Char caring for Sora like that wrapped around desperate hope at the brunette's reciprocating and knotted itself into need.

But that was thinking too far ahead, so Riku forced the knot of emotions inside him to untangle and dissolve.

He looked back in front of him and saw that many people, whose attire suggested they worked inside the buildings rising up around them, had swarmed outside for lunch. The scents of recently-heated food drifted up around them, breeze stirring the conglomeration into redolence, and Riku instinctively brought one hand to his stomach before realizing he couldn't muffle the noise of desire it made.

Clearly, the rumbling must have worked its way past Char's self-imposed absentmindedness and resonated in her eardrums, for she glanced back from a young couple inching closer together on a bench with a quirked eyebrow and an amused smirk playing over her lips. "Hungry there?" she asked.

"Gee, what makes you ask that?" Riku muttered, folding his arms and staring determinedly ahead. Forced detachment aside, her ensuing chuckle irked him just a tad.

Falcon smiled slightly, just enough to let him know she had smiled in the first place. The annoyance brought by Char's relishing his discomfort vanished slightly in favor of gratefulness at the sight: at knowing Falcon was still capable of creating a smile that did more than just obligatorily push her mouth upward and halt at that movement. Knowing he had caused it made him feel a little awkward, especially in light of his heart belonging to someone not her; especially because Kairi had maroon hair and violet eyes, not dark hair and green eyes – but he did know not seeing Falcon happy struck a subtle chord of melancholia within him as well.

"Well," the dark-haired girl said, "maybe after we get to city hall we can pick up some lunch. Eggs only fill you up so much, after all." Even as she spoke, though, that expression of subdued amusement faltered, giving way to the shadows lying just beneath.

Although she didn't dare speak the name, Riku knew who she was thinking of – who she was dreading – meeting at the domed building whose outline he could now see just beyond the courtyard. _Copperhead._

He looked at Char and, to his surprise, saw her staring back. They, too, remained silent, but even as the buzzing of the office workers on their break around the three of them shrank into irrelevance, he knew what the redhead was thinking. Knew his amber eyes and the pensive set of his jaw mirrored hers.

As one, the two of them fell back, letting Falcon march on ahead. Her eyes flicked toward them once, but the thought of just who she had to face seemed to have sapped her of the mental energy required to express jealousy, and soon she looked back ahead again, focusing staunchly on just that.

"Why does she hate him so much?" Char whispered immediately, once they had fallen far enough out of their leader's earshot.

Riku blinked, stared down at her; cursed the height difference that rendered it difficult to gauge her emotions entirely. In his original form – the now-sixteen-year-old, silver-haired, turquoise-eyed boy that should have walked at her side – he had stood taller than Char, yes, but not to the ridiculous extent of now. It was the reason why most of his longer conversations with Falcon had taken place on her couch, when they were both sitting and could lock eyes.

After a few moments, he placed the look on Char's face. Desperate curiosity, the kind that, he was sure, Sora must have felt toward her after a couple of weeks of traveling together. Riku had all but anticipated that much; Char liked to think of herself as such a great liar, but anyone who had known her more than a few minutes could see past her façades, as he could now.

"Was that what you wanted to ask me back there?" he muttered back, and her resulting nod confirmed it. _Well,_ he thought dryly, _there's one "later" out of the way._

The identity of the other two, though – why she had stopped Falcon, and what exactly her attitude toward Sora was – remained so much more prominent in the atmosphere between Riku and Char that it almost felt like she had said nothing at all.

Shaking these thoughts off, Riku shrugged in response to her query, unable to keep frustration from tingeing the gesture. "We've never actually discussed it," he admitted.

Char raised one eyebrow. "One of those 'I didn't want to bug her' things, huh?" She emphasized her quoting him with a derogatory set of air quotes.

Riku opened his mouth to retort, only to realize he had nothing to say to rebuff her scorn and looking away. Her annoyance wasn't entirely unfounded, after all; this was a point he had wondered about and focused so deeply on in the past month or so that its presence in his mind had become furrowed and engraved there. Much as he hated to admit it, the curiosity lurked within him and refused to leave. "You could say that," he muttered under his breath.

However, the conversation ended abruptly when Falcon's voice drove, wedge-like, between the respective cadences of gray-haired boy and red-haired girl. "We're here," Falcon announced, words encased in a bit too much ice for Riku's liking.

He tried to ignore the distinctly irritated gleam in her eyes – the way her resignation had sapped her envy had petered off, evidently – and met her eyes for a brief moment before she turned back around. Although the eye contact lasted only briefly, he picked up resentment in her green gaze and couldn't help but feel a bit of his own.

Lifting his head to see ahead of her, he found himself and his companions briefly bathed in shadow as they passed beneath the leftmost of the walkway that connected the point building with its fellows. Falcon had veered sharply to the left as Riku and Char had talked, and now they emerged from the courtyard, stepping down from a raised curb that divided this concrete-paved area.

Now the dome-shaped structure that had seemed so far away revealed itself fully, and Riku saw that they had only glimpsed its roof; the city hall itself was a wide building that rounded out as it rose into the sky. People swarmed about, not surprising for this time of day, walking up and down the massive stairway that set off this ground from the city hall's entrance.

As the three of them carved a swath through the crowds, Riku couldn't help catching a few threads of conversation from the people in groups, which wove in and out of his hearing and faded out as the groups passed them by. Most of the words he caught had a mundane nature about them, nothing to indicate they had seen or heard anything odd lately; only now that that thought had occurred to him did he realize he could listen in and see if anything strange had happened in the last few days since the Organization had taken the machine here. He felt like palming his forehead, so strong was his self-deprecation at that moment. _Good job focusing._

Char seemed to have taken up the attentiveness that he had lost, for she leaned over – well, more like leaned _up_ – and muttered into his ear, "Are you hearing anything interesting?"

Riku raised an eyebrow. "About the machine?"

"No, about the weather. Yes, the machine!" Char hissed, so venomously that he actually pulled back a bit and stared, mildly confused, down at her.

"Calm down," he said quietly, giving in to his frustration for a moment and gripping her elbow with one gloved hand.

Ice-blue eyes flicked down to that hand almost nervously, but the gaze she turned to his blazed. "I'm not going to _calm down,"_ she growled. The effect was dulled slightly by how she had to reduce her volume immensely, but her point got through nonetheless. "How in the hell am I supposed to calm down when, oh, I don't know, _you dragged me here when I didn't want to be?"_ She all but spat out the last part.

Riku groaned, the sound scraping against the inside of his throat. Of course; even though he had spent a good amount of wasted breath telling her taking her away from Sora was not his idea or what he had wanted, she still held a grudge toward him for that. "Like it's my fault Sora doesn't drive you up the wall!" he snarled, the statement turning into a hybrid between a growl and a hiss.

"Did you expect him to? That's just great; you sent me on a huge journey with someone you thought would drive me insane." Char yanked her arm out of his grip, death glare still fixed unwaveringly on him; the force of her breaking away all but unbalanced him, and he would have suffered the rather humiliating fate of tumbling down the stairs had he not righted himself in time. He met her glower with gusto, inwardly wondering how she still managed to have this effect on him.

"That's not why I –" Riku broke off abruptly when the ground beneath him became decidedly level again, indicating they had reached the top of the steps. Char noticed this as well, for the words obviously left unsaid died on her lips and she composed herself.

Falcon came to a halt in front of the double doors and spun around to face them. Although she had clearly heard the argument that had raged just behind her, she showed no sign of any interest in pursuing it or stirring it anew; just regarded them with that resignation having returned to her features. "As soon as we get him, we're done here," she said, the weight and lowness of the words all but turning them into a growl. From her tone, no question existed as to who _he_ was.

Riku nodded, internally calming his boiling temper and trying to make himself _not_ look like he had wanted to deliver a blow with the Soul Eater to Char's head just moments before. They were in public, after all, and he didn't want to seem dangerous when it was so completely the opposite of what he wanted. _Not like the guy who originally looked like this didn't look dangerous enough,_ he reflected bitterly. "As soon as we get Copperhead, we get down to business," he confirmed Falcon's unspoken inquiry. "The next couple of places, and then we drop him off back here."

Falcon nodded, outwardly pacified.

"Wait a minute," Char said suddenly. Riku turned his head to look at her, but she seemed to have decided her vitriol toward him merited not meeting his eyes and was appraising Falcon. The dark-haired girl raised an eyebrow at the younger's stare, a silent invitation for her to continue.

"Can we really just borrow Copperhead for the day?" the redhead asked, folding her arms. "He works here, right?" At Falcon's wary nod, she went on, "Then how can we guarantee we can just drag him away from his job whenever we feel like it?"

Riku blinked. Despite the brisk nature of her remark – along with a tinge of impatience, the only things that betrayed her and conjured up the question of just why she didn't want to be away from Sora – he couldn't help wondering whether he was imagining the light taint of sympathy in her voice or not. Which struck him as odd, because Char had already made it clear, even in the day or so since they had first stepped out of the dark portal into the Flaming Forest, that all she cared about was finding the machine and getting back to Sora.

_So then why would she care about Falcon's comfort?_ he wondered.

He never got to voice this question, though, for Falcon sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "If only it was that easy. He's the mayor's little favorite – gets to run about and do what he pleases. He got that job after we…" An uncomfortable, pregnant pause, then the subdued, rather lame euphemism "broke up." Recovering, she added, annoyance masking her conflict from just moments before, "But I know he gets to do what he wants. It's the only reason why he showed up in the forest yesterday."

_The only reason we're all still alive,_ she left unspoken, but it hung in the air between the three, all but choking them.

Char took a deep breath. "Okay, fine. I was just wondering."

_Just wondering, right._ Like all the sardonic thoughts before, though, Riku suppressed it, shoved it to the same corner of his mind reserved for the memory of when Destiny Island had vanished and when he had kidnapped Roxas.

Dark things, things he didn't want to consider.

Maybe that was when he realized Char may be avoiding voicing her own emotions, but he was guilty of the exact same phenomenon.

Falcon turned back around, faced the doors. Her shoulders actually heaved with the depth of the preparing breath she took. "Let's get this over with," she muttered, and, seizing the golden handle of one of the oaken doors, pushed it open.

* * *

Sora stared down at the moonlit sea surging beneath the decks of the _Black Pearl,_ the sounds of Donald and Goofy chatting nearby all but fading into the sounds of the waves. Thinking on the events that had occurred since leaving the Coliseum – finding Jack Sparrow; beating back Heartless at the pirate's side; Elizabeth urgently telling them Will was in trouble; heading back to the Isla de Muerta to retrieve him – the Keybearer couldn't help but sigh under his breath. Will had approached in the _Interceptor,_ the ship they had used during the group's first visit to Port Royal, and they had allowed him to cross the makeshift wooden bridge from the smaller boat to Jack's _Black Pearl._ Of course, almost the moment Will crawled, bleeding, onto the pirate ship, he had collapsed, and now Elizabeth was looking after him in the cabin.

_But that's not even the worst part,_ Sora thought, grimacing slightly. According to Will, he had arrived in the cavern where the bloody battle with Barbossa and that lizard-like Heartless with the glowing tail had transpired – where, he recalled with a pang, the first time he had embraced Char had occurred – to find the massive chest filled with medallions had vanished. He would have explored further, but something had attacked him, then. Blindly fleeing from his assailant had made him the only survivor out of the crew he had taken with him, but Will did know the creatures that had sliced into him and lashed out with card-shaped talons had done so at the command of another person.

Another person clad in a hooded black cloak.

Sora had wanted to go back, to see exactly who – what – had shown up there. However, Jack had demurred. "I'll have no monsters on my ship today, thank ye," he had declared, turning around with a peremptory aura that brooked no argument. "We're headed for home."

By the time Sora, Donald, and Goofy had finished fully making sure Elizabeth would be all right taking care of Will's wounds on her own – Sora had never seen a paper cut that intense, after all – Jack was already at the wheel of the ship, steadily focused on the horizon with his compass flipped open in his hand.

And that brought them back to the present: halfway back to the mainland, with Sora resting his arms on the rail and looking out at the ocean. It occurred to him, vaguely, that if they ever arrived here while the sun held sway over the sky this place would remind him a bit more of home. As it was, though, he could only think of watching the horizon swallow the burning red sun as he, Kairi, and Riku sailed back from the play island to head home and listening to Riku persist in asking Kairi about where she had come from. The questions had obviously made her uncomfortable, but she had obliged her friend's curiosity, which proved infectious to Sora as well, regardless of her own feelings.

Now that Sora thought about it, maybe everything had started there. The restlessness, the feeling of the world stretching so much wider than just their little patch of sea and sand, Riku's rivalry with him. It sounded horrible – he could never blame Kairi for anything that had happened to them – and yet it held some truth to it.

"Sora?" Donald asked, tugging on the boy's pant leg. Looking down, he saw the two of them had ambled up while he was ruminating on the connection between this sea and his own. Goofy stood beside Sora, gazing out at the silver-bathed ocean, but when Donald gave him a hard stare, he lifted the duck up and set him down on the railing dividing the ship from the stars. Donald curled his arms around it and placed his webbed feet on the bar beneath the top railing, inclining his head expectantly toward Sora.

Sora gave them a forced smile. "Hey, guys."

"Whatcha thinking about?" Goofy asked.

Sora shrugged, slightly reluctant to voice his thoughts but knowing he had to let them know Char had slipped his mind. Oh, no, wait. She was back now. His eyelids slipped closed, the moon imprinting a bright circle on their dark interior. "Kairi and Riku," he said. Paused, then added mutedly, "The ocean here kind of reminds me of home. And them."

Goofy let out a murmur of acknowledgment before falling silent, as if understanding the brunette's desire for reticence on this subject. Donald, however, narrowed his eyes, seemed to take a deep mental breath before speaking. "Beast's Castle makes me think of home," he confessed.

"It does?" Sora blinked, startled out of his quietness. "No way."

"It _does!"_ Donald growled, almost parrot-like as he threw Sora's query back at him in statement form. Thinking of this, laughter bubbled up within the brunette, which only seemed to annoy the duck more. "What's so funny?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Sora grinned, wiping imaginary tears from his eyes. "Just… you almost sounded like a parrot for a second there."

Donald let out a confused "wak," while Goofy covered his mouth to hide his giggles. "Y'know, you kinda did, Donald."

"Oh, shut it!" The mage rounded on Goofy with a fervor that nearly unbalanced him from his balancing act on the rails.

They spent a few moments racked with amusement at Donald's expense, before even that petered off, when it steadily hit each of them in turn that a feminine voice remained conspicuously absent. Sora's laughter faded, Goofy lowered his hand and watched the sea again, and Donald's agitation gradually became eclipsed by grudging acceptance of the fact that he had, in fact, sounded like a parrot for a moment.

As the three of them stood in silence, Sora couldn't help recalling the conversation that had transpired the last time he had stood on these decks, looking out at this very ocean. Even now, Char's phantom presence seemed to materialize between him and Goofy and echo the tale she had spoken that day: how she had gone to Atlantica with one of her fellow apprentices and seen a school of fish lit up by the sunset. The breathless wonder with which she had related the memory seeped into Sora again, as it had then, and left him regarding the sea around them differently than before.

Because now that a couple of weeks or so lay stretched out between that incident and now, he could appreciate the exact amount of mental fortitude she had required just to tell him that much. Now that he knew the full story about her past – or most of it, if Xemnas' accusation about Char keeping secrets about Riku stood true – he could understand why she had dodged his honest attempts to glean more facts from her.

Now that she was gone, he could see that that day he had first regarded her as beautiful.

The realization sent multiple tendrils of sorrow and wistfulness into his chest, squeezing his heart and all but coaxing tears to his eyes.

A voice suddenly came from the higher deck, where Jack Sparrow currently had his attention at the helm. "Miss your lady friend at all?" he inquired languidly.

Sora cringed; even from a distance, the pirate had hit his emotions right on the mark. "Yeah," he murmured.

"Mind speaking up? Couldn't quite catch that."

Hearing the careless tone attached to the words, the brunette rolled his eyes. Now he knew for sure Jack hadn't changed a bit. "I said, yeah, I do," he replied, refusing to succumb to his visceral response and shout back at the older man.

"I don't blame you," Jack commented. Although he clearly addressed Sora, his eyes remained focused on the dim lights of the mainland ahead. "Every day Will's without his lass, he's miserable. Love makes fools out of us all, eh?"

Sora raised and lowered one shoulder in silent agreement, watching the ocean churn beneath the _Black Pearl_ again.

The next moment, though, Jack's words carried a distinctively wary aura to them, making the trio currently standing at the rail glance back. "Don't remember inviting you."

As one, the Keybearer, mage, and knight turned just in time to see the final remnants of a dark portal, tentacles stark even against the moon-streaked blackness of the night, vanish, revealing a dark-clad shape. In tow, it – rather, _he,_ since the only female Organization member Sora knew of had quit long ago – held a notoriously familiar treasure chest, which was dropped with a grunt of exertion. "Rather a heavy burden, that," the Nobody remarked, urbane accent all but matching that of Jack Sparrow himself.

Immediately, Sora summoned the Rumbling Rose to him, and Donald and Goofy drew their weapons as well. "So it _was_ the Organization!" Donald shouted. His mental energy expended on annoyance just minutes before apparently had now chosen to channel itself toward the foe before them.

A gasp came from the direction of the cabin, signifying that Will and Elizabeth had just emerged at the sound of the commotion. The former was limping slightly, his chest covered with ragged bandages, but his eyes were just as wide as his makeshift doctor's.

"That's him," Will rasped, staring straight at the Nobody, who merely inclined his head toward the Port Royal native. "That's the man who attacked us on the Isla de Muerta!"

"Charmed, William Turner," he answered, a smirk audible behind the hood. "It's good to see you remember me."

Elizabeth let out a startled grunt. "How do you know his name?"

"Does it matter?" Jack tossed the words over the balcony at the couple standing there as he all but vaulted over to stand beside Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Drawing his sword, he narrowed his eyes at the newcomer. "Unless I'm wrong – which I'm not – that chest holds the medallions what Mr. Turner said got stolen."

"An Organization member _would_ have it," Sora commented, venom etched into every syllable.

That hooded head swiveled, owl-like, to him, and he shuddered at the intensity of the hidden stare beneath. _What's with these guys and staring at me?_ Of course, an instant later, he got the answer to that unspoken question. "Good evening, Roxas," he greeted almost cordially. "Tell me, how is being whole? Is it everything we thought it would be?"

"That's _Sora_ to you," the boy snapped back, even though the part of him that was Roxas was now stirring at the sound of his name and the mention of the Organization's goal. _Luxord,_ Roxas told him,_ his name is Luxord._ However, Sora mentally batted those words away. "And if you know any better, you'll give those medallions back."

"It's unfortunate, then, that I don't know any better." Without acknowledging Sora's sputter of response, Luxord began pacing down the deck, running a black-gloved hand along the chest as he did so. He picked up a layer of dust there; Sora could see it illuminated by the moonlight. The six of them – boy, dog, duck, captain, young couple – could only watch, frozen, as the Nobody began to speak. "The darkness of men's hearts – drawn to these cursed medallions." He snapped his fingers, startling them all when a myriad of dark flames cascaded down from the sky and created a small conflagration on deck; the flames faded with a realistic crackle to reveal an upright, dark purple Heartless, dangling an anchor from its hand. "And this Heartless – a veritable maelstrom of avarice…"

"Huh?" Goofy mumbled. Sora's mouth twitched in vague amusement at the thought of Char automatically moving to translate Luxord's description into more monosyllabic terms.

Luxord ignored the knight's bemusement and continued, even as the Heartless' black-rimmed gold eyes honed in on the four fighters standing in front of it. "I wonder, are they worthy to serve Organization XIII?" he wondered aloud, coming to a stop and facing them again.

Jack sighed, jiggling his sword in his hand. "I take it you want an answer now?"

"Precisely," Luxord purred, and, with a flick of a hand, darkness had swallowed him up, leaving them to fight the Heartless.

* * *

Falcon couldn't believe she was reduced to hiding in a bathroom.

But no, here she was: curled up next to the sink, knees drawn up to her face, resisting the urge to bury her face there and never look up again. At least the janitors here in the city hall kept the floors pristine and well-mopped.

She looked up at the ceiling and rubbed a gloved palm over her face, drawing a rather unnecessary amount of comfort from the fabric against the bridge of her nose. Lowered her hand, counted the cracks she found along the ceiling tiles – fourteen, not including the boundaries between one tile and the other – before pushing her head back against the side of the sink and closing her eyes.

_Why am I doing this?_ the dark-haired girl wondered, only half-obligatorily. The reason why she had tugged herself away from Char and Riku upon entering the city hall remained painfully clear to her, after all. Once they had stepped over the threshold and the sound of phones ringing and voices raised in conversation had enveloped the wind blowing and conversations going on outside, a sense of panic had seized Falcon, and she had stuttered out, "Be right back," before fleeing. Thankfully, the blindness brought on by said panic had receded long enough for her to spot a door conspicuously labeled "Women's Restroom," allowing her to slip inside.

And that brought her back to the present: sitting on the floor, trying to calm her breathing at just remembering how loudly the fear had rattled in her veins. How raw it had singed her nerves.

"It's Copperhead," she muttered aloud, completing the gesture she so wished to enact earlier and staring at the view of the floor offered between her knees. As always, the taste of that traitor's name scuttling across her tongue heralded the rush of so many emotions: anger, first and foremost; the pure desperate curiosity, the need to know _why_ he had gone to such extremes and betrayed his best friend just to see his brother's smile again; and, more recently, the sensation of _missing_ the bastard.

And there lay the problem: the fact that facing the source of so many entwining, conflicting feelings inside her struck so much terror into her heart. She, who had faced down gigantic Heartless without so much as flinching; who had regarded her own death at the blade Xemnas had brought without so much as batting her eye – she was dreading the presence of one man.

Falcon straightened at that thought, her brow furrowing. The epiphany – actually, maybe _epiphany_ didn't fit the exact context of recalling the effect Copperhead's violet eyes and careless grin and scythe-swinging had on her ability to think straight; _recollection of fact_ seemed more appropriate – made her wonder just why he still held so much sway over how she felt.

The initial hypothesis, of course, was so ludicrous that she actually hissed aloud and shook her head, batting the imaginary fly away with one hand and nearly hitting the sink in her fervor. _No way I'm still in love with him. That died the moment my parents did._

No, the real reason behind her balking at the brick wall of having to face him rang loud and clear to her. Her nose found further purchase in the safe haven of darkness between her knees at the thought. It was because the sight of him would loosen the floodgates she had wound so tightly about the memories of happiness with him; would destroy the numbness that time had built up around the days when Dyme had still been alive, and her parents had still been alive, and the worst thing to worry about had been whether she tilted her head right to kiss him.

It was because the past rose up, tall and blonde-haired in the shape of Copperhead's body, and even months after the fact it hurt too much to contemplate the past. Riku's arrival might have made it immensely easier to not ponder how long a Heartless goring her belly would hurt before the end – might have applied a bit of healing balm to the still-festering sore and slash in her ability to trust – but that feeling toward Copperhead remained nonetheless.

Once again, the contrast between Riku and Copperhead struck Falcon, from their skin and hair to their eyes and disposition. Dark and olive; silver to gold; amber to violet; calm and even-tempered to brash and reckless. _Not only that,_ she reflected, _but how we met was way different, too._

And then she shivered, because just which boy she included in that unspoken _we_ remained unclear to her.

* * *

_The Heartless vanished in a wisp of black smoke, and Falcon absently watched its pink, heart-shaped burden drift up into the cloud-patched sky before lowering her Keyblade. Soreness permeated her muscles as deeply as it ever had; a year without Copperhead's help had allowed her to adjust to the lack of scythe swinging nearby, but the Heartless were coming as strongly as they had when they had had two opponents to contend with._

_Emerald eyes narrowed at recalling the days when he had fought at her side, and bitterness that only arose from the deep, dark swamp of her heart when it reminisced on Copperhead threatened to choke her. _Why protect me all those years, if he was just going to stab me in the back later?

_She turned away from the battle site, taking in the spring-tinged air as she did so. In light of the carnage going on in the recently-rejuvenated forest – both from shadowy and multicolored Heartless and from the last thing they saw before Kingdom Hearts took them – the pleasant bite to the breeze seemed almost obscene. _

_ However, it did serve to remind her that even through grief and loss, time went on, heedless of whoever got caught up in its current. She forced herself to think back on that day – _pain shock sorrow Copperhead why if my death is what it takes then I don't care this isn't how love works you whore – _and realized that it had occurred on a day much like this one, albeit with storms rending the sky instead of white-marred blue._

_ How had a year gone by, she wondered with a pang, without her properly noticing? _

_ She would have made a mental note to visit their graves later, even though it meant skirting dangerously close to the resting place of the man whose death had sent everything spiraling out of control. She would have vowed to honor this day. But the sound of branches snapping and leaves rustling made her whirl around, Keyblade immediately raised in her fencing stance. Every ounce of soreness and remnants of the last few days' toil, gone._

_ Her mouth opened to demand who lurked in the bushes, but very quickly she found out just who, or rather _what,_ waited for her. With a tail lashing toward her._

_It flickered into visibility scant inches away from her, and though her reflexes kicked in just in time for her to dodge the worst of the blow, the sharp tip still caught and broke the skin along her arm. Hissing in pain, Falcon leaped back, inwardly cursing herself for allowing nostalgia to distract her._

_ A few thunderous footsteps, and then the Heartless revealed itself: a huge, multicolored lizard, forked tongue flicking out and lolling and eyes staring vacantly from its sockets. Falcon narrowed her eyes as the client's description of his bounty floated into her mind, coaxed into remembrance due to this foe's appearance. Large, reptilian, tendency to camouflage…_

_ "Next paycheck, here I come," she muttered, and then had to repress a shudder, because she was channeling Copperhead without even realizing it. It made sense, considering their extensive history together; hell, at some points, she could barely tell where he ended and she began._

_ At some points, she remembered just how deeply their feelings had tethered them to one another, and it scared the hell out of her to think about._

_ Shaking it off, she snarled in tandem to the chameleon's roar and charged, only for dust to balloon up in thick mushroom clouds as it vanished and she was forced to stop. "Where'd you go, you bastard?" she hissed out, head swinging left and right to pinpoint it. Almost unnerving, really, the way she could hear the Heartless' presence – a rustling in the leaves, a stray twig snapping as it trod on the forest floor – and not see it right in front of her._

_ Then the noises stopped, and she had a split second to pick out the dual glowing orbs directly in front of her before a bright pink blur shot out and reeled her in. A rainbow-colored flash announced the lizard's return to visibility, and she glared into those still-glittering amber eyes before it lifted its claws and scored them across her body, searing multiple gashes and making her gasp._

_ The force of the blows dealt flung her back out of its tongue's hold, and she recovered in midair just long enough to fire a Blizzaga into the lizard's still-open mouth. Although swallowing ice normally wouldn't cause pain, the force and distance with which the shard hit the back of its mouth made the Heartless stagger back, a primordial roar escaping it as its hands flew to the injured area. Fleeting satisfaction made Falcon narrow her eyes and nod, before taking advantage of its stunned state to leap forward and attack with all she had._

_ At some point, the lizard recovered long enough to lash out with its claws, which she parried just before they could add to the already-oozing injuries it had inflicted on her. The Heartless threatened to push her back for a few moments, but eventually she maneuvered so she could push it further to the edge of the copse rimming the clearing, instead of vice versa._

_ As her Keyblade worked away at its endurance, she suddenly realized her back was tingling in the distinct impression of someone watching her. She risked a glance over her shoulder, but just as she ascertained the presence of leaves trembling and a dark shape vanishing behind more trees, bright light flashing from in front of her made her whirl around. She caught a final glimpse of the lizard vanishing, rainbow-colored light wreathing over its form as it did so, and a couple of dual golden globes beginning to glow._

_ Her eyes widened. _Oh, son of a –

_All at once, twin beams of amber flame cascaded into her, and she leaped back, free hand immediately flying to her abdomen as the place where Xemnas had slashed her all those months ago began to flare anew. Her teeth clenched against the agony, and she found herself slumping just slightly, her ramrod-straight battle stance bending just so in the face of the Heartless' onslaught. For the first time, the possibility of not making it out of this in one piece occurred to her; rather than striking trepidation into her, though, the first thought to follow that revelation was something along the lines of _that guy will worry when I don't come back.

_Not of the money, but whether or not the citizens would be concerned at her absence. Of course they would; she was the sole piece that kept the Heartless from breaking through to the town itself – but whether or not they would miss her as a person was obvious._

_ Absurdly, she found herself thinking of Copperhead._

_ But then something dark rippled over her head and landed with a puff of dust in front of her. In the half-moment it took for the cloud to clear, Falcon tensed, assuming by the dark garb of the figure that another Heartless had come to assist the lizard – but no, this newcomer stood too tall for any Heartless she knew about._

_ Sure enough, as wind and air swept the dust stirred into oblivion, the figure was revealed to be distinctly humanoid, tall, at least a foot taller than she, and clad in a hooded, black cloak. For some reason, she found herself thinking of Xemnas and how he had worn the exact same thing that bloody night; her fingers tightened over the hilt of her Keyblade._

_ Yet when she caught a glimpse of the weapon the person held, she found herself relaxing. Because unless Xemnas suddenly wielded an opaque, bat's wing-shaped blade instead of brightly glowing sabers, it wasn't him._

_ The newcomer spared her a sidelong glance over his shoulder before springing forward and lashing out with his sword, which collided with a parcel of trembling air. Startled into visibility, the Heartless brandished its claws, tongue already darting out to seize this other challenger in its grasp; but the dark-garbed man simply drove his blade down as hard as he could, severing the makeshift rope like a knife through hot butter._

_ The ensuing shriek of agony from the Heartless shattered Falcon's trance, and she charged into the fray as well, albeit with a heavier tread due to blood spattering the ground in her wake. Together, they beat back the reptilian Heartless, sword and Keyblade creating dual blurs of black and pale blue in the air. Glancing over at her partner, Falcon was surprised to see a single amber eye, almost Heartless-eye-gold, gazing back at her, the hood having slipped back just enough to reveal that and hidden locks of gray hair. _Looks like Xemnas,_ her mind told her, _but definitely not him.

Definitely.

_Eventually, the combined attacks of anonymous man and exhausted girl proved too much for the Heartless; although it had managed to get off some attacks and leave deep scratch marks along her savior's body, it still succumbed when the newcomer pulled his arm back, a globe of dark flame coalesced at the tips of his fingers, and he launched the fire at the foe. _

_ As the Heartless exploded, showering them with transparent particles of camouflage-colored mist, Falcon turned to face the man. He was already looking at her, this time with the hood meticulously angled to hide his face. "You all right?" he asked in a gruff voice._

* * *

After that, Falcon recalled from where she still sat on the bathroom floor, things had progressed as smoothly as she could expect: she had asked why he had saved her; he had explained he knew about Keyblades and was curious, and that jumping in to help her had been a last-moment decision on his part; she had expressed suspicion at his hood being up, and then at the sight of his face; he had explained his true form lay hidden beneath a layer of darkness; and she had grown damnably curious about it.

"Who are you?" she had asked.

He had hesitated, as if wondering whether or not to divulge his true name; then he sighed, startling her by stripping away the deep voice of the Heartless whose face he had swathed his own in and speaking with his true, sixteen-year-old voice. "Riku," was all he had said.

And now a month had passed, and Falcon sighed with mild frustration as it hit her that her heart had attached itself to a man she knew relatively little about. His friends, yes; his home, yes; how his true form eerily resembled Copperhead, yes – and when he had told her that last one, she had found herself guiltily, sickeningly grateful that he looked the way he did; if he had approached her looking like Copperhead she wouldn't have peeled back the fence of distance she had constructed around her heart for him in the first place.

But little else. Not why he had chosen to look like Xemnas; not why he had left home.

_Then again,_ Falcon thought – and here her thoughts swung in a distinctively chiding direction – _it's not like you've told him anything about your past, either. Why you and Copperhead have the relationship you do, if you can even call it that; why you were so suspicious that he looked like Xemnas; why you were so willing to help Riku in the first place._

Quickly, she stood, before any more self-incrimination could take place. She'd spent enough time hiding. Either she faced Copperhead and the past he embodied now, or she faced them later.

As much dread as it poured into her belly and heart, nauseating her and ramping up her heartbeat, she knew she would rather do it now.

* * *

The first sensation Sora had as he came to wakefulness was of something digging into his side. Sapphire eyes flickered open, and as the bruises from the Heartless' scythe began to throb again, a groan escaped him.

"Looks like the lad is awake," a voice drawled from nearby.

Shaking his head, Sora rose up, supporting himself by his elbows, and looked around. Donald and Goofy crouched next to him, both wearing expressions of relief. "Good thing you woke up," the dog said with a grateful smile.

Donald shook his head irritably. "That Heartless, blowing us off the ship like that!" he grumbled. "When I get my hands on it…"

"Blowing us off the…?" Sora trailed off as the memories of after Luxord had vanished set in: fighting the Heartless; dodging its anchor and enduring the crushing blows whenever it connected; a gust of wind issuing from the Heartless' talons and pushing them onto the still-floating _Interceptor_ just nearby…

And, the one that stood out most, Will and Elizabeth's horrified cries as the Heartless flung its anchor at the empty ship and rendered it little more than wood.

He sat up fully in order to better survey the area. Glancing about, Sora realized he could recognize the remains of the ship they had first taken to the Isla de Muerta those weeks ago; the half-sullied wooden spoons he and Will had used to stir the stew they had made lay strewn about, and splinters were all that remained of the bowls holding said stew. The bottles of rum remained miraculously intact, one of which Jack was holding in his hand. Shadows all but concealed his frame, but Sora saw him nonetheless. "Good to see we all got out safely," he commented.

Jack lowered the bottle. If Sora didn't know any better, he would have thought he saw the cultivated poker face falter. "Ah, yes, well… There's a bit of a story to that, you see…"

He paused when Sora's eyes suddenly widened. A more colorful, mottled shape had caught his eye, trapped beneath Donald's webbed foot. Before he could try to understand why he was reaching forward and tugging it out into full view; Donald yelped in surprise at first, but his annoyance quickly morphed into confusion when he saw what his leader was doing.

Sora lifted the object up and squinted at it. Sitting in the moonlight as he was, he could easily see the map scrawled out onto the paper. It struck a familiar chord within him, though he could hardly understand why. Char might have understood, but –

And then the breath froze in his lungs, because he remembered she had dozed off looking at this when she had been here with them and he had made the mistake of wandering in to wake her up just in time to hear her speak the name of his best friend.

_Riku._

All at once, the doubts Xemnas had raised back in Hollow Bastion came rushing in on Sora with the force of the cyclone that had blown them here. Wherever _here_ was. Thinking that, Sora realized how desperately he loathed never knowing what was going on. Whether it involved Roxas, or Riku, or Char's secrets before she had divulged them.

"Sora?" Donald asked, tipping his head to the side.

With a start, the brunette faced his two longtime partners. Wrestled with his emotions for a couple of seconds before deciding it would make no difference whether they knew or not. "Char was reading this… the last time we were here," he confessed quietly, shaking the map listlessly for emphasis. "And I heard her say a name in her sleep."

"What name was it?" Goofy queried.

Sora flinched and looked back down again, somehow hoping to find resolve in the green-and-blue strokes on the page he held. Predictably, that attempt didn't succeed, and his reluctance to continue on hindered him from speaking. Somehow, he felt the need to carry any suspicion for Char on his shoulders alone, feelings for her aside; somehow, he felt like telling the whole truth now would just make the situation worse.

Either way, he knew he couldn't speak. Not when the memory of just how deeply Donald and Goofy had distrusted Char after Roxas' disappearance was so fresh in his mind.

He was saved from having to struggle with the decision any longer when Goofy glanced over his shoulder, only to let out a shocked cry and stagger backward. Leaping to his feet and all but unbalancing Donald in the process, Sora quickly saw the source of the knight's outburst: a skeletal Jack Sparrow, meandering out of the shadows and into the moonlight.

"What the…?" the Keybearer gaped.

Jack blinked, then glanced down at himself and gave an over-exaggerated sigh. "I told you there was a story to this."

Donald had whirled around, severely irritated, but when he saw Jack he all but fell back onto his haunches in confusion. "What happened?" he croaked out.

"Yeah," Goofy added, "why're you all skeleton-y?" He waggled his fingers to illustrate his meaning.

Jack shrugged. "I think I got a touch of something from that monster what attacked us."

"You mean the Heartless?" Sora put a finger to his chin in thought. Now that the initial burst of surprise had worn off, only bemusement governed his mind. "I've never heard of a Heartless that can do that…"

_Sora,_ phantom Char said, _we've seen Heartless that can manipulate ice and fire and possess people. Please don't tell me this is beyond the realm of possibility._

"Y'know," Goofy cut in suddenly, "we fought the Heartless, too. So we should be lookin' like that, too."

Jack folded his arms, moonlight catching off the bones beneath the tattered rags of his tunic as he did so. "Your doggy friend's got a point there, Zola," he said, ignoring the brunette's indignant confirmation of what exactly his name was. "Why's the skin restin' right on you three?"

Sora tilted his head to the side. In all honesty, the situation puzzled him as well. Not that he didn't appreciate keeping his muscles and skin intact, but he was confused as to why Jack had inherited the cursed pirates' physical disposition while his own Keyblade had connected much more often with the anchored Heartless and nothing had happened to him.

Only when Jack turned away and began to pace, stepping into the darkness and making his form revert back to its original in the process, did Goofy put a finger in the air out of realization. "Maybe the reason we're all okay is because we're not from this world," he suggested, keeping his voice low so as to adhere to the no-meddling policy.

Donald folded his arms. "There must be different laws."

"Yeah," Sora murmured. _Different laws, huh?_ At first he assumed that the effect's absence on him had only emerged due to his status as Keybearer. As chosen savior of the worlds. Yet Goofy's hypothesis, almost Char-esque in its status and logic, reminded Sora that he wasn't the only one having to bounce from world to world. He wasn't the only one whose concept of _home_ had become significantly abstract, more and more each day.

"We're always just passing through," he said, unconsciously speaking his thoughts aloud. He sighed, hands falling limply to his sides. "I'm sick of just running from world to world, looking for things I can't find. I wish…" He paused, took a deep breath, went on with Donald and Goofy watching worriedly and the sound of the sea that so resembled the one back home roaring just beyond the shipwreck. Just beyond the atlas and the doubt-stirring memories.

"I wish we could just find a way to reach the Organization and get all our friends back. So we could see home again."

Although his idea of home differed from Donald and Goofy's – his involved sand and sea and sky, while theirs involved grass and statues and standing firmly beside a monarch – the two Disney residents had the good grace to look sympathetic. "We'll find them eventually," Goofy reminded him, for the second time in twenty-four hours. Sora remembered how the knight had spoken just about the same words to him last night before he had crawled into bed and slept with dreams of Riku and Kairi and Char sitting alongside him looking at the sunset.

_But when will those become more than just dreams?_

To Donald's credit, he managed to avoid repeating what he had said last night and just nodded, eyes narrowed. "But first we gotta get out of here," he said, and the measured insistence in his voice made Sora wonder at just how much tact the duck did possess.

"Quit yammering, lads!" Jack called, making the three of them jump. Although his miraculously flesh-covered back had remained facing them, the slant of his spine suggested he had most definitely been listening. Sora braced himself for a torrent of snarky jabs about just how deeply he had laid his heart bare, but surprisingly, the pirate said nothing. He turned to face them, and even in the darkness, they could see the glitter in his gaze. "We've got to find ourselves a ship that'll float."

Seeing their blank stares, he continued, "I've been round these parts." He gestured to the view of the dark, star-splattered sky outside as he explained. "This is the ship graveyard. Where sunk ships come to rest after a long pirate's life. Methinks if we wander around for a while, we can find something that'll take us back to my ship. Savvy?"

Sora nodded. "And then we can look for the medallions."

"Of course," Jack confirmed with a wave of his hand.

The brunette looked to the others. "You guys ready?"

"Who do you think we are?" Donald puffed out his chest, making Sora and Goofy laugh; even Jack cracked a little smirk before beginning to move off.

"Just don't touch anything, right?" the Keybearer quipped, hoping to find solace in joking about the situation.

The bravado in the duck turned to indignation, and he deflated visibly with a "Hey!" He scrambled after the others, who were already following after the pirate and moving toward the outline of tattered sails and broken poles in the distance.

* * *

One of my shorter chapters, but w/e. It's Thanksgiving; be merry~

For reference, the Heartless that Falcon was fighting was the Veil Lizard, from Days. (the gigantic lizard thing you fight in front of the Twilight Town mansion)

Incidentally: I've surpassed the NaNo goal of 50k by finishing this chap :D Got about 34k done for this fic! The other 16k is for a MLP fic (yes, My Little Pony; deal) that has yet to be posted, but I still got to 50k, right? (IT'S NOT CHEATING, RIGHT? xD)

P.S. Next chapter is 69... -snigger- I'm so mature.

Review, please!


	69. Chapter LXIX

-in b4 69 jokes-

No, but in all seriousness, I'm glad I finally got this chapter done. And I just want to apologize in advance for how very filler it is. Dx I just meant to finish Port Royal and this day in this chapter (because let's face it, one day hasn't stretched so long in this fic since the TT/Space Paranoids/Hollow Bastion/SoChar sloppy makeouts chapters), but then the characters and the details and the emotions and Falcon/Char having eyesex got away from me and now it's a 19-page long monster.

tl;dr: Please don't hate me. LOL. ;_;

_**Disclaimer-**_ I do not own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

_So much for "be right back," _Char thought wryly. She supposed she might have anticipated this much when Falcon had stepped into the building, only to stiffen and dart off in the opposite direction, leaving her and Riku there staring blankly after her.

She looked over at him. To her frustration and shame, actual anxiety flared inside her at having to meet his gaze; then again, what with their argument earlier, her reluctance to look at him made more than a little sense. Either way, the fact remained that she fought the urge to twist her head away and glare at the ground as those amber eyes turned toward her.

"Well," he muttered, "she's not going to be back for a while."

"Wow, what makes you say that?" Char sighed, folding her arms. When the stare cast on her became withering, she dropped her arms back to her sides, genuine contrition seeping into her. "Sorry. Habit."

Riku blinked, slowly, as if absorbing the oddity of her actually apologizing. In spite of herself, contradicting the image of herself presented by said meaningful apology, Char narrowed her eyes, mildly irritated by his bemusement. However, he said nothing about it, only turning away and gazing at the interior of the city hall. "I've never been to the one back home."

Char blinked, as much due to his sudden change of subject as the ambiguity of his meaning. "Back home?"

"The city hall in Destiny Islands, I mean." He clarified this without turning to face her, making her wonder the exact extent and scope of the emotions flitting about inside him. Nostalgia, of course, seemed first and foremost; and yet she found herself detecting a hint of wistfulness and sorrow as he continued. Made the mistake of continuing, really, because without even meaning to he was revealing his feelings to her. "I know the mayor there raised me and all, but he never exactly had a 'take your son to work' day."

"Wait," Char interrupted, brow furrowing at this new piece of information. "The mayor of Destiny Island raised you?"

He still didn't turn around, but she picked up the light stiffening in his shoulders that told her he had just realized his omitting his exact origin during their year together. With the rational part of her mind – a very scarcely-exercised portion nowadays, and a bit rusty in use, but present nonetheless – she understood that the subtle indignation flowing through her now made no sense in light of all the secrets she was keeping from him.

_Like the fact that I'm in love with his best friend, that's a little thing I can't tell him. _And, gods willing, she never would.

Then again, the secret of the Organization's bloody birth and her part in their lives before they had embraced the darkness had somehow worked its way out of her, between Sora chipping away at her heart and fighting Heartless at his side.

For perhaps the umpteenth time that day, dread began to crawl up inside her at the thought of telling Riku about her true emotions, and for perhaps the umpteenth time that day, a treacherous section of her mind wondered why telling him would be so bad.

Ironically, Riku himself spared her from having to dwell on her indecision any longer by responding. "Yeah, he did." A beat, then, "I'm sorry I never told you before. It just…"

"Never came up?" Char quipped dryly.

Riku cringed slightly, the movement so miniscule that only she, who stood nearby and liked to think she knew him so well, saw it. "You could say that."

Char opened her mouth to speak, before it hit her that she had no earthly clue how to continue the conversation. So she just uttered a "hm" of acknowledgment, before hastily changing the subject before he could turn it back around on all the secrets she was hiding away. "We're not going to wait out here for Falcon forever, are we?"

Riku turned back around then, dark cloak swishing in his wake. Char found the movement of its hem almost hypnotic, even as it settled, before she realized the garb of her enemies had drawn her into a trance and snapping out of it at once. She followed the line of the coat upward, drawing both courage and ire from slowly taking in the Organization's coat, and saw him eyeing her with an odd mix of annoyance and sympathy. Annoyance, due to her newfound urge to pry; the sympathy, though, she couldn't quite puzzle out. She had the distinct feeling it was because of what had happened to the people who had served as her own family.

But then a deep, vaguely familiar voice was growing louder, rounding the corner and becoming more coherent as it filtered into the main hallway where they stood. Both heads of gray and red hair turned toward the sound, and Char stifled a groan when a blonde-haired figure eventually made itself visible.

"…should watch the area around the citadel a bit more close – hm?" Copperhead halted, both verbally and physically, with a suddenness that made the older, smaller man behind him nearly collide with his back. Violet eyes took them in with gradual recognition, and he grinned broadly. "Oh, hey, Riku! Blaze! What brings you to my part of town on this lovely afternoon?"

One eyebrow lifted none too calmly over an icy eye. "Do you even remember what my name actually is?"

The blonde shrugged, locking his fingers behind his back and rocking back and forth on his feet. "Yeah, but I still like mine better." Riku sighed and rolled his eyes at that, and Char felt mildly gratified that he understood how she felt before she remembered she was still pissed at him.

Copperhead turned to the man behind him, who was steadying himself, with respect drifting into his stance. "Mayor, sir, these two are Char and Riku," he introduced, gesturing to redhead and gray-haired young man in turn. He hesitated, making Char blink; she had only known him for a couple of days, but somehow she got the feeling that was odd for him. "They're, ah… visiting for a little while."

It didn't take long for Char to pick up the strain that the weight of their reason for being here put on his voice. Once she did, the reason for his pause became clear as well. She didn't think Donald's whole objection to revealing just where they were from extended beyond the duck's neurotic tendencies, but she had been wrong before.

Riku dipped his head to the mayor. "Very pleased to meet you, sir." He threw a hard glance over his shoulder at Char, making her hasten to mumble a greeting as well. Under any other circumstances her hospitality would immediately have set upon chiding her for her sluggish response, but the thought of Sora and the others and what exactly they could be doing now slowed her instincts.

"The pleasure's all mine!" the mayor said jovially. "Any friend of Copperhead's is a friend of the town. Isn't that right?" He turned to the blonde as he spoke the question, delivering a hefty blow to the back of his subordinate's shoulder. From the way Copperhead actually flinched before returning the grin, the old man was stronger than he looked.

Char folded her arms, amusement at the man who reached maybe the bottom of Copperhead's clavicle ebbing in favor of briskness. "Sir," she began carefully, making him look at her, "we, ah…" It was her turn to pause, eyes darting down to the floor, mind churning furiously to work out a less blunt way to retrieve Copperhead.

Riku must have seen her struggle, for he took the proverbial step forward. "Copperhead, about that thing we were talking about yesterday…" Here, he trailed off purposefully, just staring expectantly at the other.

Copperhead blinked, head tilting to the side in a way that made his loose ponytail slide off his shoulder. "The… thing?"

_Oh, for the love of the gods. _"You know," Char interjected irritably, "the _thing…_ about why we're here…"

The mayor's stocky body moved as he looked from Copperhead to Char and back again. "Is there something these young people need you for?" he inquired.

Somewhere between Char's pointed remarks and his boss speaking, realization had lit Copperhead's face, making his eyebrows jump further into his already-long bangs. "Oh. Oh! That. Heh, right."

He turned to his boss again. "Sir, is it all right if I go with them for a little while? It involves scouring the town for Heartless," he added, "so it's not like I'm totally taking a break." Despite Falcon's bitter assurance of Copperhead's complete freedom and the mayor favoring him, an almost _pleading_ tone heightened his voice.

Char watched the stout man appraise his subordinate thoughtfully, not knowing whether to hope for the extra help or pray that the mayor would detain him here. On the one hand, Copperhead's release for the day would validate their trip here and prove they hadn't wasted their time; and yet something – something that felt distinctively like _concern_ for Falcon's comfort – kept her from fully wanting him around. She held back a growl of frustration. If this was what Sora had felt toward her in the early days, when she had shunned his friendship and focused only on her goal, she could identify with him more than ever now.

Oddly, thinking of Sora only caused a dull ache within her heart, rather than the pure misery that had plagued her initially. Instead of dwelling on the shift, though, she focused on the mayor's decision.

In the end, he only waved a dismissing hand. "If it involves protecting the town, then it's still a part of your job, right?"

Copperhead brightened at once, that same insufferable grin that had crossed his face at lunch yesterday returning. "Thanks. You have no idea how much this means to us."

"You mean to you," Riku muttered, before raising his voice to address the mayor. "Thank you, sir. We really appreciate it."

"Hopefully it's not a bother if we borrow him for a few hours," Char added.

Their stiff, polite words were met with a smile from the mayor. "It's not a bother at all, Blaze."

The nickname made Char wince and Riku eke out a snicker; she glared at him before turning back to the mayor, who was ushering Copperhead over to stand beside them. She forced her annoyance to die down to a weak simmer inside her and just inclined her head respectfully. "With all due respect, sir, that's just a nickname that your subordinate gave me."

_Pervert, space-invader, object of the hatred of this world's Keybearer,_ her mind filled in, but before her completely unfounded wonderings as to what had happened between Falcon and Copperhead could arise anew, she stifled it and continued. "Please just call me Char."

"All right," the mayor nodded. "And in exchange, you and Riku can call me Hickory. Is that an acceptable deal?"

Copperhead had been bouncing from one foot to the other, apparently unable to restrain his anticipation at assisting the search for the machine, but when his boss spoke, he stilled at once. "You don't even let me call you by your first name," he complained.

"That's because you work for me," Hickory chuckled, tickled grin widening at Copperhead's pout. He waved his hand in a dramatic flourish. "Now. Off you go, you three." Turning on his heel, he strode off as gracefully as one of his age and stature could.

"Well, you heard him," Riku said to Char and Copperhead. "It's past noon; we've lost enough time as it is."

"Oh, what, no lunch?" Copperhead asked, quirking an eyebrow. "I've only been here since before dawn, y'know."

"We don't have time for that," Riku huffed, calm brusqueness immediately morphing into exasperation as he strode down the hall, leaving the others to catch up. While Copperhead scrambled to do so, Char trailed behind a bit more sedately. Hickory's last remark, offhand though it seemed, had reminded her of just who they were missing.

"We're going to have to wait anyway," she pointed out, making both young men halt in their tracks. As both amber and violet eyes alike honed in on her questioningly – the former marred by irritation and the latter by disappointment – she sighed and elaborated. "Falcon's still in the bathroom?"

To Riku's credit, he looked properly ashamed at having forgotten about their main host in his hastiness. A stroke of irony, since normally Char would have taken up that hurried mantle; but even she, she who regarded this whole matter with a kind of rushed aggravation, understood that they needed to find a way back to Falcon's house at the end of the day. "Right," he muttered, staring down at the ground.

Copperhead blinked, the mention of Falcon having thrown him out of his childish antics at once. "Wait, you guys brought Fal here?"

"We kind of had to," Char explained, folding her arms and starting off down the hallway in the direction Falcon had fled. She continued speaking without turning around, but the sound of dual sets of footsteps, along with a whirlwind of black in her periphery that signified Riku matching her pace easily, told her they were following. "She's the only one who knows her way around town."

"Hm," Copperhead mumbled, and his unnatural amount of reticence made Char glance sharply over her shoulder.

"What?" she asked, warily.

They passed by a set of cubicles, from which the bright lights of working computers and the sound of low voices emanated. Char had just an instant to be reminded disturbingly, painfully, of the days she and Riku had spent with their only concerns revolving around the information another computer screen held, before something seized the back of her coat.

Surprised at the unexpected shift of gravity, she hissed and whirled around, ready to summon her blades if necessary; however, as Riku halted beside her and gave her assailant a startled look, she found herself glowering at Copperhead's curious expression.

"You guys must've stayed at her place last night, then?" he asked.

Char's eyes flickered down to where his dark-gloved hand still gripped her jacket. "Let go of me first, and I'll tell you," she said, unable to keep a threatening growl out of her voice.

Strangely, he lingered only an instant longer before releasing her; the sensation of the fabric settling back against her side made the muscles there shiver, but she ignored it in favor of answering his question. "Yeah, we did."

"It was the closest place, and we had nowhere else to go," Riku added, eyebrows rising on his forehead. Were he not swathed in Xehanort's appearance, his bangs would have swallowed them up, the way they had streaked his black blindfold with silver in the past.

Before he had had to take such extreme measures to capture Roxas.

"Is that a problem?" the dark boy queried, folding his arms and appraising Copperhead with no small amount of apprehension.

Picking up the slight suspicion in Riku's voice, Copperhead dropped his hand from where it had hovered in the air and quickly tried to justify his intrusive behavior. "N-no, it's not," he said. "It's just…" He paused, tapped the fingers of one hand against the opposite hip, then sighed almost explosively, as if figuring remaining silent wouldn't help matters. "I used to live there, with Falcon. And I was curious. That's all, okay?"

This marked the second piece of new, startling information within the hour, and accordingly, threads of curiosity pulled Char away from her normal response of just silently absorbing and dismissing it. Inwardly, she chided herself for the shock coursing through her; after all, she herself had lived with six other men for eleven years. Yet she couldn't picture Falcon condoning just one other man's presence in her home, whether she had tolerated said man's antics or not at the time.

Rather than share in Char's surprise, Riku plastered a carefully neutral expression on his countenance. "Falcon told me that much," he said. "I'm just curious about why you had to live with her."

A very subtle shift in Copperhead's demeanor had occurred as Riku spoke: dread, to anxiety, and then calmness again as Riku admitted Falcon had only revealed their brief proximity together. It was a shift that Char saw despite the blonde's unfamiliarity and regarded with mild suspicion.

As much as her better judgment told her not to give an honest damn about Falcon and Copperhead's little quarrels, she found herself thinking back to the anathema and desperation on Falcon's face when he had shown up yesterday afternoon. The matter of why he had breathed out a sigh of relief when Riku had confessed he didn't know the source of that anathema wormed its way into Char's thoughts again as well.

"I guess she didn't tell you what happened that I had to, huh?" Copperhead asked, almost as if to dodge the question.

Riku straightened and regarded the other man with an almost impatient look, as though knowing Copperhead was stalling. "No, she didn't." The silence that dropped off the end of that confirmation filled in the question they both left unspoken.

Copperhead shrugged, violet eyes darting from girl to young man. For some reason, he finally settled on her, and she narrowed her own eyes just slightly, albeit not without meeting his stare evenly. _Guess it's easier to look at me than Riku,_ she reflected, and couldn't help the burst of incredulity that followed the heels of that thought.

Because barely a month ago, the opposite would have held true.

So wound up was she in fighting reminiscences at that moment that she didn't notice the almost searching manner in which he was watching her until the sounds around her – the ringing phones, the clicking keyboards, the murmuring voices – suddenly filtered back into her ears and forced her to pay attention to reality. Feeling as though she had just left deep water behind, she stared back at him for a few more moments before it became clear to her. _He's wondering how much I know._

Well, she thought in a mental rebuttal, he was going to be disappointed, because Falcon did not trust her near to the extent that she apparently did Riku. Probably never would. The idea stung a little, really.

Then Copperhead looked back at Riku and answered his silent query. "My older brother died," he admitted, so smoothly that it made Char wonder until he elaborated. "A little over a year ago. My parents were never around, so when he died, our main source of income did, too." He saw the slightly accusatory gleam in Riku's eyes and hastened to amend himself. "For the record, moving in was Falcon's idea, not mine. I was gonna try and get a job that could actually pay for the house and stuff."

"And I'm guessing living together didn't work out," Char commented.

The words had slipped out almost of their own accord, so acrimonious and pointed in their emergence that even with her apprehension and slight annoyance toward Copperhead she immediately wanted to snatch the snide comment back again. Almost the instant that regret crossed her consciousness she felt Riku's stare burning into her hair, could almost hear his unspoken _be a little more rude to the guy who's helping us, why don't you? _

She chose to ignore that and the shame that traced hotly against her back. Instead, she met Copperhead's gaze, her head tilting almost defiantly to the side away from Riku.

Copperhead shrugged again, angling his face away from hers. "No, I guess it didn't." Char blinked, startled out of her confusion at his lack of acknowledging her rudeness, when the light caught off a not-so-subtle shadow flitting over his face. Before she could even so much as consider asking about it, though, he looked back at her and Riku, blithe mask affixed firmly back in place. "Well," he announced, "if you guys need me, I'll be there. Just let me head back to my work space and get my scythe."

"You take your weapon with you to work?" Riku asked, bewilderment on his features.

Copperhead nodded a little self-consciously, already turning away and waving over his shoulder. "I do a lot of field jobs. Like hell am I going out there without anything to protect myself. I'll be right back," he added, tossing the last part after him as he swept around the corner and the black-and-white of his coattails vanished.

Immediately, Riku rounded on Char, eyes narrowed in an emotion that she couldn't distinguish between irritation and offense. "Did you really –" he began, but Char cut him off with a sharp completion of her own.

"Ask that question? Make him look like an ass? Yeah, I did," she spat, ignoring the way his eyes widened ever so slightly – just slightly, just enough to show her acerbity surprised him. For some reason, she thought, _so different from how Sora would react, he'd blink and get that damned puppy-dog look and try to calm me down,_ and for some reason, that only pissed her off more.

Rather than succumb to her anger and release it at Riku, though, she found herself wondering what the point of that would be. After all, only moments before, she had loathed her callous remark. And besides, they were in public. So she sighed and folded her arms, ignoring how very much like a refuge the familiar action felt. "Look," she grumbled, "I didn't mean to sound rude there. It's just…"

"You were curious, right?" Riku finished, making Char stop abruptly and regard him with a small start. _I shouldn't be surprised that he can read me that easily; he's known me for over a year, and, Sora aside, that shouldn't change too much in just a month. _Reminding herself that Riku's accurate hypothesis made sense didn't assuage the surprise building up inside her, though.

Taking her silence as confirmation in and of itself, Riku continued, voice unnaturally subdued without even a hint of sarcasm or dryness. Just frustration. "I've been curious about it for a month," he admitted. "I don't talk to Copperhead as much as Falcon, so I didn't know the exact details until just now."

Char blinked; that at the very least explained his suspicion, the edge of interest poking up from beneath the surface of apprehension. _He was hoping I could worm the answer out of him. _"But nothing about why they stopped being friends?" she couldn't help asking.

Riku shook his head, but he never got to do much more than that – never got to witness more than the momentary blaze of annoyance on Char's countenance or begin to wonder for more than an instant why she was so damned curious – because the female half of the discussion called out from nearby.

"Riku?"

As one, the two of them turned in the direction of Falcon's voice. Briefly, Char reflected on the similarity of yesterday: hearing Falcon approach in the midst of conversation and glancing toward her with the same uncanny tandem that had drawn her to him in the past. Yesterday, though, the setting sun had stained the sky around them orange and heated the air around them; yesterday, belligerence had marked the way both of them had turned their heads, instead of commiseration over unfounded interest.

It was weird, how much could change in just one day.

Falcon stumbled to an unceremonious halt in front of them, standing fairly steadily in spite of her panic from earlier. Clearly, the minutes she had spent hiding had gradually filtered through said panic and allowed it to dissolve, for the gaze she fixed on them – or, really, on Riku, but Char could see as well – shone clear in the artificial lighting.

"Hey," Riku greeted, sparing Falcon a small, albeit friendly smile. An odd expression for Xehanort's face to hold, and on this particular incarnation of him only sent shudders of revulsion along Char's spine, but she tamped down her emotions. It was rare for him to express something like this – normally he had his smiles on reserve for talking about Sora and Kairi – but, awareness of Falcon's feelings or no, he had placed a distinctively reassuring slant to this particular one. "You feeling better?"

Char watched as just with that little gesture, Falcon's features loosened from their strained exertion in running back here, in favor of a tentative grin of her own. The redhead risked a glance back at Riku, who to his credit was standing his ground in the face of Falcon's admiration, and had to wonder what they were thinking about. Whether Falcon was remembering Char's words about only caring for him as a friend, or whether Riku was regretting even that paltry display of friendship and concern.

However, Falcon just nodded, walking a little past them and speaking over her shoulder. "I think so," she replied. "Just… just waiting for him, I guess." There was no question as to who _he_ was. The hitch in her voice skidded none too gently against the smooth cadence of their surroundings.

Riku's mouth shortened into a contemplative frown. _There's a more familiar look,_ Char thought with a surge of powerful relief, clinging to that familiarity both in Riku's nature and in Xehanort's. Before he could do much more than draw words to his tongue, though, another voice swept through the hall, growing louder as it approached.

Even with her back facing them, the way Falcon's back stiffened as she recognized that voice was just as poignant as if Char could see her face contorting in dread. That dread had a contagion about it, and so within moments the redhead had to look at Riku to distract herself from its effect on her. He merely stared straight ahead, a look of deceptive apathy wiping away the reassurance from earlier; however, Char could see the tightness in his jaw that belied his façade.

"Okay, guys, I think I'm ready. I'm almost out of healing items, though, so maybe we should stop by the shop before –" Copperhead glanced up from where he had been readjusting his scythe's scabbard along his back as he spoke, only to halt abruptly, both verbally and physically, at the sight of Falcon in front of him.

For a moment the two of them just watched each other. Discomfort rippled along Char's body at the obvious distrust in the slight arch of Falcon's spine, along with knowing just how much fury she had expressed this morning about the presence of this particular assistant.

Copperhead had dual shock and apprehension warring on his face – _oh yeah,_ Char remembered belatedly,_ we kind of forgot to tell him she was coming along_ – along with… reluctance. An unspoken _maybe I can just turn and get back to work now _that resonated as loudly as if he had spoken it aloud.

On his face there lingered fear, and that rattled Char, for some reason.

She told herself she was probably overthinking things, the thought echoing in a timbre that reminded her distinctly of a spiky-haired, key-wielding boy. Yet the anxiety revealed itself to her nonetheless, and it kept nagging at her with its oddness.

Then Copperhead drew himself up with a rather weak grin – that, while pathetic, at least was a vast improvement over nervousness. "Afternoon, Fal," he greeted. An awkward pause, then, "I'm guessing Char and Riku told you why I'm coming along?"

If his display of trepidation shadowing his every shift from one foot to the other surprised Char, it vanished instantly in her mind at his failing to use the inane nickname he had coined for her. Reduced to little more than a blinking, dumbstruck fool as she was, when Riku let out a tiny murmur of shock she just acknowledged it rather than delivering a sardonic remark about it.

Besides, even she knew she didn't want to hold the knife that cut the tension vibrating the air between Falcon and Copperhead.

Falcon, too, said nothing, though obviously out of something else rather than the pure bewilderment that rooted the boy she loved and – whatever the hell Char was to her, in place. What that something else answered to, Char didn't know. Fear, at the past that clung to this boy's back? Weariness, at the events of the day already having exhausted her emotionally?

Annoyance, at the presence of the very person she claimed to loathe so much?

Either way, Char realized she needed to stop dwelling on the dark-haired girl's emotional stability and focus on her own. _The sooner we find that machine, the sooner I can see Sora again. _"We should probably get going," she suggested, distracting herself from her asinine interest in Falcon's emotions with sounding brusque. "It's the middle of the day already, and I think Falcon said something about having multiple places to go?" She addressed this last part to the dark-haired girl, who turned to her with the distinct look of dread fading into disinterest.

Char held in a sigh. At least she still had enough energy to scorn her.

"Yeah," Falcon answered, speaking slowly, as if gathering her thoughts from where Copperhead's appearance had shattered them. Whether she had spent her time between stealing away to hide and now mentally preparing herself or not, now it seemed like those efforts were finally being put to good use. She looked at Riku, carefully avoiding both the redhead and the object of her hatred. "I'll lead the way. Let's go."

"Um, Fal?" Copperhead piped up tentatively from behind them, making her whirl back with undisguised annoyance.

"What?" she growled sharply.

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but he kept his response fairly bereft of aggression. "The item shop first," he suggested. One hand reached into his pocket and pulled the interior of it out to show it held nothing, and he brought that hand palm up almost anticipatively. "I told you I need some healing items."

Falcon looked as if she would very much like to argue, but seemed to understand that they still stood in the middle of the city hall – his workplace, much less a public corridor – and the idiocy of snarling at him now. So she just turned on her heel and threw a "fine" over her shoulder. Very quickly, the opaque oaken doors had swallowed her form up.

"This should be interesting," Riku muttered under his breath as the others began to follow, trying to catch up to the smaller girl's brisk pace.

"Gee, I wonder why?" Copperhead beat Char to the sarcasm, hefting the scythe's scabbard further up onto his back. The slightly venomous tint to his rhetorical inquiry made her glance at him, surprised.

Noticing her bemusement, he cocked an eyebrow, incorrigible grin slicing back into his features. "What? I can be mean, too." He punctuated the last part with a smirk-like quirk of his lips and a newfound glimmer lighting his eyes.

Char sighed, confusion immediately dissipating into exasperation. _Yep. He's back to normal._

* * *

She was starting to really resent Riku for not letting her pick up some munny before he had dragged her off.

When she voiced this to him, he stopped in his tracks, one hand resting on the glass door, and gave her an incredulous look. "You can't be serious. And you're saying this now… _why?"_

"Because it's a pain in the ass having Falcon and Copperhead pay for everything, that's why," Char retorted, folding her arms across her chest.

Behind her, Copperhead looked up from where he was emptying the plastic bag holding his purchases into his pockets, attentively listening at the sound of his name. "Wait, what about us paying for every – _damn it!"_ he suddenly yelped, stumbling to try and catch the multiple vials that had fallen out of his grasp during his maneuvering. As the shopkeeper had just vanished into the hall behind the sales counter, the only people effectively startled were Riku, Char, and Falcon.

The very latter spared him only a rudimentary glance – one that, however brief, smoldered with all the scorn that didn't condense itself in her voice – before striding past where he was trying to pick them up. "Come on, Fal!" he whined, but gathered his purchases into the pockets of his long coat nonetheless.

However, she ignored this, too. Didn't even spit an obligatory demand for him to not use that nickname. Instead, she just cocked her head at Riku. "I was thinking we would walk around the forest some more. There are some places we haven't looked at yet – some hidden areas where the Organization could've stashed the machine." She stumbled over the name of their enemies, as though it had just recently become familiar to her.

Which, in all likelihood, it had.

Char couldn't help wondering why Riku had withheld the name Organization XIII from Falcon. Probably because in the end, it mattered to no one but her, she who carried the most personal grudge toward them – a feeling that, while slightly dulled by Sora's calming influence, seethed and festered deep inside her nonetheless.

"Hidden parts of the forest, huh?" Riku pushed the door open, the movement heralding a high-pitched jingling noise that startled Char at first until she saw the bell above the door had rung and tried to relax. The four of them stepped outside, Falcon tactfully slipping forward to lead them.

They made their way through the town square, past the pathway that led to the interconnected office buildings, toward the dazzling blaze of brightness that was the river in the distance. Falcon answered Riku fairly smoothly, without turning to face even him. "Yeah, they're places we – _I _found a while back," she quickly amended.

Char heard Copperhead suddenly gasp behind her and twisted her head over her shoulder just in time to see his jaw drop slightly ajar and his lips quirk upward. "Are we going to go to the falls?" he asked eagerly, and the glow on his face shone so damn bright that Char almost wanted to look into the sun for a couple of seconds to dull the glare a bit. "Man, I still remember the day we found those."

_"Don't,"_ Falcon interrupted sharply, the word condensing into a low, threatening hiss. She stopped so abruptly in her tracks that Riku's chest collided with the back of her head, coaxing a grunt out of him. Char was spared his fate, though she did give Copperhead a warning look before he could crash into her in turn; he laughed sheepishly at the sight of her death glare, but even that amusement petered out as he stared at Falcon.

The dark-haired girl had pivoted on her heel to glower at Copperhead. Although quite a few inches of height stretched upward between them – not as much as between her and Riku's current body, but a fair bit – her tilting her head back to meet his gaze properly didn't muffle her fury in the slightest. An instant later, she whirled back around and set off again, leaving the others to hurry and catch up.

Again.

Char narrowed her eyes. _This is getting ridiculous. _She could understand Falcon not wanting Copperhead around – she had the same little issue with unleashing the full power of her temper on Organization members, even though time and companionship had filtered most of that anger recently – but her emotions had, so far, only proven detrimental to finding what they sought.

Maybe her rapidly-thinning patience finally wormed its way into her tongue; she wasn't sure. Either way, though, she heard herself open her mouth and ask anyway.

"Nowhere near the citadel, I'm guessing?"

Falcon froze for two seconds. Just a couple of seconds, during which Char felt a fiery surge of triumph at having gotten a genuine _reaction_ out of the female Keybearer. It was a testament to how strongly that triumph leaped within her, then, that only a few moments later guilt began to replace it.

She heard a sound that seemed caught between a grunt and a strangled gasp emitted from behind her – the verbal counterpart of Falcon's speechlessness and complete blankness in those emerald eyes on Char – and almost absently filed away that Copperhead seemed to share Falcon's fear toward the citadel.

_No_ – not fear. Apprehension, the flare of panic that lanced along one's spine at the thought of a site of pain.

The same feeling Char herself used to experience when so much as brushing the notion of visiting Hollow Bastion again.

Riku's amber eyes slid from Keyblade wielder, to seventh apprentice, to possible traitor, then between the three of them again. Around them, the hustle and bustle of the town rolled onward, as tireless and impassive as waves lapping at Riku's island, and the sound of footsteps swapping timbre when the surface beneath them changed from wooden bridge to concrete land. He thought about interfering, about taking Char aside and chiding her for the bluntness that had marked her for what felt like the umpteenth time that day, only for it to hit him rather abruptly that rebuking her made next to no sense.

The revelation felt a little like getting backhanded, with much the same result: staggering back, albeit mentally, and regarding the hand with a measure of shock.

Because hadn't he all but coveted the return of her straightforwardness?

Char focused on Falcon's face, on all the emotions swimming throughout her gaze, finding a bit of fascination in the way they shifted fluidly there. Fear, to dread, to anger, and then to resignation. "No," was all she said, before resuming once more.

Even though the older girl had turned so quickly she had offered Char only a glimpse of her final expression, the redhead had picked it up nonetheless. _Sorrow._

An emotion not unlike the one that had haunted her every thought of brown hair and dark blue eyes when she had first stumbled out of that portal and Riku had pinned her against the palace walls.

Thinking of Sora and everything they had gone through brought Char up short, all but jerked the reins holding her rampant fascination toward Falcon and Copperhead's dilemma and demanded why she had let it loose in the first place.

_I'm here only to get what I need to stop the Organization. Nothing else._

The thought carried her after Falcon, past the still-gawking Riku, and over the bridge.

* * *

One final swing of the crimson-bladed Guardian Soul proved too much for the anchor-wielding reaper Heartless, and it dissolved into smaller wisps of darkness. Sora lowered both his recently-found Keyblade and the Circle of Life, feeling the power that King Mickey had given him in Hollow Bastion thrumming throughout his entire body.

Although a thin thread of golden sunlight bathed the sea's horizon, the moon still held sway over the sky, and he glanced to Jack to see if defeating the Heartless had done what they wanted. To his relief, the pirate was lifting decidedly muscular arms and eyeing himself with a subdued smile: his equivalent of pure glee.

"I guess it worked," the Keybearer remarked. It was odd to not hear Donald and Goofy voicing their agreement; when he had transformed, almost without meaning to, the duck and dog had receded to the back of his mind, much like Goofy with Sora's Valor form and Donald with his Wisdom form. He tried to ignore the stark silence – female absence notwithstanding, of course, but he was _not_ going to dwell on that now – and slumped his golden-clad shoulders in exhaustion.

Jack nodded, only to straighten immediately as his gaze caught something just beyond Sora. "Ah, not quite." He pointed to somewhere behind Sora, making the brunette turn.

A bolt of sickening dread shot through him as the dim lighting revealed Luxord standing there, the same accursed smirk plastered across his face. The pink glow offered by the heart in his hand dubbed his form in that telltale light. "Bravo, Sora," he congratulated. He tossed the heart up toward the heavens, and Sora all but ran toward it before he remembered the inevitability of its destination and just stared despondently as it twirled up into the clouds.

Glancing back down again, he stifled a groan, for the final strand of darkness in Luxord's portal was just swirling out into oblivion. He clenched his fist – the one that, while normally free, currently gripped the Circle of Life's creamy hilt – and felt confusion mar his anger for all of about two seconds before he remembered he held it.

The next moment, he blinked in shock as Donald and Goofy stumbled back into visibility. Donald rubbed a feathered hand over his eyes, apparently pushing dizziness out of them, before whirling on his heel and glaring at Sora. "Next time, warn us before you do that!" he growled.

Goofy just nodded in tacit agreement, blinking hard to get both exhaustion and nausea alike out of his system.

Sora laughed sheepishly. "Sorry, guys." He meant the apology; after finding the _Interceptor's_ remains_,_ the four of them – Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jack – had spent the better part of this world's night and their internal clock's afternoon traipsing about this world, land and sea alike, searching for the stolen medallions.

Admittedly, with the Nobodies' off-white pallor, camouflaging into the night was impossible for them. However, that didn't by any means give them any less ability to hide. Sora thought back to how he had had to practically drag a struggling, card-wielding lesser Nobody out from behind a broken mast in the ship graveyard and held back a cringe at the memory.

He sighed. "Luxord got away, though."

"Luxord?" Goofy asked, the name curling out oddly from his lips in the manner of an unfamiliar word.

Sora stiffened; he had all but forgotten that his friends knew next to nothing of the knowledge Roxas' presence in his heart yielded to him. "That guy we just fought. One of the Organization. Number X, actually." The title poured forth before he could stop it, and he shook his head before he could say anything else. Brief though their face-to-face encounters had been – and as little as just seeing the other boy's presence in his dreams could tell him – Sora could almost hear Roxas dryly remarking, _you wanted to know, and I let you. Isn't that what you wanted?_

"The Organization of what now?" Jack queried from behind them, making them jolt slightly before facing him. One eyebrow had risen over a kohl-rimmed dark eye as he appraised them with aloof interest.

"They're…" Sora stopped immediately when it occurred to him that confessing even that much might tread close to the boundary between _meddling_ and not; but when Donald tugged his pant leg and just nodded, both relief at the permission to withhold any awkward lies and fear joined the blood in Sora's veins.

Because if even Donald, who had always given his stalwart opinion against saying anything about being from another world, eschewed his philosophy at this point, then maybe Sora wasn't the only one who wanted to see home and the ones he loved so badly.

He turned back to Jack Sparrow and spoke. "That guy that keeps showing up? He's part of an Organization that collects hearts." Now that the Circle of Life had turned back to Keychain form in his grasp, his nails freely dug into the palm of his hand, and he was reminded that he should probably trim them soon. "First, they release Heartless into different worlds. We defeat those Heartless. And…"

Fear and self-deprecation tightened his voice, strangling it until just thinking about the Organization's ultimate victory in his actions rendered it gone entirely. Sora stared down at the ground, watching the greasy, short grass and grasping desperately to find some purpose there. Looking down, he couldn't help thinking, _and now they have Kairi, and heaven only knows where Riku and Char and King Mickey are…_

Noticing the pain that made itself known even with the boy's hair obscuring his downturned face, Donald took it upon himself to finish. "And then they get the hearts," he said, quietly.

Jack appraised Sora with an expression of concern, muffled though it was. He reached forward as though to place a hand on the Keybearer's shoulder, then seemed to remember just what he was supposed to represent and dropping his arm back to his side. "So what's the plan, then?"

Sora lifted his head, blinking at the pirate. "The plan?" he echoed.

"You know, to make sure this Orga-who-whatsit never bring more Heartless here. Savvy?" Jack gestured vaguely with one hand in the air.

_The plan. _Char's suggestion from that last breakfast in the Gummi ship echoed in Sora's mind, and he echoed it, her words channeling into his. "We're going to find their stronghold, and take them down once and for all."

Reaffirming just what they were doing – his ulterior motive, besides revisiting the friends they had made on this journey – injected a fresh stream of determination into his heart, and the light offered by that effectively blotted out all his despondency. Thinking of Char now, he realized that the sorrow and confusion and fear that had accompanied her memory before had vanished. Had been replaced by the same resolve that had driven him toward Riku and Kairi all this time.

Somewhere during the day, somewhere between hunting the Nobodies down and fighting the reaper who held all the medallions, the memory of his terror as he watched maybe-Riku drag her into darkness had become less raw and painful. And Sora found himself only pushed onward by Char's phantom voice and eyes and kiss, instead of bogged down.

_About damn time, Key-boy._

Goofy placed a hand on his shoulder then, and he turned his head to meet the dog's gaze. The same determination that had just filled him was in Goofy's face; looking down at Donald, he saw understanding there, and relief as well.

Relief, at knowing their leader was back.

Jack raised his eyebrow higher. "I take it your missing lady friend is in their lair as well?"

Sora nodded, not even flinching at the obvious reference to Char. "We think so. But that's not the only reason we're going there. They have some of our other friends, too."

The sound of footsteps coming from nearby made them turn, just in time to see Will and Elizabeth approach. When the reaper Heartless had first appeared with the chest of medallions in tow, Sora and his companions had drawn their weapons, and he had shouted at the couple to hide. Of course, Will had insisted on helping, but his injuries from the battle with the Nobodies on the Isla de Muerta had forced him to join Elizabeth in a hidden alley.

Now, the young man winced and brought a hand to the bandages on his chest briefly before speaking. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Anything at all," Elizabeth added, casting Will a worried glance before looking back to the group.

Sora folded his arms in thought. He knew they couldn't exactly take three extra people on the Gummi ship, and they still had other friends to visit. In the end, he brought his arms back down to his side and looked from pirate, to blacksmith, to woman. "Just make sure the Heartless don't get ahold of the medallions again. We all know how that ended up."

Thinking of the previous battle, Donald whipped out his staff and cast a healing spell on all of them. Emerald light cascaded over the four fighters, and Sora sighed in relief as his more minor cuts closed up. "Thanks, Donald," he told the mage.

Jack put a hand to his side, before remembering that he had been in skeletal form for most of the fight and, therefore, having bled considerably little. "Never gonna get over how weird that is, mate," he remarked, shaking his head.

Donald huffed indignantly. "If you don't want my help, just say so!"

"Calm down, Donald," Goofy said, only slightly ignored.

"Well, if beating back the Heartless is all you need, then we'll be ready," Will said, smiling at the trio.

"But not just yet," Elizabeth told him firmly, turning him away and beginning to walk off. "You need time to heal first."

Their voice eventually receded behind the walls surrounding the area, and Sora looked to Jack again. The pirate had been watching the other two world natives walk off, mouth twitching at Will's insistence on his status, but he turned back to Sora. "Sora, you can't really expect a pirate to stay very long, can you?"

Sora laughed, rolling his eyes. "Of course. _The_ Captain Jack Sparrow has places to be, right?"

"And so do we," Donald reminded him.

Goofy nodded. "We should be gettin' back to the vessel."

"Right, right," Sora chuckled, sparing Jack a wave. As he turned away, he heard Sparrow call his name; the fact that he had actually gotten the word right startled him into glancing back. _Guess he finally learned my name… that or he knew it all this time and was just trying to bait me. _Knowing Jack, it was probably the latter, a fact that made Sora suppress a sigh.

"What's goin' on?" Goofy asked, tilting his head to the side in a way that made his ears swing.

Jack's eyes darted down to the Keyblade in Sora's hand. "The next time you come back," he said, "I'll have a bloodthirsty crew ready to take that blade of yours." He dipped one finger down toward the Guardian Soul as he mentioned it.

Despite the almost obligatory nature of the vow, the Keybearer caught the covetous gleam in Jack's gaze. A grin tugged at his lips as an idea to return Jack's teasing came into his mind. "You can take it now, if you want," he offered, trying as best he could to keep an amused tremor out of his voice. "I've got a million others like it."

_Like the Oathkeeper – a promise. _

Jack blinked, his equivalent of widening his eyes in shock. "Wait a tick," he said suspiciously. "Where's the rub?"

"No rub," Donald grinned, clearly having caught on to Sora's trick. Beside him, Goofy put a hand over his mouth to stifle his giggle. "It's true. He does have other Keyblades."

The pirate squinted at them, but soon his greed proved too much to resist. He strode forward and plucked the Guardian Soul out of Sora's outstretched hand, eyeing the Keyblade with awe and satisfaction; an instant later, though, the light of it vanishing from his grip illuminated his startled expression. It reappeared back in Sora's hand, and he lifted his free hand, palm up, as if to apologize. "It just does that," he explained smoothly, while Goofy let out an "a-hyuck" of pure mirth.

Sora fought back laughter of his own when Jack's mild surprise faded back to his normal expression. "There," he commented, "I knew there was something more to it. But mark me, Sora – one day I'll be back for that blade."

"With Will and Elizabeth?" Donald quipped.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Jack shrugged.

"But you've always got the _Pearl,"_ Goofy pointed out.

"Aye, that I do." The pirate turned away, sparing them a glance over his shoulder. "Sora! Make sure you take down that Organization, so they never plague the seas again."

Sora nodded. "Aye, aye, captain!" he joked, making Sparrow sigh indulgently before sauntering off, back to the harbor where his ship waited.

Turning back to his friends, the Keybearer blinked when he saw the pure happiness on their faces. "What's up, guys?"

"We're just glad you're not all sad anymore, Sora," Goofy said, a sniffle marring his voice. Astonishment spread throughout the Keybearer's body as the glint of the rising sun caught off the brightness in the knight's gaze.

Donald huffed and folded his arms. "Yeah, it was kind of stupid," he grumbled, though his annoyed tone wobbled a bit as well.

"Guys…" Sora began, then cut himself short with a sigh. Stooping down, he gathered the two of them together and hugged them close; predictably, Donald struggled a bit at first, only to relax into the embrace.

"I still want to get her back," he confessed, suddenly needing to assure his friends once and for all. At the same time, though, he felt a rush of warmth to both his heart and the back of his eyes at knowing they were still here for him.

That, at the very least, he would never be alone.

"More than anything," he went on, "I want them to be here again. Riku, Kairi, Char, and the King. But there's no use in letting sadness for them keep us down for too long."

As he spoke, he couldn't help cringing a little, as his words belied the true melancholia that had plagued him at having Char gone. However, he said nothing of this, just released them and stood up again. "Let's get back to the Gummi ship."

"Yeah!" Donald said, gripping his staff and nodding firmly.

* * *

Once they returned to the ship and stepped inside, pale brown blurs announced Chip and Dale leaping onto the dashboard and frantically waving them over. "What's up, guys?" Sora asked, walking over to greet them.

"While you guys were gone, we got a weird reading on the map," Chip explained, wrinkling his black nose in confusion.

"So we went to take a look at it. But…" Dale wrung his paws.

"But?" Donald prompted, hopping onto a chair to see them better.

"See for yourselves," Chip said, gesturing nervously down at the map. Together, Sora and his friends leaned close, to see a blur of paler green swirling just beyond Twilight Town's tower globe on the screen. Unlike the other worlds on the screen, this misshapen mass moved about, converging together and dividing again like multiple cells.

"That's weird," Sora remarked, brow furrowing in bemusement.

"You don't think…" Donald began. The knight and the boy looked at him, as did the chipmunks. Seeing the others listening to him, Donald obliged them and continued, an odd sort of tentativeness in his voice. "What if that's the Organization's stronghold, and it just hasn't shown up fully yet?"

Sora's eyes widened. "That makes sense! But… why is it so blurry on the map?"

Dale shook his head. "We don't know, Sora. But we do know you can't get near it just yet."

"So we gotta keep lookin' for a back way in," Goofy said. Chip and Dale nodded in confirmation.

Sora sighed, his momentary burst of hope dying down into disappointment. Thoughts of reuniting with Kairi, which had flown into his mind at the notion of heading straight to Organization XIII's world, vanished as well; the darkness left behind by her smile and her warm eyes on him was almost painful. "I figured there was a catch." _Like Jack said: there's always a catch._ "Well," he added in a hasty attempt at optimism, "all we can do is keep going to the worlds and look for a way. Right?"

"Er, about that, Sora…" Goofy cut in hesitantly.

Hearing the cadence of words left unspoken, Sora shifted his gaze to the knight, who was twiddling his thumbs and staring down at the recently-cleaned tile floor. "What's up, Goofy?" he asked, settling into the chair nearest him. As fate would have it, he had chosen the pilot's seat.

Donald blinked, then his longtime friend's meaning seemed to become clear to him, and he tapped Sora's shoulder from where he knelt on the next chair over. "I know the sun's just now coming up here," he said, "but searching for the medallions took almost all night."

"And we haven't even eaten lunch yet," Goofy added, apparently invigorated out of his polite silence by Donald's boldness in speaking up. "It feels like it's kinda late, a-hyuck."

The brunette blinked. Now that the adrenaline of the day's events had worn off, he could detect the exhaustion that weighed down his companions' shoulders and dulled their eyes.

And that began to seep through him, deadly as a toxic fog and twice as heavy, as well.

Reminiscing on what all had happened today – waking up, shoving breakfast hurriedly down his throat, finding Auron and Anxclof and taking down Hades, the emotional conflict that seeing Luxord had heralded, returning the medallions to their proper place, and recovering his resolve – only enhanced that feeling, until it became an effort just to keep his head upright. He glanced over his shoulder, the movement feeling sluggish, and honed in on the clock Cid had stationed on the wall when he had renovated the Gummi ship. Although the engineer had set the clock to Hollow Bastion time, Sora and the others' internal clocks operated on that time, and so he winced when he saw the numbers blinking redly out at him. _7:29._

"I didn't realize we'd spent so much time in this world," he breathed. Chip and Dale exchanged nervous glances before hopping back down into their own chamber, while Donald folded his arms against the top of the dashboard, almost guiltily gratified. Goofy just stared uncomfortably at the ground.

Looking back at them made all four Disney residents meet his gaze: the chipmunks popping their heads up, and Donald and Goofy raising their faces to him. "I'm sorry, guys," Sora said, fighting back a sigh. "I forgot how long running around two worlds in one day takes." When he had departed from Traverse Town on his first journey, fear for Riku and Kairi and the loneliness brought on by being separated from them for the first time in years had driven him almost manically onward. At least, until Donald had all but pinned him against the controls and snarled at him to take things one day at a time. They had stayed up for nearly twenty hours a few times, wandering around the worlds and picking up secrets.

Sora had hoped that in a year – an infuriatingly blank year, but a year nonetheless – he would have changed a bit.

_But the same thing's going on,_ he reminded himself. _You'd just lost the most important people to you. Riku and Kairi._

_ And now it's happened again. With Char._

He clenched his fist; if she were here, she would undoubtedly take Donald and Goofy's stance on this situation. _Calm the hell down, Key-boy, rushing isn't going to change anything. _

A dull ache reverberated throughout his body at the thought of her, but at least the pure visceral agony from before had finally receded, after what felt like years.

And so he found himself surrendering to Donald and Goofy's unspoken wishes; they were clearly remembering the old days as well, for the dog actually winced openly. "We'll take things one world, one day at a time," he promised.

His word was true, and yet guilt struck him momentarily at how his friends sighed in relief. "Thanks, Sora," Goofy said, standing up and smiling gratefully at the Keybearer. "We all really appreciate it."

"We know you're in a hurry to find your friends again, Sora," Dale said, startling said brunette into looking down at the chipmunks.

"But if we're too tired when we do find them, that won't do, will it?" Chip finished.

Sora nodded, understanding completely. Beside him, Donald uttered a begrudging grunt of thanks. "So," he said, turning to Goofy, "what's for dinner tonight?"

* * *

"Well, that was a pointless day of aggravation and pain," Char sighed, all but falling against Falcon's back door as it swung against her. Thankfully, Riku caught the door before it could add a nosebleed to her already-prolific list of injuries, minor though they were, and she cast him a grateful look, exhaustion bogging down her instinctively questioning his manners.

She dragged herself over the threshold and, seeing Falcon settle on the couch as gracefully as she could with the events of the last few hours weighing her down, had to fight the urge to flop down under the table and join her in stretching out comfortably. Dammit, but she hadn't been this tired in a while – hadn't experienced this achy, physical fatigue that rendered her all but useless.

"I didn't think there would be so many Heartless around the falls," Falcon sighed, straightening briefly only to hunch over again and lean over the table. "They're usually lurking closer to the center of the forest." Her fingers groped about, in search of something; Char watched, confused, for a few moments, before her brain caught up and recognized that Falcon was seeking some bandages.

Briefly, a confused frown stole across Char's face, and then she remembered that healing magic's abilities only extended so far. Although a simple Cura spell could close up most of the trio's wounds, Char found herself unable to blame Falcon for not mustering up the mental energy to use any mana.

Riku cast Char a concerned look. "You all right?" he queried.

The redhead shrugged, only to almost trip over her own feet not a second later; Riku's steady hand at the center of her spine kept her from a humiliating fall, and even though she knew his heart belonged to a girl he had known since childhood and had for over ten years, Char couldn't help shivering at the contact.

Some amount of that movement must have transferred into his palm warm against her back, for he quickly withdrew his hand as if he had reached into flame. "I'm just tired," she confessed, syrupy grogginess all but devouring her words.

The gray-haired young man nodded, rubbing his side. Earlier in the day, while he had busied himself fighting off a swarm of the ganglier Shadow Heartless, one of the robotic ones that had given Sora and Char trouble in Hollow Bastion had crept up and gored him just beneath the ribcage. While the robot had paid for this mistake with its life, the blow had done its damage, both to Riku and to his outfit. The leather of his coat had torn and given way under that sword's sharpness, and so dried blood peeked up from within the billowing darkness' confines.

"You're telling me," he groaned. "Stupid things wouldn't leave us alone."

"Go to bed if you need to," Falcon suggested, coming up wielding a roll of gauze in each hand. From the neutrality on her face, she had either not seen Riku's hand all but sifting through the ends of Char's hair or was pretending she had not. Char chose to believe it was the former, if only because tiredness kept her from immediately assuming the more negative option was true.

"Seriously," the dark-haired girl added, pupils sliding from one teen to the other. _She must be tired,_ Char mused blearily, _if she's actually talking to me for once. _"You guys look like hell."

"And you don't?" Riku retorted, only half-jokingly. He turned to Char. "You should sleep; you'll need all the energy you can get when we search again tomorrow."

She blinked. Had the day not commenced the way it did, had it not lasted as long as she felt like it had, she might have taken umbrage at his only including her in needing that energy. Would have interpreted the comment as condescending. However, thoughts of bed and sleeping in that bed pervaded any indignation she might have felt, and so she only sighed. "What about you?"

Riku shrugged, staring down at the rip in his cloak. "I need to get this fixed up. Wouldn't want it to break open in the middle of the night and bleed all over Falcon's couch."

"Your courtesy is noted and appreciated," Falcon said, smiling a little. Much as weariness inhibited Char's ability to think coherently, the warmth in that tiny upward slant was not lost on her. If anything, that warmth had increased after Char had told Falcon she wasn't interested in Riku that way.

But it was too much to consider right now, and so she just bid them good night and trudged up to her room to strip off her jacket and collapse into bed.

* * *

Bluh bluh boring shit. DX At least during the next day some RELEVANT shit will actually happen. And hey, Sora and Char aren't depressed anymore? Aren't you proud of me?

Review, please?


	70. Chapter LXX

Merry early Christmas, everyone! :D I say this both because of this update and because this is basically y'all's Christmas gift from me. I wanted to finish up this day/Halloween Town in this chap, but it's 23 pages as it is. On the bright side, next chapter is ALL original content not from the game. And this chapter has ACTION in it! So rejoice... I guess...?

The other reason I couldn't get another chapter done before Christmas is because of two things. A) my relatives are visiting tomorrow to Friday, and B) my mom thought it'd be a good idea to shove me, her, and Dad into a car and drive twelve hours to Iowa for New Year's. I'll try and get some writing done on the trip, but it's uncertain right now.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter! I'm rather proud of it, actually.

_**Disclaimer-**_ Don't own KH.

* * *

Sora's eyes slowly flickered open, blinking in the sliver of watery green light drifting into his room from the blinds half-drawn over their windows. He fumbled about briefly in the sheets, which had tangled themselves rather intricately around him, before he remembered he wasn't in his room at Destiny Island and no alarm clock sat on his desk. In spite of his grogginess, the revelation made him blink; the misconception hadn't entered his mind for a while now.

Then again, he hadn't driven himself through every world in an imitation of his Keyblade through Heartless like he had initially.

Very slowly, he sat up, careful not to make himself dizzy with the movement, and found the clock on the wall, much like the one he had glanced at yesterday after he and his friends had stepped into the Gummi ship. To his confusion, the clock seared the numbers _4:47_ into his bleary vision.

_Wonder when I got to sleep last night,_ he wondered, blinking. _I remember eating dinner, and showering, and then I pretty much went to bed right after that. _Bringing one hand up to tousle his sleep-mussed spikes, he found his hair still felt slightly damp on his fingertips. Distracting himself with these trivialities only kept his mind off exactly why his consciousness had chosen to wake him for a few seconds, and soon he was brought back to his initial bemusement all over again.

He looked out at the door, which resembled a dark rectangle in his vision, and couldn't help remembering the momentous incident that had occurred right there. If he wasn't so tired, he might have spared a few moments reminiscing about how the single tear on Char's face had felt trembling against his finger, or the taste of her lips; however, all he could think was that her mouth had tasted just a lot like skin.

Which had been fine with him, really.

Now that Char had entered his mind, he found himself remembering the reason why he had woken up in the first place. He could vaguely recall that she had starred in his dream last night, and that, for some reason, they had been playing cards. Poker, in particular. Sora didn't even know how he could remember the scant lessons Riku had given him in playing that card game, but nonetheless, they had shone through the fabric in his subconscious and lit the stage for the dream.

For some reason, his mind seemed to have decided to make Char particularly skilled at poker, despite how on that very first day on the Gummi ship she had thrown her cards down in annoyed surrender to Sora's playing aptitude – the source of which he still didn't know, he realized with a frown. _Then again,_ he thought, _her being good at poker makes sense, considering everything she was hiding from us before. _

Thinking of her barring him and the others from her secrets – from the secrets about their enemies – stung, but the feeling was muted, both out of the film his sleepy body had cast over his emotions and a couple of days having passed since she had sat them down in Ansem's study and told them everything. From her connection to the Organization, Roxas being Sora's Nobody, and everything in between.

Rather than condemn her for having loosed the gates of his doubt toward taking down Roxas' former comrades, though, Sora smiled as the remainder of his dream poured into his mind. Because he could remember his mirroring her gesture from that month ago, albeit with a bit more self-control than she had exhibited then.

And her laughing, lightly at first, then louder as her amusement at his expense elicited an indignant pout.

Sora couldn't remember anything that might have happened after that, because his consciousness had chosen that moment to awaken him. Had he not put every ounce of melancholia at her kidnapping behind him yesterday, he might have dwelled on the raw panic from when he had swung around and seen that dark figure dragging her away; now, though, the strength of yesterday's resolution was strong enough that he could only think of how much he needed to see that smile again.

He settled back, curled his fingers into the sheets, and closed his eyes, willing sleep to return so he could be ready for the day ahead.

* * *

Falcon was aware of Riku, Char, and Copperhead following close behind her as the dull buzz of conversation from the people who worked in the office buildings and the courtyard's fountain faded, replaced by that of the town square. Billowing gray clouds had gathered overnight and now hovered high above, their heaviness promising a good rain. As a result of bad weather's caveat, not as many people bustled about as usual, which worked just as well for her.

"We must've scoured every corner of the forest yesterday," Char remarked.

Although the comment was an innocent statement of fact, Falcon bristled anyway, because she knew for a fact that they hadn't raked over every single tree. It made her remember Char's rather pointed reference to how Falcon skirted a wide arc around where her parents had died.

Her shoulders tensed at the other half of that memory, one that wedged itself a little past the door she had slammed against it: how one of their murderers – the one who hadn't absconded into the storm between her taking her own heart and awakening – now walked just behind her. The irony was so palpable she could have screamed.

In public, though, scarce amount of people besides shopkeepers notwithstanding, Falcon only turned her head to signify she had heard the redhead. Somehow, she got the feeling if she looked into those icy eyes and found no trace of accusation, she would just get angrier. "That's why we're not _going_ to the forest today," she growled out.

"Then where would we go?" Copperhead tentatively ventured. Surprising, that he was risking his own head stirring her already-boiling temper with his voice, when his presence was doing enough to infuriate her.

Her anger had begun to simmer earlier, when they had arrived at the city hall to pull him out of work again and that insufferable grin of his had faltered upon landing on her. Part of her had felt gratified that her hatred of him wreaked some sort of effect on him, but another part had demanded, however silently, to know what had happened to the man she had fallen for when she was younger and stupider. To the best friend who had charged into battle often before she did, scythe swinging and bloodlust roaring, with an enthusiasm she had always envied.

_I know what happened. His brother died. _It hardly excused what he had done, but Falcon knew that was where his betrayal had begun.

And she did _not_ need that treacherous, gods-damned sympathy rising up inside her in a vicious black tide, so she pushed that wave into the confines of her mind and decided to answer his question. "There are other parts of town where we haven't looked, so I was thinking we'd run through there. See if anybody knows anything."

Char let out a sound of understanding. "That makes sense. No one in the main part of town had anything for us; it won't hurt to find some new sources of information."

"You sound like you're talking about machines or something, Blaze," Copperhead chuckled. Confusion made Falcon quirk a brow, until Char's rather flustered demand of "Don't call me that!" told her he was referring to Char. Even with her own experience with his asinine nicknames, a spiteful smirk passed over Falcon's face, that she was not the only victim of his inability to just call someone by their real name.

Riku had had the good grace to keep silent this whole time, but now he spoke, amusement-tinged voice soothing the annoyance that hearing Char and Copperhead had released into Falcon's body. "I guess you're back to normal."

"Meaning?" Char asked, slitted eyes audible in that single word.

"When he first started calling you that, you just sat there and took it. And I _know_ you hate being called anything but Char," Riku elaborated. Falcon's own eyes narrowed at his affectionate tone, eyelashes blurring her view of the pathway ever so slightly. Jealousy roiled within her, only leaping higher when Char uttered an indulgent scoff and replied, "Yeah, I guess you've got a point."

_About Riku… I don't… I don't like him like that. Not the way you do._

At the time Falcon's first instinct had been to immediately deny Char's final claim, even though she herself knew how true it was – and, at the time, how obvious she was being about it as well. She had gotten flustered at the new possibilities this confession heralded to her; at the number of pathways it lit up, pathways that Char's presence had darkened temporarily. Riku had mentioned having two best friends, one male and one female, back home, but as said female had yet to appear, Falcon had never paid much mind to that.

Had never paid much attention, she realized abruptly, to the way his eyes softened when he mentioned the maroon hair and violet eyes and unfailing kindness of that friend. _Kairi,_ her name was. Falcon had noticed his notable change in demeanor, the gentleness of his voice as it wrapped around the name, but it had hurt too much to consider, so she had forced herself to forget about it.

It was a testament to her emotions persevering, then, that a thin tongue of agony lanced across her heart at remembering his tenderly speaking of Kairi.

Almost without realizing it, one hand lifted to press against her abdomen, where Xemnas' luminescent blades had sliced her. Because once upon a time, she had loved her best friend as well.

By this time, the four of them had left the town square behind, as well as the urban part of the Shadowed Desert. For some reason, this particular pathway, winding about and shaded by trees as it was, seemed vaguely familiar to her; she spent a couple of moments trying to place it, moments that proved lucrative when it finally hit her. However, once she realized the reason behind this place's scratching at the back of her memory, she fought back a shiver.

It was the path she had always taken to get to Copperhead's house, what felt like an eternity ago.

Fighting every ounce of her body that screamed at her not to, she dared look back over her shoulder at Copperhead, wondering if the same forsaken nostalgia brought on by memories of walking along here swarmed throughout his heart as well. Char and Riku were trailing behind him, much to Falcon's displeasure: both because the two of them had their heads bent close together as if discussing something important, and because she couldn't even properly analyze Riku's expression due to Copperhead obscuring them.

He lifted his head and gazed at her, shoulders twitching almost imperceptibly, as if he had never intended to meet her eyes. To her surprise, he stared evenly back at her, even though he had to find enough condemnation on her face already.

Eventually, the violet sun offered by his eyes proved too much for her, and, to her immense shame, she had to tear herself away before that light consumed her in its promise entirely. _Remember what he did to you. _

_ "You think I'll ever come back to you after this?"_ she had snarled at him that horrible night. _"Things don't work that way, Copperhead! You're such a whore that you should know this by now!"_ At the time, his betrayal had sliced deep into her and hurt so much more than the lingering ache from having driven that Keyblade into her chest ever could; the mental image of him staring despondently after her had burned itself into her brain and flashed every time she blinked.

Now, though, after she had gotten a year to let the memory of her parents become less raw and painful, she only found herself torn between anger toward him and the memory of what had been.

She lifted her gaze back to their surroundings and saw the trees lining the path's perimeter had spread out to surround a clearing instead. Quickly, her eyes sought out a spot to sit down; all of a sudden, exhaustion had tucked its dark wings over her shoulders. Its source was all too clear to her, which only infuriated her more.

Her gaze landed on a tree stump near the center of the clearing, and she turned to the others. "We can rest here for a little bit."

"But we've barely gone anywhere," Copperhead pointed out.

Falcon folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at him. "We're going to need all the rest we can get. Especially with where we're heading."

The words were a subtle jab at him, and they both knew it, if the way his eyes narrowed was any indication; however, he had the common sense not to acknowledge it. Not when she already felt like firing a shard of ice into the next thing that roused her temper. "Well, whatever. I can work with that. Before I got to work this morning, I went by this sandwich place and picked up some lunch."

"Wow, you actually thought ahead," Riku commented, watching as Copperhead drew four plastic bags out of his pockets. "Didn't think you had it in you."

His dry remark earned him a playful glare from the other man, before he extended one bag to Riku. "I remember you saying how you liked roast beef, so I got that for you." Riku took it with grudging gratitude, and amid the sound of his unwrapping the plastic, Copperhead handed another to Char. "And for Blaze, another roast beef," he announced extravagantly, and Falcon could almost feel her eyes shifting in their sockets with how hard she rolled them.

Char glared at him, although she did tear the food out of his grasp. "Okay, seriously – now it's just getting annoying. I don't see you giving _Riku_ an asinine nickname."

"Leave me out of this," Riku muttered, after swallowing a mouthful of food.

Falcon plopped down on the tree stump and glared out at the forest, hoping she could somehow incinerate the trees with her eyes and pretend they were Copperhead. "That's because he only does it to girls," she grumbled under her breath.

She heard him draw in breath to retort, then a sigh of surrender from him. Infuriatingly enough, a smile was still audible in his response. "Well, yeah."

A frustrated growl came from Char's direction, and Falcon allowed a small, satisfied grin to quirk her lips upward briefly. At least, until she felt a finger gingerly tap her shoulder and turned to see Copperhead kneeling next to her with a plastic-wrapped sandwich in his hand.

"I, uh… here," he finished lamely, for once wiped of all eloquence. The plastic wrap creaked as it made contact to her hand from his, as clumsy and awkward as the day he had first kissed her. Falcon was vaguely aware of Char and Riku speaking in hushed voices nearby, as though resuming their discussion that had so drawn her attention earlier; however, it failed to do so now, as she perfunctorily unwrapped her sandwich.

Copperhead was already shuffling off, presumably toward another corner of the clearing so he could eat without the fear of her barbed tongue slicing into him. And yet Falcon found herself totally bereft of the urge to snarl some obligatory pejorative after him, because even after two years he still remembered her tastes.

_"You mean you hate mayo on your sandwich?"_ eighteen-year-old Copperhead had asked her sixteen-year-old self, eyebrows arching on his forehead. In the background, Dyme's sitar had unfurled a quiet, gentle melody that enfolded Copperhead's kitchen and wrapped both of them in a feeling of serenity.

_"Yeah,"_ she had answered, wrinkling her nose. _"I just can't stand the texture, is all."_

_ "Well, okay,"_ Copperhead said, drawing out the last word as he nudged the jar of mayonnaise toward his own slices of bread. _"Is there anything else you don't like?"_ He asked it in an almost expectant manner, and she nudged him playfully.

_"Just tomatoes. Everything else is fine."_

_ "What? What kind of red-blooded human being doesn't like tomatoes?"_

And then Dyme's playing had stopped, and he had called out for them to stop arguing and just make the stupid sandwiches already.

The mental recollection of Copperhead's kitchen melted away then, broke down into more bucolic trees and thick clouds rolling above and the sounds of the forest instead of the sounds of the music. _That was before everything went wrong,_ she reflected, and focused on biting into her sandwich in lieu of thinking about said everything.

Char watched Copperhead stalk off to another part of the clearing, before Riku cleared his throat and drew her attention back to him. "All right," he began warily, "you said you wanted to talk about this alone. This is alone as we're ever going to get."

His brusque words made her draw in a sharp breath as the subject of their discussion earlier, while Falcon had led them out of the town square and into the part of the forest that didn't border the citadel, slipped back into her mind. "This isn't actually alone," she dodged. "We're not the only ones here –"

_"Char,"_ he cut her off warningly, amber glare piercing into her and inducing a glower of her own. She bit fiercely into her sandwich, hoping she could delude herself into thinking she was chewing on Riku's head, then lowered it and sighed once she had chewed and swallowed. As much as she didn't want to have to tell him about this – didn't want to be the one who tore him apart and muddled their goal in his mind – once the subject of her bad news had drifted into their conversation, he had refused to believe her lie about said subject's true location.

"If Kairi's not on the island," Riku said, desperation inching into his words and distorting them slightly, "then where _is_ she?"

Char hesitated, tapped the fingers of her free hand against her thigh, and crossed her legs again. Unfortunately, these actions only stalled for a grand total of six seconds, and soon she had to lift her head and look at his serious expression again. For a moment, watching his fingers twitch at his side, she could very nearly imagine those orange eyes flickering into the turquoise that their year together in Twilight Town had shown her.

Out of respect to that memory, and the need to wipe that pure terror off his face – it was weird on both Xehanort and his countenances, after all – she sighed and told him.

"The Organization got her. Well, actually, Axel did."

His brows drew together in shock and horror, and he all but rose to his feet before Char's hand shot out and gripped his sleeve to drag him back down again. Quickly, the redhead glanced over her shoulder to check if either of their companions had caught a glimpse of the potential outburst she had just prevented; seeing that both Falcon and Copperhead still had their backs turned toward them, she released him and watched his legs all but crumple back into a sitting position.

He drew his knees up and rested his elbows on them, such an insecure position for him. Those amber eyes stared out at her with such a horrified expression that nausea began to swirl about in Char's own gut as well, assisted by the food already there. "You're sure?" he managed at last, after a few uncomfortable moments spent groping for words.

Char sighed and nodded. "Straight from Axel's mouth. And I know he couldn't have been lying," she added as Riku tried to interrupt, "because… because he was talking to Sora."

"And so he was talking to Roxas too," Riku finished for her, gray locks spilling over his shoulder and brushing the tops of his knees. _And he wouldn't lie to Roxas._

A beat, then, seeing Riku had yet to surface from the abyss of despair this revelation had just pulled him into, Char spoke. "I… I think he's doing it to lure Sora to the World That Never Was. So he can let the Heartless take his heart and get Roxas back. Just like what Anxclof was doing, but not as…"

"Direct?" Riku interjected, wry tone significantly deadened by the fact that he spoke to the ground rather than her. He sighed, one hand running back over his hair. "They're not… Xemnas hasn't done anything to her yet, has he?"

"I don't know why he would," Char said, nervous stuttering of her heart in her chest beginning to calm as the near-crippling dread of telling him this ebbed as well. Guiltily, she found herself a little relieved that Riku hadn't jumped up and tried to open a portal to the World That Never Was right then and there. "She's a Princess of Light. If their plan with Sora fails, she's their Plan B for opening Kingdom Hearts."

Riku sighed, the air whooshing out of him as her relief spread to him, though for an entirely different, more altruistic reason. "As long as she's not hurt, then we can keep looking. Ansem's machine is the next step to taking down the Organization," he added, almost as if to reassure himself of why he hadn't taken off already. "So… if we find it here, we can just go straight there and get Kairi."

_It's not a big deal,_ Char could almost hear him telling himself. _It's not a big deal._

Before she could stop herself, she leaned forward and lightly pressed her hand against his forearm. The contact made him lift his head with a surprised murmur and stare oddly at her, and she felt a surge of annoyance at the way his pupils darted down to where his warmth was soaking into her fingers through the leather. _I can't try and reassure my friend?_

Then again, before she had set off with Sora, she wouldn't have bothered trying to reassure him at all, let alone physically.

_It'll be fine, Riku, you'll see, we'll get her back,_ she could almost hear Sora saying, and yet couldn't bring herself to channel him that way. The changes only extended so far, she supposed.

But then the sound of footsteps pattering frantically over the ground became audible, and she quickly withdrew her hand and stood up. Riku did the same, albeit with turning around to watch the young man stumble out from where they had come.

"What's wrong?" Falcon asked, racing up to stand beside Riku. Char heard fabric caressing the light breeze and felt Copperhead silently moving to stand next to her as well.

The intruder had been bent over, hands braced against his knees, to catch his breath, but now he lifted his head to fix them with a pleading stare. Char's eyes widened as she saw something dark and thick ooze down his cheek and fall onto the dirt. Crimson streaked his uniform, and it hit her with the force of a Heartless' claw that she knew this man. "Falcon, Copperhead," he gasped out.

"James?" Copperhead shot forward and caught the young waiter from the restaurant by the shoulders, as he was swaying on his feet. "James, what the hell's going on?"

Hearing his customer's voice, James lifted his head woodenly, though his gaze landed on Falcon, who stood just behind him with her Keyblade already in hand. "Giant Heartless," he managed. "In the town square. Mayor told me to get help."

Copperhead was already wrapping the waiter's arm around his waist and stretching his own across the back of his shoulder for support. "What're we waiting for?" he growled at them, determination tightening his jaw. "We have to get back to town. Now!"

* * *

Christmas Town was just as warm as Sora remembered. He readjusted the pumpkin-shaped mask so it didn't obscure his eye quite so much, reflecting on how Donald had transported them down from the Gummi ship with his new staff right after they had donned their Halloween Town garb.

Behind him, Jack Skellington hefted the presents in his arms. "Well, Sora? Lead the way. We've got to get to Sandy's house and get these back to him."

"Of course we do," Donald muttered, only half-jokingly.

"I told you already, I just found these! And Sally worked very hard making this suit, so I figured I should wear it." The skeleton turned back to Sora, ignoring the doubtful grunt from Donald and the indulgent chuckle from Goofy.

"All right, all right," the Keybearer laughed, pushing the door to Santa's house open. As he did so, though, he couldn't help remembering what had happened the last time he had walked into this particular building.

He winced ever so slightly at the memory of rebuking Char for her aversion toward Christmas, before he even knew why she was behaving that way. Before he even knew Ansem was withholding the special gifts, both material and emotional, of Christmas from her.

And, now that he thought about it, before he had even known Ansem's true identity in the first place.

Shaking the regret aside, he stepped into the hallway. Goofy grunted in surprise as he, Donald, and Jack were forced to move into single file to accommodate the narrow corridor, and Sora grinned at the sound, allowing himself a single moment of amusement before talking to Santa; that amusement only amplified when Jack cleared his throat upon stooping down to fit into the doorway.

"You need some help with those presents, Jack?" Sora asked.

The skeleton's face brightened as much as it could. "That would be splendid! Thank you!" He tipped one elbow down to transfer about half of his burden into Sora's grasp.

Turning back around, the brunette trotted into the main room, Jack and the others close behind.

Santa was sitting in front of the burning fireplace, quill scratching away at a long scroll whose ends scraped the floor. Sora guessed he was working on his "nice list," and couldn't help asking, "Am I on your nice list now, Santa?"

Hearing the boy's voice, Santa jolted in surprise and turned to face them. "Good morning, Sora!" he greeted, and then winked with a glimmer in his eye. "And that, my boy, is between me and my elves." Sora pouted a little at that, but the disappointment didn't last long. He set his pile of presents down on the table, and Jack did the same.

Santa's eyes widened at the sight. "Wherever did you two find those? My elves have been scouring Christmas Town for the better part of an hour!"

"They were in Halloween Town," Jack explained. "You'll be needing them for Christmas, right, Sandy?" he went on, heedless of the suspicious slant Father Christmas' eyes gained.

"In Halloween Town, were they?" he asked, cocking his head toward Sora, Donald, and Goofy in a silent request for an explanation. Sora couldn't blame him for his wariness toward Skellington, but at the same time felt the need to defend his friend.

Goofy beat him to it. "Gawrsh, Santa, it wasn't Jack!"

"Or those kids, either," Donald added. He paused, uncertainty coming over his face. "Well, at least I don't think so."

"Well, at any rate…" Santa turned to Jack, who had the good grace to look a little guilty. "This is only a few of the Christmas presents that were stolen."

Sora gave a start. "Only a few?" he repeated incredulously. "Who would steal so many?"

"A regular Scrooge, that's for sure," Donald muttered. "Like who my uncle used to be, before he started enjoying Christmas, too."

"If that's the case, then it couldn't have been Jack," Goofy pointed out.

Santa cast a doubtful eye on the skeleton, eyes roving over the suit that so mimicked his own and looked almost obscene on the much skinnier Halloween Town resident. "You've got to believe us, Sandy," Jack implored. "If you don't, we'll just have to find out who really did it!" His lanky fingers clenched into a fist as he spoke.

Sora nodded fervently, shock fading into determination. "Yeah, we won't let whoever this is ruin Christmas for everyone."

_Oh, come on, Key-boy,_ phantom Char snorted, _I thought presents weren't what Christmas was all about?_

Before he could offer any sort of mental rebuttal, though, something shattering in the next room over brought him sharply back to the present. He swung his head about, trying to find the source; predictably, this proved unsuccessful, since he only glimpsed Donald steadying himself and Santa looking bewildered.

"What was _that?"_ Goofy gulped.

"I don't know, but it sounded like it came from the factory," Jack said, pointing to the hall that wound its way into the toy manufacturing area.

Santa still looked considerably rattled, but he kept any remaining surprise out of his voice as he spoke. "I wonder…" He stared down at the list of present receivers, which had practically ripped in his grasp due to how badly the sudden breaking noise had startled him, and scanned over it briefly; then raised his head to the others again. "It couldn't be…"

He purposefully trailed off, only glancing down at the scroll before shaking his head firmly. Confused, Sora opened his mouth to speak, but Jack apparently figured out Father Christmas' unspoken accusation. "You don't think it was Lock, Shock, and Barrel again?"

"It's definitely a possibility," Santa murmured.

"We'll go check for you," Sora announced, as much to conceal his mild embarrassment at not having understood the very man who he now believed in as much as the Keyblade's power as to say what they would do next.

The four of them rounded the corner to the candy cane pattern rimming the factory's entrance. Sora waited a couple of seconds, then seized the doorknob and flung the door open.

Sure enough, between the conveyer belts where Oogie had terrorized Sora and his companions, he spotted a pointy shape tossing a shred of wrapping paper off to the side. Shock stared down at the doll in her hand, then slammed it into the ground, her wiry hair bouncing with the fervency of the action. "No!" she cried aloud.

Lock tore a box open to reveal a teddy bear, not unlike the one Sora had clung to around the age when Kairi had shown up. "This one?" the crimson-clad boy prompted, adjusting the devil mask on his face.

"No!" Shock insisted.

"Yeah, that's boring," Barrel added.

"Hey!" Donald shouted, brandishing his staff and waving it in a way that made the bandages hanging off his wrist tremble. "Give those back!"

As one, the three children whirled around, and Sora could almost see their eyes widening behind their masks. Lock shoved the teddy bear behind his back, keeping it close to him, and Barrel scrambled to hold the doll closer. The brunette's eyes widened at seeing this, the very subtle reminder that even with everything the mischievous trio had done – working for Oogie Boogie, hindering Dr. Finkelstein's experiments, helping Maleficent, and, more than likely, stealing the presents – they were still just kids.

Kids who now looked more than a little chagrined at getting caught.

Despite his prior vow to hunt down the present thieves, now that he had found the most fitting culprits, Sora felt his resolve diminish ever so slightly. He held back a sigh. _I'm probably going to regret this._

He leapt down from the incline dividing the conveyer belts from the workshop's entrance, with the others hot on his heels. "You guys stole the presents, didn't you?" Jack demanded, his claw-like fingers extended as if ready to launch a dark magic attack at them when they confessed.

"It wasn't us!" Lock insisted.

"But that does sound like fun," Shock realized.

The three of them whirled around and darted off toward the edges of the factory, their giggles rending the air. A flicker of movement from nearby caught Sora's eye, and he glanced over his shoulder, past his friends readying their respective weapons. What he saw made his eyes widen: a single elf, peeking out from a present-filled alcove that lay beneath the inclined floor, watching them.

Whirling back around, Sora shouted, "Oh no you don't!" and lifted his hand. The Guardian Soul appeared and pointed toward them. Concentrating all his energy into what he needed – a way to gather them together and hold them without actually injuring them – he squeezed his eyes shut. He paid the puzzled cries of his friends no mind, only narrowing his mind into a focus on a way to trap the children; it became a tunnel down which he wandered for a few moments, and then –

"What the –?" Barrel yelped, his voice mingling with his friends' startled whimpers. Sora opened his eyes carefully, only for them to fly open in amazement. Directly across from the Guardian Soul's blunt shaft, a swirling, full diamond of shadow surrounded by two orbiting globes held the struggling Halloween Town residents in place.

"You – what – what's going on?" Lock wriggled valiantly, to no avail.

"I didn't know you still knew the Magnet spell, Sora," Donald gaped from behind him.

Sora didn't risk glancing back for fear it would fragment his concentration and cause Lock, Shock, and Barrel to flee again. "I didn't, either," he said, still in awe as to how he had done it.

"Good work, Sora!" Jack said, striding forward and staring hard at the three children caught in the diamond's grip.

"Let us go!" Shock snarled.

Sora shook his head. "C'mon, guys," he said, more than a little uncomfortable with this. _It was either this or beating them up,_ he protested against the feeling. "We just want to know where you put the presents." Predictably, his anxiety only increased. This was more underhanded than he had ever wanted to get. _Extorting children._

"We already told you we don't have 'em!" Barrel spat, initial terror apparently having vanished.

"Then why are you in here?" Donald demanded.

The children hesitated a moment, exchanged glances as best they could, then seemed to figure refusing to answer would only worsen matters for them. "We're looking for parts for the experiment," Lock said.

"Experiment?" Jack blinked, dropping his hands back to his sides.

"Yup! Dr. Finkelstein is making us a friend! One we get to boss around!" Barrel said.

"But Christmas presents are boring," Lock added, voice strained as he continued to wiggle about in the magnetic grip. "They're not scary at all."

"We should get back to Halloween Town," Shock said pointedly.

This time, Sora recognized an admission of defeat when he heard it. He jerked his Keyblade down, dispelling the pull that locked the children together as he did so, and they fell to an unceremonious heap on the ground.

Donald watched them scramble to their feet and scurry off out the door with disgust, then turned back to Sora. "Well, now what?"

"I guess we tell Santa that the kids ain't the thieves," Goofy said, a little disappointed. Guilt warred with that disappointment, which Sora found himself understanding, for the same feelings plagued him as well. If the kids had stolen the gifts, then the mystery could have been solved, and Donald could wave his staff and take them back to the Gummi ship in time for lunch.

This wasn't about food or finishing things quickly, though. A bloom of curiosity began to poke through Sora's heart, growing rapidly and refusing to leave things as they were. He nodded and turned to head back to Santa's main room, only to find himself face to face with a contemplative, muttering Jack.

"Experiment," he murmured to himself, tapping his skull with a finger. "Experiment."

"Jack?" Sora waved his free hand in front of Skellington's face, making him start and look down at him.

"What's up?" Goofy asked.

Jack shook his head. "Oh, it's nothing. It's just that Dr. Finkelstein _has_ been working on something lately… but I heard it was a failed trial."

Sora folded his arms. "Well, for now, all we can do is tell Santa what's going on."

* * *

Complete chaos had descended on the town square by the time Copperhead dragged James' unconscious body past a group of howling people. In the relatively few minutes it had taken to shove the rest of their lunches down their throats and allot enough time for Copperhead to catch up with his precious burden, the clouds that had watched over them all morning had yielded some of their burden. Now a thin, icy mist coated the air and cascaded down, swathing the shapes of the very few townspeople who had gone out despite the weather fleeing and screaming in terror in a freezing curtain.

Falcon shoved past Copperhead, and Char watched her charge headlong into the mist toward a set of vaguely human-shaped silhouettes before panic seized her chin and made her desperately search the area. _Giant Heartless, giant Heartless…_

Beside her, Riku gripped the Soul Eater tighter in his hand, shivering from more than just the downpour piercing through his cloak. "You'd think a gigantic Heartless would be easier to see," he muttered, barely audible over the cries and shrieks of the crowd. Although his words sounded wry enough, his actions and restlessness the entire way here – fidgeting anxiously whenever Copperhead had to stop and re-adjust his grip on the quickly-fading James – belied that tone.

"Mayor!" Copperhead suddenly gasped, and the two of them turned in time to see the portly man approaching. His bloodshot gray eyes darted about, as if making sure he stood well out of the eye of this disaster's source, before addressing his subordinate, whose grip on the unconscious waiter's shoulder had grown slack.

"I'm so glad you're here," Hickory said, body jolting in a shudder as a particularly cold droplet lanced down his spine. He glanced around, then asked, slight nervousness flitting across the query, "Where is Falcon?"

Copperhead nodded quickly to acknowledge the mayor's greeting, at the same time never ceasing in his surveying the area. So far only the occasional burst of water created by panicking citizens charging through puddles broke the steady wall of mist, but Char knew he was watching for a much larger spurt to rend the air. Somehow, his vigilance did not shock her as much it should have, to observe a seemingly-careless pervert actually giving a damn about tactics.

Maybe because she had just watched him drag his friend all the way back here.

"Getting the people to safety, I guess. Hey, uh, look, sir," he added quickly, all but shoving James' catatonic, bloody shape into Hickory's arms, "could you get him to safety? And for the love of the gods, get him some medical attention; I know you've got some people who know Curaga working in the office. Get him to them, please."

Hickory stared blankly back at him, then down at the young man whose blood was already beginning to swirl and mingle with the falling rain. "I… all right," he said finally, clearly figuring flight was the best option now and the questions could come later.

Copperhead nodded to his boss, gratitude softening his face. "Thank you, sir. You can take as much money off my paycheck as you need to for this."

Hickory looked as if he would very much like to take umbrage, but one solid stare from Riku made him relent. He simply bobbed his head once and began to move steadily but surely back toward the city hall.

As fate would have it, at that very moment, something crashed onto the ground, and Char blinked as dark lightning illuminated her vision and effectively dispelled most of the rain's translucent curtain. In the time it took for those lightning bolts to fade, three things occurred: Riku and Char clutched their weapons tighter; Copperhead slid his scythe out of its scabbard and held it, blade out; and a very familiar voice snarled out from the storm, "A little help would be nice!"

Falcon's order snapped the three of them out of an odd sort of trance. From the downpour, a huge, violet shape stepped forward, footfalls rippling along the ground and making them stumble. Just in front of the shape, a much smaller figure stumbled as the full effect of the vibrations hit it, almost crumpling it to the ground.

"Fal!" Copperhead shouted, charging forward. Falcon steadied herself as he approached, but he dashed right past her and into the rain.

"C'mon!" Riku called to Char. She nodded, at the same time wondering how much this would echo their first battle with the Heartless and the Nobodies. Admittedly their appearance had caught her off guard and rendered her effectively motionless for the first few moments or so, but Falcon and Riku had focused only on taking down Heartless. She narrowed her eyes, at the same time working one hand into the pocket where she had stashed the healing items Copperhead had bought her. _If worse comes to worst, at least I'll be able to help myself._

Still, she couldn't help but miss Sora's easy camaraderie and the way he watched out for his friends in battle.

Especially now, when Falcon appeared from the mist and barely rolled away from a shadowy lightning bolt in time.

But then the rain parted just slightly, enough to fully reveal exactly what had appeared to terrorize the town, and Char's breath caught in a choked gasp. The beast threw its horned head back and roared before leaping forward with more strength she would have thought its massive frame possessed; in the time it took for gravity to pull the Heartless back down again, she and Riku sprang apart in opposite directions.

It landed, making the ground turn liquid beneath Char's feet and forcing her to struggle for balance. She managed to catch herself by digging one sword into the ground and stood, shaking from more than just the cold. Rainwater dripped off the main blade of her sword as she took in every detail of the monster. Violet skin, long tusks, a single obsidian horn that rose up from its head and glowed now as it turned, rain driving around it and silhouetting its form in a line of water.

This particular Heartless conjured up the days of watching Sora's memories, of his rolling desperately out of the line of fire of the Heartless guarding the gate to darkness. Rainbow-colored shadows and light alike had intertwined around Sora, Donald, Goofy, and the Beast, who had fought alongside the main trio in Hollow Bastion.

_It's only fitting that this thing's name is Behemoth._

Riku snarling in pain ripped her out of her thoughts, and she raced forward, frantically scraping the edges of her reminiscence to figure out how Sora had managed to take this thing down.

The Behemoth roared again, dark lightning sputtering into oblivion, though this time it sounded more furious than anything else. Falcon stood on the other side of it, view of her dread-filled face visible between the Heartless' legs, and lowered her Keyblade. "I guess magic doesn't work!" she called.

Riku lifted himself off the ground, eyes narrowing and jaw bulging, as if staving off the fiery agony that heralded an old injury ripping open again. Even from here, Char could see his features contorted in thought, then he shook his head with a frustrated snarl. "We'll just have to beat it down, then!"

"But how are we supposed to do that?" Copperhead's voice startled them all into turning, just in time to see him running out of the downpour. The grip he had on his scythe, which would have been white-knuckled had gloves not covered his hands, made the weapon tremble ever so slightly. "Unless we can jump, like, twenty feet into the air!"

Char shook her head, trying to think. Before she could say anything to the effect of having read about this as a researcher, though, both her mind and the Heartless brought her up short. Because this wasn't Sora, and because Riku had experienced the brunette's memories with her.

Because the Behemoth was lifting one cloven hoof again and stomping it into the ground.

Falcon was ready this time, and managed to brace herself against the shocks. When the Heartless readied its hoof to crush her, she easily rolled out of the way; the others, however, did not share the same fortune, and Copperhead yelped as he almost impaled himself on his scythe's blade.

The Behemoth turned its monstrous head toward Falcon, drawn by the pull of her Keyblade, and she met its glare with one of her own. Taking the opportunity while its guard was down, Char leaped forward, feet skidding over the slippery ground, and managed to land on the edge of its cloven hoof.

"Blaze, what's going on?" Copperhead roared, voice straining to be heard over the Heartless bellowing in surprise. The way he had landed on the ground after the Behemoth's quake had winded him as well, making his voice hoarse and reedy.

Char ignored the nickname for now and just thanked every god in existence that the path from her foe's legs up to its body was a fairly even one. "The horn!" she screamed, pointing one sword to it. "If we can get the horn, then we can beat it!"

"And you know this how?" Falcon shouted from below, skepticism somehow managing to drip off every word even with her voice raised.

"I read it in a book once!" The lie slipped from Char's lips before her common sense could preclude it, and she cringed, hoping beyond anything that Riku would just ignore it.

Her prayers proved valid: he just stood, and the tiny movement from the dark-clad shape below signified his nodding. Char breathed a sigh of relief, both from his lack of conjecture and from her lack of fearing heights. _Both things that would make this whole thing even more of a pain in the ass. _

She confronted the dark, unyielding horn before her and drove one sword into it, wondering if she could cleave it in two. Predictably, this attempt didn't succeed, and she stumbled back, panting angrily from exertion even as the Behemoth screeched in pain.

"Oh, shut up!" she snarled, delivering a series of blows to its horn. This proved too much for it to handle, and Char had a split second of warning to feel her center of gravity shift before the Behemoth began to collapse.

Quickly, she hopped off its back down to the ground, only to hiss in surprise when the impact created by the Heartless' fall pushed her forward and would have made her fall into the nearest puddle had Copperhead not reached out and steadied her in time. She looked up and gave a nod of silent thanks.

As one, the four of them faced the prone Heartless lying on the ground. "Is it dead?" Falcon asked, voice and body tense.

Riku shook his head, bringing his bat-wing blade up to his typical fighting stance. "I don't think so. Its horn is still glowing." Sure enough, the glow that still surrounded the Behemoth's weak point illuminated its hideous face like a lighthouse beacon amidst the rain.

"So what, we just beat on it until it gets back up again?" Copperhead gripped his scythe tighter. "I don't care how long it takes. I'll beat this thing down as many times as it keeps getting up!"

He led the assault into the Behemoth's horn, curved blade creating broad arcs in the air. The others avoided the fury of his attacks as best they could; Falcon slanted a glare across at him only momentarily, before seeming to reconcile with the fact that he was only helping them and joining in with rapid strikes of her own Keyblade. Char slashed furiously into the offending creature's horn, fierce determination channeling into every slice; although she didn't understand why she cared so much about Falcon's situation, she figured the least she could do was vent her stress on the obstacle before them and make it pay for appearing here and now. Even Riku, encumbered by his side injury as he was, carved a dark blur in midair with the Soul Eater becoming little more than an extension to his arm and a means to convey his fury.

The snarls and grunts of exertion turned to startled cries as the Behemoth suddenly lurched beneath their blades, and it flung them away with a flash of lightning. The aforementioned lightning sliced into Char's eyes; although she figured it originated from their enemy and not from the sky, whose gray hue leaned more toward the paleness of heavy rain rather than thunder and lightning, it still startled her.

She barely caught herself in time, and Riku, who landed beside her, turned back to her. "What do you say we keep wailing on its horn?" he suggested, a fierce smirk coming over his features.

Although his current expression reminded her all too strongly of Xehanort's Heartless when he had claimed every heart had to return to darkness, Char found herself, strangely, not giving a damn about that at the moment. She grinned back, adrenaline surging anew in her veins despite her sore muscles and lightning-induced bruises. "I think I can deal with that."

"Falcon, Copperhead!" Riku shouted to them.

The latter was occupied with swinging at the air, which confused and annoyed Char at first; however, upon closer inspection, she saw that he was dispelling a series of fiery spheres raining down and making the rainfall sizzle into steam. Falcon, however, paused in dodging them to glance at Riku.

"Think you guys could distract him while me and Char attack the horn?" Riku continued, voice raising in a crescendo as the Behemoth roared and stomped its hoof.

Falcon stumbled, crying out as she collapsed to the ground in a way that was audible from their distance. Copperhead immediately lowered his scythe and turned to her, but she swatted his hand away and quickly gulped down a Potion's contents before shoving the empty vial back into her pocket. "Yeah. Sure. Distraction. We can do that."

Seeing his former friend's wounds close up, Copperhead just nodded and faced the Behemoth squarely. "I am all about distractions!" he announced, a little too brightly.

Char rolled her eyes, at the same time charging toward the Behemoth's back leg with Riku at her side. As she reached the hoof and crouched low to leap onto its back – _get on the Hydra's back!_ Phil yelled from weeks past – she heard water splashing behind her and turned to see Riku on one knee, grimacing.

"You all right?" she asked, at the same time watching the Behemoth's hoof in her periphery in case it rose up.

That head of gray hair lifted to stare at her, and Riku stood abruptly, swaying a bit as he did so. "I'm fine. Just the stupid wound acting up." He ran past her, using the momentum from that run to land squarely on the Behemoth's haunch. Glancing back from where he knelt there, he quirked a brow. "You coming or what?"

Snapping out of her concerned haze, Char huffed. "Of course."

Together, they climbed up to the Behemoth's horn and slashed into it. By the time the beast howled in agony again and began plummeting to the ground, just pulling her rain-soaked bangs out of her eyes required a herculean amount of effort, and it was all she could do not to collapse when she and Riku jumped back to the ground.

Shaking off the exhaustion, Char joined the others at the barely conscious Heartless' head. As she moved to stand in front of Falcon and Copperhead, she immediately noticed she wasn't the only one whose sore, sustenance-deprived muscles screamed for rest. Even though Falcon had used one of her healing panaceas earlier, blood oozed from one leg and past her boot-clad foot to mingle in a puddle, while Copperhead swiped some dripping hair out of his eyes and came away with the already-dark fabric of his glove just a bit darker.

"Next time you tell us to be a distraction," Falcon muttered, the words straining past heavy panting, "make sure we're ready first." She was actually glaring at Riku with some measure of irritation, making Char's eyebrows jump up into her bangs. _Didn't think she had it in her._

Riku quickly distributed Potions all around, muttering a terse apology to Falcon. "We'll talk about it later," was all he said before blades began swinging.

Only when bits of obsidian started flying and one grazed a thin cut across Char's cheek did she notice that one of them had managed to score a deep enough cut across the Behemoth's horn for it to crack; from the arcing angle of it, she figured it was probably Copperhead. He didn't seem to notice, though, focused single-mindedly on damaging the beast as much as possible before it got up again.

"Guys, the horn's cracked!" she screamed, but something all but muffled her announcement. Dread suffused her heart and all but shoved it into her stomach as the violet shape dominating her vision heaved itself up off the ground with a primal snarl.

"Oh, come on!" Copperhead groaned. The determination that had propelled him forward earlier seemed to have petered off in favor of annoyance.

Almost as if in response to his complaint, their enemy threw its head back, sparks of light dropping off its cracked horn and all but exploding as they made contact with the rainfall. Char's lips twisted wryly at the caricature of fireworks, but it only took a moment for that wryness to morph into fear, as the sparks that remained securely within that dark spike began to coalesce into something much more dangerous.

"Riku!" she shouted, but he had beaten her to it. Falcon and Copperhead had been frozen to the ground in horrified anticipation – the latter had actually started moving toward the female Keybearer, presumably to protect her from whatever last resort this beast had up its imaginary sleeve – but they both snapped out of their trance at Char's voice hoarsely calling her friend's name.

A dark shape moved on the Behemoth's head then, one whose human-like form revealed that the horn had yet to explode with the power it was accumulating within. Vaguely, Char wondered if she and Riku had resembled ants wielding flashing sticks this closely to Falcon and Copperhead when they had kept their enemy busy.

But then a furious snarl was pealing out from the young man on top of the Behemoth's head, one that curled out across the freezing, damp air, and a dark light flashed from above. For a brief, terrifying moment – during which Falcon let out a sharp gasp and clutched her Keyblade all the more tightly – the thought crossed Char's mind, horribly, horribly, that the power that had amassed within the Behemoth's scythe-rent horn had channeled itself into Riku.

_And at point-blank range, well…_

Suddenly Copperhead chuckled under his breath and shook his head, blinking rainwater off his lashes. "Look," was all he said, resting the butt of his scythe on the ground so he could point with his free hand.

Char and Falcon traced the line of his finger and beyond with their eyes, the former with budding hope, and the latter with desperate desire. A beat; then obsidian fragments splintered, joining the liquid rain as a solid hail of their own, falling to the ground in front of them.

The Behemoth roared, rearing up onto its hind legs. Its head and torso vanished into the clouds, its fore legs reached up and clutched something above, and then its entire body vanished in a whirl of dark smoke, leaving the heart it held inside a relatively short journey to Kingdom Hearts.

A black-clad form, becoming more human-like as it grew closer, leapt to the ground, and Riku landed with a heavy splash. His wincing at the impact of his fall dulled the effect of the move, but he met all their eyes with a smirk. "You're welcome," was all he said.

Char sighed in relief, making her swords vanish so she could comb shaking fingers back through her bangs. Copperhead let out a jubilant cry and curled his arm so his scythe's handle lay in its crook. "Dang, Riku. Showing off is _my_ job." While a mock-offended slant marked his words, the breath that hissed out of him and became part of the rain wobbled just slightly and belied his immense gratefulness that Riku's stunt hadn't ended badly.

Riku lifted both palms up into the air, Soul Eater dissolving in a spritz of black mist as he did so. "I figured you'd want to share that burden with somebody. And anyway, if you hadn't cracked the horn, I wouldn't have been able to break it in the first place."

"Don't even think about giving him any credit," Char groaned, tremble dying down at the return of Riku's typical cockiness. The quakes that had wracked her body and overtaken her muscles – first out of concern and then out of relief – finally calmed, allowing her to recover some dryness and place it into her voice without it sounding too forced.

"Ouch, Blaze, that's cold." Copperhead's shoulders slumped, and he reached into his pocket to pull out and force down another Potion. Wiping some of the pale blue liquid off the corner of his mouth, he tossed the empty vial away into a puddle, where it landed with a light splash. "I'm just glad we're all okay."

"You and me both," Char muttered, folding her arms and determinedly avoiding Riku's gaze. In the heat of battle, she had forgotten all about the tension that wove shadowy fingers throughout their group; only now that blood replaced adrenaline in her veins did she remember exactly how fiercely she had spat at Riku yesterday and the day before.

_He's still your friend, though. And he did save your life from Anxclof._

Which she still had yet to thank him for, she realized with a twinge of guilt.

Thinking of the other two members of their group, Char abruptly noticed Falcon had said nothing this entire time and turned to face her. The rain was letting up now, its disappearance almost uncanny in nature; if Char didn't know any better she would have thought the Behemoth had caused it. As it was, though, the clouds that had promised a downpour earlier in the day were beginning to clear, leaving only a sharp bite to the air.

Falcon's expression of fading desperation showed all too starkly in the wake of how rain had spread a translucent wall across the area. With the part of her mind that was still alert to her surroundings, Char heard people's voices rising and footsteps lancing across puddles as the citizens emerged from their hiding spots. She understood the need to ascertain just how much business the item shop would have in the next few minutes, but paid no true heed to this; the rational part of her screamed to leave this situation be, yet Char ignored it and just watched Falcon's mouth drop open. Her eyes had fixed on Riku, as if by drilling her gaze into him she could make sure he was the one who stood in front of her.

Just when Riku's features were beginning to tighten into an uncomfortable expression, though, Falcon seemed to collapse forward, only catching herself by her fingers coiling into fists and landing, heel first, against his chest.

Amber eyes flew wide, a surprised grunt forcing itself out of him as he stared down at the dark head pushed against the middle of his sternum. Stupidly, inanely, amidst the fog of confusion that had wreathed itself about her thoughts – not once during the admittedly short time Char had known her had Falcon gotten even this close to embracing him – was _Xehanort really was tall._

Riku lifted his head almost reluctantly, sweeping his startled pupils across the others to gauge their reactions. Char's was about what he expected – surprise gradually transitioning into amusement, glittering in her narrowed eyes – and he couldn't help wondering if she would ever let this go. _Probably not,_ he mentally answered, but affection filled the thought instead of exasperation.

Dread suffused his body as he glanced to Copperhead: a seemingly unfounded feeling, considering how he had just congratulated Riku heartily not two minutes earlier, and yet the worry oozed past his shock toward Falcon and the warmth he could feel emanating just from her hands. However, he only found a head of blonde hair turned determinedly away from him, as Copperhead was currently staring at the ground. Riku's muscles loosened from their tense positions in guilty relief that he didn't have to see the jealousy that Falcon so often exuded in waves around Char in Copperhead's face.

_Because I know it's there._

He stared back down at Falcon, who had not moved even in the slightest during his absorbing his friends' reactions. Gods, but that raw confusion flowed right back into him at remembering what had just happened. "Falcon?" he managed, fingers twitching at his side. He hated the uncertainty that marked the gesture, but it more than fit what he felt at her unexpected closeness, something that only Sora and Kairi had enacted toward him.

Thinking of Kairi, he suddenly remembered the source of his discomfort toward Falcon's all-too-obvious feelings in the first place, and would have pushed her back right then and there had she not suddenly drawn in a breath.

One that sounded very distinctively like the patented rattle of a person fighting back tears.

A hiccup, a muffled sob whose timbre he felt more than heard, and then she spoke, trembling voice lancing through the air. "Don't _ever_ do something that dumb again."

Riku's hands remained at his sides for a moment longer, before his sympathy proved too much for him and told him not to act on his desperate urge to shove her back and make this awkwardness go away. Just when his mind had begun to consider curling one hand around her shoulders, though, Copperhead suddenly said, "Mayor, sir?"

As one, the four of them turned to face Hickory, who had trotted up from the city hall. The stout man looked from redhead to subordinate, then to Keyblade wielder and emissary of darkness, gaze gaining a rather teasing twinkle as he settled upon the last two a moment longer. Falcon seemed to realize she still clung to him, threads of warmth connecting them by the heels of her fists still pressed to Riku's chest, and quickly drew back. Despite his prior indecision at whether or not to break the embrace, he found himself watching her hands as they vanished behind her back. "Sir," she greeted stiffly.

Hickory smiled, face practically bursting with the extent and intensity of his grin. Even Char stepped back at the sight. "You four were magnificent!" he praised, clapping his hands together. "We thought for sure that the town was doomed until you returned."

Riku shrugged one shoulder. "It was nothing," he muttered. Even as the modest declaration escaped him, though, his body seemed to take umbrage at it in the form of sending pinpricks of pain into his wounds. In particular, the old one – the one the Behemoth had almost torn open anew – from yesterday gave a vengeful pang; it was all he could do not to gasp and bring a hand to the afflicted area.

Thankfully, his attempt at self-restraint proved successful, as not even Falcon turned and asked what was wrong. The dark-haired girl just stepped forward, lifting her chin and pushing the Azure Ice Keychain back into her pocket. "We couldn't just let it run around and destroy everything," she said, tone becoming distinctly brusque. It was the mien she always adopted around her clients when they were thanking her profusely for having killed that Heartless or arranged those supplies, and yet now it sounded a bit strained.

"But you all put yourself into danger to save us. Even you two," Hickory added to Char and Riku. "You're not even from here, and yet you put your lives on the line for strangers."

Char shrugged, though not without a shadow flickering over her face. Riku could almost hear her thinking _it's something I learned from Sora. _

As much as he didn't enjoy admitting it, he had something in common with her there.

* * *

"We did it!" Jack crowed. "The mystery is solved!"

Sora watched Dr. Finkelstein's experiment give off a black mist and couldn't hold back a sigh of relief, both at their mechanical adversary's defeat and at the lack of heart flying out from its body. At least this wouldn't help the Organization. "Thank goodness for that," he murmured, falling to the ground and wincing as the snow, while warm, seeped into the shallow scratches along his calves.

"Christmas is on again!" Donald announced, lifting his staff triumphantly.

Goofy had been moving about, pushing the gifts that the experiment had stolen together into a circle, but jolted in surprise as a jingling noise resounded in the air. Sora looked up just in time to see a blur of red as Santa stepped off his sleigh.

He opened his mouth to speak, only to glance down at the burst of color in the white snow and smile. Although they had placed some presents in the middle of the clearing as bait for the gift thief, the increased amount of brightly-wrapped boxes, as well as the nicks and scratches that remained after Donald's rigorous healing, told the story. "I see you caught the thief?" Santa asked.

"You bet, Sandy!" Jack puffed out his skeletal chest and grinned.

Donald had been poking around at the reindeer's harnesses, only to squawk as the one he was pestering stretched its neck downward and glared at him. Quickly, the duck scooted away.

"Uh, Santa, sir?" Goofy began. "What I don't understand is why a robot would go around stealin' Christmas presents."

"A robot?" Santa looked around, only to give a minor start when he saw the experiment's hollow shell on the ground. Its dark eyes stared emptily out at them, and despite the fact that only its main, bell-shaped component remained, Sora couldn't help remembering how those claws had scored down his body and flung bright, fiery beams out at them.

"D-don't get too close," he quickly said. "I think we took it out, but I can't be sure."

Santa nodded a bit nervously, then turned back to the experiment still lying on the ground. "What is this?" he queried. "A sort of moving puppet?"

Jack gave a nod of confirmation, stepping closer to Father Christmas and sweeping his long fingers over the husk. "It was made by Dr. Finkelstein. And I suppose it found its way here. Although I must agree with you, Goofy," he added to the knight, who straightened at being addressed. Skellington brought one hand to his chin and stroked thoughtfully. "Why would a moving puppet want Christmas presents?"

Sora blinked, stared down at the ground with a thoughtful murmur of his own. He hadn't considered the motives behind the robot's actions; when the four of them had poked their heads out from behind the snow-dusted wall lining the clearing and spotted the experiment nudging some presents into its grasp, only the desire to give it just retribution for nearly ruining Christmas had governed every swing of the Guardian Soul. Yet now that Goofy had raised the question of exactly _why_ the experiment had done what it had – why it was the thief, and not the Heartless they had chased down well into the afternoon – it refused to leave him alone.

"Well…" Father Christmas began.

"What is it, Sandy?" Jack asked, lowering his hand back down to his side and listening curiously. Such an interested expression was almost comical for him right now, what with the false woolen beard hanging from his chin and the hat that mirrored Santa's own.

"I can't help but wonder if all this poor creature wanted was a heart," the old man finished.

"A heart?" Donald blinked, now lost. Sora had to admit he felt the same.

"I can't explain it for certain," Santa said, "but…" He trailed off, just looking at Jack. Hesitation and sympathy warred on his face for a moment, then he drew his stout body up and spoke. "Jack, I know you can't deliver presents. It's my job. But –" and this made the formerly wilting skeleton straighten abruptly with a growing smile – "I _can_ give you an idea of what it's like."

Just like that, just with that one promise, Jack's face lit up more brightly than the Christmas lights strung about the houses beyond ever could. "You really mean it?" he gasped, hands pressing against his chin in excitement.

Santa chuckled. "Yes, Jack. I do. Just, ah, do make sure to bring the sleigh back." He spoke teasingly enough, but from the way Jack's hollow eyes were tenderly running over the sleigh, the concern was a valid one.

"Don't worry, we'll make sure he doesn't," Donald said, at the same time taking a few not-so-conspicuous steps away from the reindeer.

Sora grinned for a moment, then felt his amusement fade away to something a little like sympathy as the lone gray shape on the ground drew his gaze. Already, falling snow had begun to cascade down onto the experiment's last remnant and speckled its already-cold metallic exterior with ivory. Despite the difficult battle that had preceded Santa's appearance, the brunette couldn't help wondering what Santa had meant when he had declared the experiment's desire for a heart. _It's a machine; how does it want anything?_ Although the thought was distinctively his own, elements of Char had stamped themselves into the incredulity-fueled question as well.

"Santa," he began, wondering why he was bothering, "would, uh… would it be okay if we went on the sleigh with Jack?"

Donald narrowed his eyes, clearly flashing back to their first time here, when Sora had allowed his enthusiasm at Santa's existence to shine through all too brightly. Before he could speak, though, Sora quickly cut him off, making the duck snap his bill shut with his glare. "I want to take the experiment back to the doctor," he explained. "Maybe ask him why it went looking for a heart here."

"Can we, sir?" Goofy asked, a vaguely pleading whine edging his words as much as it could without compromising his manners.

The red-clad man sighed. "Well, I suppose. You're the ones who would keep Jack in line, after all."

While the skeleton let out a dramatic groan of mock indignation, Sora couldn't help the pleased cry that escaped him as he dashed around the side of the sleigh. He surveyed its bottom edge for a brief moment before spotting a series of small outcrops jutting out; they were spaced closely together, as if to accommodate Santa's smaller legs, but Sora still managed to ascend without tripping too much.

Jack moved over a couple of inches to make room for the Keybearer; now that Sora was closer, he could see Skellington's boot-clad feet tapping in eager anticipation and the way his bone knuckles bulged slightly with his tight grip on the reins. For a moment, the brunette stared out at the view offered at even this small increase in height: the reindeer's harnesses caressing their backs; the white sphere at the top of Santa's hat waving as he shook his head indulgently; the snowfall not intensifying in the slightest, just gently moving down; the Christmas tree reflected in the icy lake along the pathway.

As he watched, he thought, suddenly, desperately, _I wish next Christmas, Riku and Kairi and Char would be here to see this with me._

Hopefully this journey would end before another year passed.

"Uh, Sora?" Donald coughed from below, making the brunette lean precariously over the side.

"You forgot the experiment," Goofy pointed out, poking his head out from behind the bell-shaped burden in his arms. The aforementioned husk's claws dragged as the knight walked closer, leaving deep furrows in the newly-fallen snow.

"Oh yeah," Sora laughed sheepishly. Ignoring Donald's eye roll and grumbles, he almost stretched his hands out to take the experiment, only to draw back when he realized how difficult this would be.

"Why don't you use that trick you did to get Lock, Shock, and Barrel?" Jack suggested from Sora's other side.

The Keybearer blinked and gave his friend a grateful look; even with his eagerness to be on his way, he was still trying to give good suggestions. "Good idea!"

Turning back to Goofy, whose legs had started to wobble ever so slightly under the weight of his burden in even his powerful grip, Sora summoned the Guardian Soul to his side and concentrated. The last thing he saw before his eyes slipped closed was falling snow landing on the Keyblade's shaft.

After a few moments, though, his doubt of accomplishing what Goofy couldn't vanished, and he opened his eyes in time to see the experiment levitating in the same spinning diamond from earlier. Slowly, with Donald hissing "careful" repeatedly as he hopped onto the sleigh's steps, the Keybearer lowered the experiment to wedge itself into the back of the vessel. It tucked neatly into the gap between the back's edge and one sack of gifts, and Sora released it, sighing in relief. "Okay, now we can go," he said.

Donald and Goofy joined Sora and Jack in the sleigh, and the very latter looked down at Santa, a twinkle in his eyes. "Thank you so much, Sandy."

"It's the least I can do, Jack. As for you three," Father Christmas craned his neck to Sora, Donald, and Goofy, who straightened in turn at his beady eyes on them, "once you've returned the experiment, feel free to come back to my house for the evening."

Sora's eyes widened at the unexpected hospitality. "I… are you sure?" he managed. "I mean, it'll be nice to not have to sleep in the Gummi ship, but –"

"Sora!" Donald squawked, slapping one wing over Sora's mouth and making him splutter at the taste of feathers. He shoved the duck back and glared at him, which was returned with gusto.

Santa laughed, gloved hands rubbing over his ample belly. "There's no need for concern, Donald. I know what you're after. Remember exactly who I am," he added playfully.

_He sees you when you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake. _Sora fought a shiver; it seemed the old verses had more than a little truth in them. "Then you know why we have to leave in the morning," he said.

When he earned a nod in response, he looked to Donald and Goofy. "What do you guys think?" As much as he wanted to accept the offer, Sora knew he had to at least ask.

His skepticism proved unfounded when both Disney residents gave sound nods of agreement. "Of course we wanna stay for a while," Goofy said, smiling as best he could with his overgrown fangs.

"And what about –?" Jack began, but Sora quickly copied Donald and pushed his hand over his mouth.

"We should get going," he said.

He turned to look out at the view again, feet shifting as he got comfortable – only for him to still abruptly and frown as his foot grazed something on the floor of the sleigh. Leaning down as best he could with the limited room, he groped about for a couple of seconds; when he felt something smooth beneath his fingers, his eyes widened, and he nearly bumped his head as he straightened back up again.

"A Keychain?" he murmured aloud.

Jack leaned over to look, finger curiously tracing over the charm at the end. "It looks like Zero," he commented.

"Wonder why," Donald mused, the bottom half of his mummified face disappearing into his hand as he thought.

Goofy shrugged helplessly, and Sora glanced down at Santa questioningly, intending to ask why it was in his sleigh. What he found, though, was Father Christmas smiling secretly to himself.

Just like last time, he was tacitly reminding one of them something – only this time, it was Sora, not Char. And the Keybearer felt new resolve course through him at the unspoken message here.

_This is for you. Keep going, and do what needs to be done._

_ Be well._

Pocketing the Keychain, he glanced back at Jack and cried, "Full speed ahead, Mister Claus!"

* * *

Santa is kind of a BAMF in this fic. o_O Didn't mean to make him that way, but w/e.

Also, nothing is more awkward than finding out you named two completely different characters Hickory and then having to go back and change one of them to James.

Review, please!


	71. Chapter LXXI

Okay so have you guys ever had the best idea ever - the BEST IDEA EVER - and then you go to write it down and it's total shit?

Yeah, uh. That's this chapter in a nutshell. Maybe because I've had this whole thing planned for like three years, but... idk, it just feels like a huge letdown to me. Bah, whatever. Just read it.

_**Disclaimer- **_Nope dot avi.

* * *

"Interesting!" Dr. Finkelstein mused. "So the puppet wasn't stolen after all."

"Yeah, it ran away on its own," Goofy explained.

Sora folded his arms, still a little dizzy from the speed at which they had had to leap from Santa's sleigh before Jack rode off on it. Apparently, he had still wanted to continue flying about and absorbing the general experience that Santa had every year. "Is… was the experiment supposed to do that?" he asked tentatively.

"Well, it certainly wasn't something I had planned for it," the doctor admitted, turning his wheelchair and glaring pointedly at Sally, who was creeping out from his house, as he went on. "After Sally, I intended to make something that _wouldn't_ run away on a regular basis."

To the rag doll's credit, she met her creator's venomous gaze with a defiant look of her own, and Sora stifled a chuckle at knowing she didn't need them to stand up for her.

"But," Dr. Finkelstein said, the loudness of his voice startling them, "the fact that it could move about on its own tells me it was an outstanding success!"

"I don't know what kind of success that is," Donald muttered, "but at least he's not mad at us."

"I heard that!" the doctor warbled, eyes somehow razor-sharp even behind his dark glasses. Donald let out a "wak!" and dashed behind Goofy, who leaned up with a start.

"And maybe you could use the main body to create something else," Sally pointed out, venturing closer. The soothing, pacifying tone to her voice seemed to calm the doctor, making the brunette wonder exactly how much practice she had had easing her creator's temper.

Sora shrugged. "Maybe," was all he said. For some reason, it felt like a massive hole yawned in the discussion – like something was missing. He thought back to the moment they had leapt out from behind the wall, startling the experiment into dropping the presents it held; the revelation that it was the thief who had fairly invalidated all of the elves' hard work; Santa approaching in his sleigh…

The Keybearer jolted up in realization and turned to Sally, who met his eyes questioningly. "I was going to ask why the experiment was going around stealing presents," he confessed.

"Oh yeah," Donald said, eyes lighting up with recognition and a bit of self-annoyance as well. Clearly, in the exhilaration of the flight here – he and Sora had leaned over the side, the latter shouting _"Look, no hands!"_ before doing exactly that and the former just squawking in pure happiness while Jack laughed and Goofy covered his eyes – he had forgotten about the reason for the flight in the first place.

"Santa thought it was because the experiment was lookin' for a heart," Goofy said, gently prying his friend away from his legs. Some of the duck's mummy bandages rustled as he stepped back on his own.

"That's quite possible," Finkelstein said. "Unlike my Sally, it wasn't equipped with a heart." A thoughtful slant marked his querulous voice, and he turned and wheeled himself back up the ramp to his house. "Maybe just the desire for a heart has more influence than I thought," Sora heard from his direction, and suddenly he had to hold back a shiver. A shiver that came from within, and not just from the iciness of the Halloween Town air.

Because the way the doctor had phrased it – just the very desire for a heart – sounded like the Nobodies' goal in one single sentence.

_And I still feel bad for the experiment, so…_

_ But the Nobodies are different,_ he argued with himself. _They're not just playing with presents, they're playing with the worlds and everyone in them. _

He risked a glance over at his allies and met Goofy's worried gaze. The dog seemed to have had the same thought as well, from the expression that undoubtedly mirrored his own.

But now Sally was giving them a concerned look, and so Sora forced himself to shake it off. "But if the Heartless wanted a heart, why would it steal Christmas presents?"

"Maybe because…" Sally began, then continued more strongly, encouraged by the others' curious stares. "Presents are a way to give your heart to someone special." As she spoke, she looked up to the sky; Sora followed her gaze just in time to blink at the sudden object blocking the moonlight.

An instant later, a thin shape leapt down, and Jack landed in front of them, tails of his coat fluttering. His face shone with exhilaration as he swept his eyes over the group; maybe it was Sora's imagination, but those hollow eyes seemed to linger on Sally. "That was the most amazing experience I've ever had!" he gasped out at last.

Sally drew in a breath that distinguished itself sharply from the chilled air and addressed Jack. "You didn't…"

"Steal it?" The skeleton gasped and laid one hand over his crimson-clad chest. "Oh no, Sally, no! Sandy let me borrow his sleigh for a bit."

"He really did," Sora added at Sally's dubious expression. However, dread tinged that skepticism as well, as though she didn't _want_ to theorize that he had taken the sleigh without permission.

Sally looked from Donald to Goofy, who both nodded in agreement. "I know it's hard to believe," the mage said dryly, "but it's true."

Suddenly, Goofy yelped in confusion and leaped back for no apparent reason. Sora's hand immediately dove to the new Keychain – which he had dubbed the Decisive Pumpkin on the way here, for Jack's title the Pumpkin King – only to gasp in awe. Snowflakes were coming down, marring the shadows with bursts of white; it only took a moment's scrutiny to see they originated from the sleigh that the reindeer still pulled along high above.

All around the five of them, Halloween Town residents were venturing out of their homes, drawn by the oddity of the flurries in a holiday not themed toward snow. Goofy and Donald shrieked more out of surprise than fear as a dark snake slithered from underneath them, and they leapt onto the fountain's edge, with Goofy pulling Donald back so he didn't fall into the acid bubbling there instead of water.

"Jack!" a familiar voice howled, and they all looked over in time to see the Halloween Town mayor scrambling toward them. His face had swapped expressions from its typical happy one to a desperate, tooth-showing frown. "What's going on?" the mayor wailed, effectively falling at the skeleton's feet.

Jack laughed, carefully pulling the self-styled elected official to his feet. "There's no need to worry, everyone," he called out. "Just Sandy Claws, wishing us a merry Christmas."

"It's a wonderful present," Sally murmured, so softly that she could barely be heard over the clamoring of the other residents.

Skellington swung toward her, even as the others began to wander back to their homes, albeit slowed by wonder at the flurries that melted as they reached the ground. "A present?" he echoed, tipping his head to the side. "But – I don't understand. There's no box. No ribbon tied in a bow."

The Keybearer sighed, shaking his head with an indulgent grin. Of course – even though Jack had the best understanding of Christmas out of his home, he still couldn't understand every little aspect of it. _Like friends exchanging gifts, or spending time with family you never get to see normally. _"Jack," he began to explain, "it's not about the box or ribbons. It's about what's _inside_ the box."

Sally's eyes widened in realization. "No, Sora," she said, the words coming slowly, as if the revelation were pouring out of her as it formed. "What really counts – what's special – is the act of giving the gift." Although her gaze remained steadily on the sky, her words seemed more directed toward Jack. "To wish deep in your heart to make someone else happy."

Sora thought of all the days he had spent with Kairi and Riku, as well as the times on this journey he had wanted to reach out to Char and transform her repressed anger and secrets into something he could know, and knew with a pang that Sally was right.

Jack's head returned to its normal position from where he had angled it to the side in confusion, only for it to tilt the other way as a new emotion entirely came onto his face. Something like tenderness, aimed toward the girl who had somehow noticed what he never had. "Of course," he whispered, then, louder, "Of course. Sally, you're absolutely right."

Then he jolted slightly, a palm pressing over his chest again – not out of teasing indignation this time, but for another reason entirely. "Wait… I feel… something warm inside me."

"Gawrsh, Jack, I think that's Sally's gift to you," Goofy said from behind them. Sora glanced back with some measure of surprise – to his chagrin, he had all but forgotten about the two of them since the Halloween Town residents had begun to clear out – and saw Donald stepping down off the fountain's rim.

"Really?" The skeleton blinked. "This wonderful feeling… is because of you?" he asked, turning to Sally.

She nodded, not daring to meet his eyes.

An instant later, though, she jerked up as he strode closer and reached down to grip her hand in both of his. "You've given me the nicest present in the world," he said with a warm smile. "And I've got nothing to give you in return."

Sally shook her head, gently pushing his hands down. "The nicest present I could ever ask for, Jack, is just to be with you."

"You don't even have to ask for that," the skeleton chuckled, drawing her close to him with a hand around her waist and the other twined with hers.

They fell into a dance, right there in the middle of the Halloween Town square, and their ease reminded Sora so powerfully of the Beast and Belle he had to look away from it. Even the paltry light offered by both the acid fountain and the moonlight mingling into one lit up Jack and Sally's faces, fully illuminating their happiness at getting to be together like this.

"You know," the brunette murmured, making Donald and Goofy turn to him, "maybe I never got Char a real present after all."

It was odd; barely a month ago, Kairi's maroon hair and violet eyes and easy smile would have swum into his consciousness. Now, though, he found himself only remembering how Char had slapped the Oathkeeper's Keychain into his hand, features trembling with rage and suppressed tears. _She gave me something with that, too, though. Another reason to fight, even after she was gone._

He looked to the others and, to his surprise, saw sympathy in even Donald's features. However, they wasted no time promising they would find her and their other friends regardless of whatever enemies – mechanical or Heartless or Nobody alike – chose to impede their path; at this point, that needed no confirmation. Instead, Goofy stepped up and placed a hand on Sora's shoulder. "Y'know, Sally said a real present is a wish to make somebody else happy," he reminded him. "I think you already gave Char that much."

Sora's eyes widened. When he put it that way, they had all given that kind of gift to someone at some point: Donald to Daisy, and Goofy to his son Max.

_I gave that to Riku and Kairi. And everybody we've visited along the way._

It was why, in the end, only happiness and warmth for the skeleton and his dancing partner permeated his heart, rather than envy and sorrow poisoning it.

He didn't realize he had spoken the part about all of them having given to their precious ones until Donald spoke. "You know, you're right, Sora. And… I guess… Char's a bit like Sally."

Now _that_ bemused Sora. "Why's that?"

"Well," Goofy said, "as long as she can be with you, what else does she need?"

Sora tilted his head to the side, brown spikes swaying a bit in the late afternoon breeze. All around him, snow continued to fall, heedless of their surroundings or their observers; a soft giggle drew his gaze, and he watched with a sudden, sharp pang as Jack swiped an offending snowflake off the outer hollow of his eye. One unfortunate drop of snow sizzled out against the acid fall of the fountain as Sora thought.

He remembered her refusal to dress as a man to join the army, but desire to follow him nonetheless; her single-minded determination to restore his old self after Anxclof had released his heart; the way she had embraced him at his return at Disney Castle; her actually pushing her pride aside to reveal the exact reason behind her loathing toward Christmas; the warmth of her kiss, awkward and short as it had been.

As Jack and Sally continued to twirl and sway across the courtyard, the skeleton bringing her into a sharp dip before pulling her back upward again, Sora closed his eyes, allowing a vision of himself and Char to replace his two friends – so similar to the Agrabah ball, and yet so different.

Because in his mind they were clad not in the dress and suit from back then – whose location, he thought fleetingly, he still didn't know – but in his dark ensemble and her brown jacket, and no clumsiness showed prevalently in his step or any awkwardness in her tread, and she was actually smiling at him much like she had in his dream.

But, he suddenly recalled, with a pang of longing so powerful and agonizing amidst the sleep-like warmth encasing the fantasy he almost gasped aloud, it wasn't reality.

With no small amount of reluctance, he opened his eyes. The sun-like glow of Jack and Sally's movements shone all the more brightly in his vision due to what he had just banished; when he tried to summon the image back again, it wouldn't come.

"Oh yeah," Donald suddenly cried, "Santa said we could come back!"

The brunette blinked; he had completely forgotten about Father Christmas' offer. In spite of himself, a grin began to spread across his face: because at the very least, they didn't have to spend the night alone in the Gummi ship.

_Next Christmas, it'll be different,_ he had thought to himself, as he had sat next to Jack on the sleigh listening to Donald struggle to get up the steps and the reindeer snorting and pawing the crunchy snow. _Next Christmas, I'll have all of them by my side. Riku, Kairi, and Char._

* * *

_This was a terrible idea._

Char sighed deeply, both at the wry inflection behind the thought and to try and relieve the pressure of the table's edge on the middle of her spine. Predictably, not even expanding her ribcage enough for her body to shift a little away from the corner relieved the very sharp object digging in there, to her intense irritation.

She surveyed the spacious room – one that might have been beautiful were it not currently saturated with the inane chatter of people filling it up. At least the music unfurling from the band the mayor had gathered together onstage streaked the annoying dissonance of clashing conversations going on around her.

In addition to some of the conversations, some of the people had begun an impromptu waltz routine in the middle of the area, albeit with more rapid movement than a normal waltz would include. As much as the sounds of the others had annoyed her, Char found her eyes drawn to the couples who had chosen to join the dance. In particular, that of a red-haired girl and a brown-haired boy who had more recently, more shyly, stepped into the throng of people.

The boy stood taller than the girl, the girl's hair was shorter than Char's, and obviously the boy's hair wasn't near as unruly as Sora's, but their similarities to Char and the boy she had so forcibly left behind struck her like a Heartless' talon. Like a Behemoth's lightning strikes. She didn't know it, but her mouth twisted wistfully as she watched them clumsily adjust to the beat of the song and laughed at each other's nervous enthusiasm.

"Hey, Blaze!"

Char cringed at the new voice, one she already groaned inwardly and outwardly at hearing. She briefly considered ignoring him in favor of just the memory of better company, but then figured he would just keep pestering her until she did.

As evidenced by the rigorous poke he applied to her left bicep.

"Copperhead," she muttered.

She dared to aim a glance upward and raised an eyebrow at the grin that quirked his entire face upward. "This party is amazing!" he crowed, tipping the glass he held in his hand up to his lips. After taking a sip, he lowered it again, eyes slipping closed. "Man, this punch is good."

Although his tone sounded steady enough, Char leveled her suspicion at the pink substance sloshing back into place within its confines. "You sure the punch is the only thing in there?" she quipped dubiously.

"Huh? Oh!" Copperhead looked down at his drink, and Char rolled her eyes. "Nah, this isn't spiked, if that's what you're thinking. Although," he added, a teasingly encouraging glint coming into his eyes as he leaned closer to her eye level, "the legal drinking age here _is_ eighteen…" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her.

Char growled and shoved him back none too gently by the arm. "Good try, but I'm sixteen, not eighteen. And anyway, even if you're going for legality, you're asking the wrong person. Isn't Falcon eighteen?"

Copperhead had already stumbled back, laughing all the while as if her shove, which really amounted to a light blow with the strength applied to it, hadn't done anything to damage his pride at all. The words "geez, Blaze, I was just kidding" had already begun to spill forth from him, but no sooner had the words "was just" overlapped with Char's query about Falcon's age did he stop abruptly. The amusement and playful flirtatiousness receded from his countenance immediately, and he took another sip of punch, the sluggishness with which he did so suggesting he was gathering his thoughts.

She watched him with narrowed eyes; the thought briefly crossed her mind to press onward, to demand why exactly he thought he could just take refuge in a veil of silence now, but something inside stopped her. Something that felt a little damnably too much like pity.

In the end, she just huffed and turned away, hating the uncertainty that rose up, bile-like, into her throat. She ended up staring down at the table she currently leaned against, wondering just how much hunger remained from the chicken dinner Falcon had quickly scraped together for her and her guests not two hours before. So far, the desserts that took up residence on the table were tempting her.

Picking up a chocolate-slathered confection whose name she could not even begin to place, she focused on biting into it instead of the – ugh – _worry_ she felt at how quickly Copperhead's blithe manner had shifted into melancholia. Once she had swallowed her mouthful, she turned back to him, in the vain hope that looking at him wouldn't dredge up any sort of guilt.

_Of course that didn't work out. Ugh, whatever._

"Have you seen Riku anywhere?" she queried, stringing a brusque angle onto her voice in an attempt to return to normalcy. Besides, she truly was curious as to where the hell her friend had disappeared. "He kind of just vanished after we got here."

Copperhead lowered his now mostly-empty glass and shrugged. Although he seemed to have recovered himself, one last thread of shadow faded out from his eyes as he spoke, and Char couldn't help wondering the source of that final strand. _The day he and Falcon fell out, maybe? _"I'm not sure."

He pivoted around and gazed out at the vast windows beyond the throngs of dancing people and the band, who was now tuning their instruments in preparation for the next song. With one source of noise's temporary absence, he didn't raise his voice as much to be heard over the other. "We killed the Heartless, and the mayor just decided out of nowhere to throw this party in our honor at the manor."

"And then Falcon had a fit about how it was on the other side of town, the mayor ignored it, and you followed us back to her house for dinner beforehand because your place is 'too far.'" At the last two words, Char raised her voice up a couple of octaves to mimic his own deep timbre and lifted her fingers for some mocking air quotes. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I was there, too."

The blonde lowered his glass to the table with a clink and raised one eyebrow at her. "I was _going_ to say that Riku went on the balcony to get some air, and Falcon's probably with him."

Char blinked. "Oh." However, she only allowed the directness of his explanation to surprise her for a moment before readjusting her composure. "Well, thank you for actually telling me," she muttered, biting into her dessert again. _Dammit, this is good._

She swept past him. "Anyway, I'm going to go look for them. Hopefully the view is less lame than this party."

She tossed the last part over her shoulder mostly for her own benefit, because he was starting to smirk into the rim of his glass as he pressed it to his lips again.

Having left him behind, she surveyed the room, eyes narrowing at the cacophony; it had arisen anew, due to the party guests' having to adopt a dull roar to be heard over the music's resurgence. The redhead took another sizeable bite out of the food in her hand for something to do as she sought out the telltale head of gray hair. With Riku's current appearance, Char reflected dryly, at least he would be visible above the crowd.

Her gaze skirted over the brown-haired boy and redheaded girl she had spotted earlier; she allowed herself a moment to take in, with a surge of wistfulness so strong she almost gasped aloud, the sight of the young couple moving with breathless laughter out of the crowd, before she returned to the task at hand. _This is stupid,_ she told herself firmly, self-annoyance dulling the sharpness of her search ever so slightly. _You can't let every little thing remind you of him._

But she had thought she had left that ache behind yesterday, had thought her resolve had finally unpinned itself from under that pathetic sadness and prodded her to remember the mission. Find the machine, meet Sora at the World That Never Was, use the machine to destroy the remainder of the Organization, laugh at their triumph, and head back to Destiny Island.

Still… she didn't even know what Ansem had built the machine to do in the first place. The realization widened her eyes and impeded her focus for half a second – just half a second – before she continued looking around the room. She was forced to move almost mechanically when a group of people migrated over to the table for a food break, but remained in thought as she did so. _Apparently Master didn't trust Riku enough to tell him exactly the _purpose_ of what we're looking for,_ she reflected, and couldn't hold back a tiny sigh.

_ Apparently he doesn't trust either of us. Even though he's known me for eleven years, and Riku for almost a year and a half._

Maybe that was what struck her most, what sent a spike of bitterness driving deep into her heart: that after she had followed Ansem through hell and back, after she had agreed to take on this entire journey with Sora and effectively thrown her heart and life through a proverbial blender, he didn't trust her enough with even this.

Maybe that was when she realized Ansem had meant to carry out some parts of his vengeance by himself in the first place.

Surprisingly, the revelation stung much less than she had expected it to.

Before she could figure out exactly why, though, a movement from a little ways above the crowd's heads, shifting about to the music's rhythm as they were, drew her gaze. Relief settled inside her as she spotted Riku, elbowing his way past an undulating mass of laughing, talking people. In that action, he appeared directly in front of her, and his eyes widened as they met hers.

"You look like you're having fun," Char remarked, pushing the last morsel of food into her mouth when she finished the wry greeting.

Riku rolled his eyes, although a grateful little smile curled his lips. "Not really, but thanks for thinking that." He glanced around for a couple of seconds. "Have you seen Copperhead anywhere?"

Char frowned, folding her arms as she turned around. "He was just behind me a second ago…" She trailed off at the lack of overly pretty, Riku-like blonde hair and personal space violation, and her confusion deepened along with her frown. "Huh," she said. "Guess he went off to look for Falcon or something."

"He'll have fun with that," Riku chortled to himself. "She's off on the balcony on the other side of the ballroom." Although he sounded cheerful enough, a kind of wary inflection lurked in his words.

Char didn't have to wonder about that for very long; the answer as to why he felt that way became clear to her as soon as she chortled out an "oh" and gazed out the manor's wall-wide window for something to do. Because on this side of the room, the citadel's imposing spires and turrets were clearly visible.

She shivered in spite of herself, frustration at not knowing _why_ Falcon and Copperhead avoided that place so much returning – especially because with her luck, that was where the Organization had hidden the machine, in the most obscure and dangerous part of the Shadowed Desert. That aggravation only amplified when she remembered she still didn't know why she was contemplating their reasons for skirting around it so much.

Riku must have caught her shoulders tensing and back stiffening in her annoyance, because he sighed, making her whirl around to raise an eyebrow at him. "What?" she asked, hoping to convey her complete unwillingness to explain herself to him in that single word.

_Because keeping things bottled up has worked out so well for you in the past._

Those irritatingly-familiar amber eyes surveyed her a moment longer before Riku shook his head. "Nothing," he replied. He hesitated, as if contemplating explaining why Falcon had chosen that part of the building to enact her avoidance of all this, then seemed to accept that Char realized why and falling silent again.

They stood together for a few more moments, during which the current song wound down into a softer, slower cadence and the party guests moved into a swaying dance. The tiny pangs in the back of Char's skull died down just slightly at the lack of clashing noise, but she found herself dwelling less on that and more on the young man standing next to her. For some reason, seeing the eyebrow on the side of his head that she could see furrow just slightly replaced the minor, blooming headache with twinges of a whole new variety.

It took her a moment to call those twinges _sympathy._

Normally she would have tried to push that feeling aside, but a year spent living with him, albeit spent without tilting her head back to meet his eyes and seeing turquoise once she did, had accustomed her to regarding everything that plagued him with anything other than detachment. Budding crush on him aside, she had grudgingly acknowledged her pitying his predicament with fighting darkness, and the pang of something beside jealousy at picking up wistfulness when he referred to Sora or Kairi.

Now, though, in light of everything he had done to her since physically surrendering to Xehanort's Heartless – making her promise to stay by Sora's side no matter what, then promptly forcing her to break that promise a month later – feeling anything other than the obligation to get back to Sora seemed odd to her.

Yet there it was, stark and painful as the day her feelings for Sora had first become clear to her.

She couldn't fathom why it would hurt, though.

Just as she was contemplating breaking the not-quite-silence between them, though, Riku turned to face her. "Char, there's something I've been wondering since I took you from the Land of Dragons. It's… kind of about why this whole thing's pissing you off so much."

Char tensed unconsciously. _Oh crap,_ she thought, because she knew the exact question that was about to come out of his mouth and she hadn't prepared herself at all for this moment yet. Her heart had already flown to somewhere in the vicinity of her throat; that voice that demanded to know why her nails were biting into the fabric of her pants if it was just Sora's best friend was echoing more loudly than it ever had.

She braced herself for the question, almost hoping against hope that Copperhead would jump out from under the table, trailing his inane nickname for her behind a triumphant exclamation, and end this whole conversation before it even started. That alone should have indicated to her that she was worrying far too much about his reaction in the first place.

When Riku spoke, though, it still resonated inside her like a rock falling into the deepest part of a well – a despondent, fear-invoking sound – despite the fact that he left it fairly open.

"When I sent you off with Sora, did you… I mean, did _he…?"_ Riku broke off here – whether it was deliberate or not remained unknown to her – and stared down at the ground.

Char hesitated, considered pleading ignorance. Gods, did she want to; every fiber of her being screamed to keep this inside, let it simmer and breathe and hover gently inside her mind until she had prepared herself well enough to let it emerge.

But she had had enough secret keeping from her friends with Sora. And so she ended up responding honestly, even though anxiety impeded her every word.

"I kissed him," she admitted, quietly. Riku leaned down to hear her, narrowed eyes flying wide almost comically as he picked up what she said.

"You what?" he whispered, apparently too shocked to muster up a good snarl. The low hiss all but dissolved, mist-like, into the wispy music floating up around them.

And then the surprise wore off, replaced by a slow, blazing fury. _Now there's a more familiar expression on Xehanort. _

"Char," he growled, "you _know_ he loves Kairi." The reaffirmation of what he could never have sounded almost desperate, as if in just those three words Char had sent everything he knew as truth tumbling end over comforting end. "I know you spent more time fetching food from town than you did watching his memories, but even without that I told you as much. So why…?"

"Why would I mess up his moral compass like that?" Char finished for him, so matter-of-factly that Riku couldn't hold back a startled grunt. She sighed deeply, staring out at the star-spattered darkness that lay just beyond the window. The sky that, undoubtedly, Sora was watching as well. "Hell if I know. For the record," she added quickly, "I didn't seduce him or anything like that. For some stupid reason, he likes me just as much as I like him."

It was out, now – both the reason why she had reacted so violently to Riku stealing her away and her emotions toward Sora. In the back of Char's mind she understood that easily telling Riku how she felt about his best friend should perturb her a bit, but right now she could only focus on the strange freedom it brought.

The same feeling of freedom – of a weight having lifted from her shoulders – that had filled her and buoyed her heart up when she had explained her past to her friends.

Riku surveyed her a moment longer, emotions battling and tangling in an obvious manner in spite of the rigidness in his face. Incredulity, then contemplation, and then, finally resignation. "The balcony," he muttered.

Char blinked. "Okay? What about the –"

"Just out here." Already he was seizing her arm at the elbow and dragging her toward the open door. Char narrowed her eyes, pondered yanking herself out of his hold, but in the end decided he had a point.

Besides, his behavior was justified in light of what she had just told him.

* * *

"Would you like another cookie?"

"Huh?" Sora turned to see a rosy-cheeked, elderly woman extending a colorful plate to him, the bright palette of which was partially obscured by a pile of cookies. He lifted his face to meet the woman's gaze and couldn't hold back a smile at the beatific serenity that twinkled in her beady eyes, so much like her husband's. "Yeah, that sounds good, Mrs. Claus. Thanks."

The recently baked dough felt soft under his fingertips as he took the topmost cookie from the plate and bit into it; its flavor seeped into his taste buds, and he hummed at its rich taste.

"Good?" Mrs. Claus asked, tilting her round head as best she could with her girth.

Sora looked back up at her and grinned. "Amazing!" he declared, although the mouthful of cookie muffled his response ever so slightly.

_Chew,_ Char ordered in his head then, and he quickly swallowed before continuing, even though the woman standing before him had not spoken. "I mean, they're really good."

Mrs. Claus smiled at that, reaching forward with her free hand to ruffle his hair. Since Donald had taken them back up to the Gummi ship to retrieve their main outfits earlier, the pumpkin mask did not hinder her as she patted Sora's head. "I had a feeling you would enjoy them."

The brunette blinked, moving away ever so slightly so strands of his unruly hair slipped out from beneath her fingers. As much as the gesture reminded him of what his mother would do back home, the reminder was also a painful one. "Did Santa tell you that?"

"Santa? Oh!" Mrs. Claus laughed, a sound whose ready amicability thoroughly reminded Sora of her husband's own patented chuckle. "Oh, no, no," she went on. One hand rested on her belly, as if to stave off amusement. "I just figured a boy like yourself must love cookies."

"Oh." The Keybearer's mild disappointment at being wrong faded instantly and he straightened up again. "Well, thanks." A beat, then his hunger became too much for him and he added eagerly, "Can I have another? Please?"

"Take as many as you want," Mrs. Claus invited, placing the plate onto the armrest. "I'm going to go watch for Santa."

"Watch for…? Oh yeah, isn't he getting the sleigh back from Jack?" Sora asked.

"Last we heard, yeah." Donald's voice from behind him made the boy turn just in time to see the duck ambling out of the hallway that led to the toy factory's main room. Close behind was Goofy, who kept casting glances over his shoulder at the candy cane-patterned doorway.

"Hello, boys," Mrs. Claus greeted. "I just baked another batch of cookies for you, if you'd like some."

Donald perked up at the promise of food, squawked out "Oh boy!" and made a beeline for the plate performing a balancing act at the edge of the armrest. Sora let out a cry of surprise and scooted to the other side of the chair, flattening himself against it as best he could, as the mage charged into a flying leap and landed stretched over the side of the chair.

"Slow down, Donald," Goofy berated his friend, though he sounded rather half-hearted. He dared move his arm toward the plate of doomed cookies long enough to snatch one for himself.

"Enjoy those cookies, you three. I'll be outside if you need me." With that, the portly woman opened the door and vanished into the snowy surroundings outside.

Once the tongue of deliciously warm air from outside was swallowed up by the air conditioning of Santa's house, Sora sat back in Father Christmas' chair, one leg crossed in front of the other. As Donald's frenzied feeding beside him died down into a much tamer munching noise, Goofy spoke. "Me and Donald were just checkin' out the toy factory."

"Really? How was it? The last time we were in there, _we_ were making the toys as bait for the doctor's experiment. And before that, Oogie was trying to squash us, so I never really got a chance to check it out." Sora spoke the reminders of what had gone on in that room aloud mostly to distract himself from his unwelcome sympathy, which had resurfaced with a vengeance at mentioning the experiment.

_It's nothing like the Organization, though. The Organization's trying to hurt people. Not intentionally, but still – they don't have hearts, so they don't care about what they're doing._

Yet the knowledge of Roxas – or perhaps even Roxas himself – begged to differ at that opinion.

"It was pretty great, a-hyuck," Goofy said with a grin that lit up his entire face. If he noticed the inner conflict about the Nobodies going on in Sora's head, he didn't mention it, which the by found himself immensely grateful for. "The elves had them conveyer belts going, and they kept putting stuff onto it with those machine claw things. When it came out of the holes, a bunch of toys were there."

"The head elf kept yelling to hurry up, though," Donald grumbled around a mouthful of cookie. He chewed a couple more times, then swallowed before addressing his leader. "Hey, Sora? I wonder how they made that new Keyblade."

Goofy's eyes widened, this time out of curiosity instead of awe. "Oh yeah, I was kinda wondering that too."

Sora looked down at his pocket and dug around for a couple of seconds. The ghost dog shape of this particular charm was still a bit unfamiliar to him – more difficult to find than the mouse head shape of the Kingdom Key, or the crescent moon of the Star Seeker – but soon his fingertips scraped against the Zero rendition's snout. He pulled out the Decisive Pumpkin's Keychain and gazed at it for a couple of seconds.

"It's Santa Claus, remember, guys?" he pointed out. "It makes sense that he knows what we need."

"Yeah, you're probably right. I was just wondering." Donald hopped down to the floor, apparently having gotten his fill. Not surprisingly, the plate whose surface had once supported Mrs. Claus' cooking now held only a couple of cookies.

Easily as the explanation had come to Sora, he found himself unable to wholeheartedly embrace it and accept it as truth. The words had emerged, child-like in their naïveté, believing Santa's omnipotence with everything they had. Sora had shared that belief, at least until Riku had pointed out the oddity of large man in a red suit delivering presents to the whole world in less than twelve hours.

However, the question as to _how_ Father Christmas had managed to condense every bit of power and capability and compatibility with a wielder into that Keychain nagged at his thoughts. At least, he mused as he rubbed the pads of his fingers over the Zero-shaped charm, it _felt_ right enough in his grip.

_I'll just have to test it out tomorrow, _he decided. A satisfied sigh escaped him as he wiggled down deeper into the chair; as it was built for a much wider shape than himself, he ended up stretching his legs out so his knees brushed the chair's outer sides.

The relaxation lasted only until it hit him how very Char-like his skepticism was.

Sora had missed Riku and Kairi when the darkness had first torn him away from them. It had sent Kairi into an effective coma and turned the wooden swords he had always used to spar with Riku into very real ones. The dull, gnawing ache that rent at his heart now reminded him thoroughly of how he had felt back then; however, he had had well over a year to become… not _accustomed_ to the feeling regarding his two best friends, necessarily, but able to conceal it and let it carry him on.

Right now, he hadn't even had two days to allow determination to beat the sorrow aside and fling it into a dark corner of his heart.

To distract himself, he stared out the window to Christmas Town's main courtyard, watched snow mar the nighttime sky. Although the streetlights partially blotted out the stars above, the falling snow took vengeance for what their fiery fellows, trapped in the sky as they were, could not. They sprinkled the crimson stripes of the merry-go-round and the buildings of the houses along the street. Before this journey had begun, he had never seen snow in anything besides Christmas specials or movies.

Then another source of red entirely blotted out the window, and he nearly leapt up to summon his Keyblade before seeing the white-haired man climb out of the sleigh. Santa's scarlet garb nearly melted into the sleigh's own like color, but he distinguished himself when he leaned forward to give his approaching wife a peck on the cheek.

"Guys, Santa's back!" the brunette called, already jumping up to open the door and let Father Christmas in.

However, Santa had already cleared the window's view and taken one step past the threshold before the trio had so much as shifted toward the door. "Good evening, you three," he greeted. From his affable demeanor, Jack had relinquished the sleigh without much of a fight. Somehow, Sora got the feeling that had the skeleton pleaded for it, those eyes wouldn't twinkle quite so much.

Another record: he had never anticipated Santa growing annoyed, much less because of something like an animated, overzealous skeleton whose passion and fierceness belied his lack of flesh and muscle.

Santa's pupils flitted toward the empty plate as he crossed into the living room, allowing Mrs. Claus enough room to walk in behind him. "I see my wife baked you all some cookies."

Goofy nodded. "And they were real good, Mrs. Claus!"

While the woman modestly accepted both Goofy's and Donald's admiration, Sora's amusement died down after a couple of seconds. Much as he enjoyed watching the snow fall outside – amidst a climate saturated with warmth, rather than the appropriately-freezing air, like in the Land of Dragons – he couldn't help wishing his other friends were here to enjoy this with him.

_Riku and I would probably be fighting over this chair,_ he thought with a tiny, rueful grin. _And then Kairi would step in and just make us both sit in it. And Char…_

His smile transformed into a contemplative frown, because not once before now had he ever had Kairi and Char in the same thought together – had never dared to, for fear of the implications it would stir about one or the other in his mind. However, now that he had accepted his heart's eye turning from Kairi to Char and soundly remaining on her, he found himself wondering how they would interact.

With Kairi's personality, he couldn't exactly picture her as a rival toward Char, even though the maroon-haired girl had most likely known how he had felt toward her at the end of their last journey. Heat rushed to Sora's cheeks at remembering when Kairi had handed him her good-luck charm in Traverse Town's tunnels and demanded, hands playfully situated on her hips, to bring it back.

_Don't worry, I will,_ he had promised, in a voice so much different in timbre from now that present Sora brought a black-gloved hand to his throat.

_And I'm still keeping that promise. Just… under different circumstances, is all._

He had to stifle a sigh at his next thought. Because he couldn't picture Kairi being angry when – when, when, he kept telling himself; not _if_ – a strange redheaded girl showed up in the Organization's world claiming to possess his heart in front of her and Riku.

"Are you all right, Sora?"

Santa's voice sounded from right next to Sora's ear, and he turned in the chair to see the red-clad man eyeing him with concern. Behind him, Donald, Goofy, and Mrs. Claus watched as well, and the depth of worry in all three pairs of dark eyes reminded him he would never be alone all over again.

For an instant, the boy considered apologizing for occupying the chair and moving off as sluggishly as possible, but then sighed, defeated. Stalling for time wouldn't help now, anyway. "I'm fine, Santa, really. Just…" he paused; part of him insisted on fabricating some lie to divert the others' attention, but then his heart stepped in and demanded to know why that part thought it could avoid this.

"I'm just thinking about Char," he confessed.

Santa drew back and shook his head. "Ah, yes. I'd wondered where she had gone. The young lady who was with him last time," he explained to his wife, whose eyes widened in understanding and pity.

Sora looked to Father Christmas, who met his eyes fairly evenly, though not without guilt turning one corner of his mouth into his beard. It only took the brunette a moment to figure out why. "You don't know where she is, do you?"

His last hope at getting some kind of lead crashed, landing quite tangibly into his stomach somewhere near the last cookie he had eaten, when Santa shook his head. "I don't. I have yet to see where any of your friends are."

"Well, we know where Kairi and Riku are," Donald said from behind the elderly man, making him pivot around to look at him and Goofy. "That's a start." Even as the duck spoke, though, an earnest expression belied his brusque tone, one that told Sora without a hint of aggravation to push his disappointment aside.

He nodded. "Yeah, Donald, that's true," he said, with feeling.

"That's the spirit," Santa said, putting a hand on the Keybearer's shoulder. "All I can say for now is that carrying on isn't such a bad idea."

Sora's eyes widened. "So if we look for a way into the realm of darkness, we'll find everybody?"

The other man's only response took form in his smiling and turning away. "Dear, I'm going to feed the reindeer and put them in for the night," he called over his shoulder as he waddled toward the door.

"All right." Mrs. Claus turned her own bulky frame to appraise her husband as the door swung shut behind him with a solid noise. Although her back remained turned, anxiety curved her spine and made her feelings as clear as if the trio could see her face.

Then she made her way to the other chair beside the fire. Settling into it, she spoke. "Sora, Donald, Goofy," the three of them straightened to attention in turn as she uttered their names, "would you like to tell me a little more about your friends from your homes? After what just happened, I'm a little curious," she confessed.

The request made Sora blink, surprised. He exchanged glances with Donald and Goofy, as much out of curiosity as to whether or not this constituted _meddling_ as to why Santa hadn't told his own wife his guests' pasts himself. Then again, Char was proof enough that some things needed to remain hidden.

When Donald gave a nod, though, Sora smiled and turned back to Mrs. Claus, who now looked more interested than ever.

"Well," he began, "my two best friends – Riku and Kairi – would go out with me to this island to play…"

* * *

Falcon leaned back against the balcony's rail, one leg crossed in front of the other and elbows resting on top of the rail. To the very few partygoers who had chosen the admittedly breathtaking view over the music whose emanation was still tangible from within the manor, the Keyblade-wielding girl had taken a deceptively casual stance.

However, those who bothered to follow her gaze would at least get an idea of why said emerald eyes were slitted and her forearms curled ever so slightly against the railing.

Riku bent down to Char's eye level then, and Falcon's elbows twitched. Despite the mass of people who would have normally hindered visibility, their movements had decreased substantially with the slower, almost nonexistent beat of this song; as a result, Falcon could see the dark-clad shape and the smaller, feminine one all too easily.

Her teeth found the inside of her cheek and worried it as that black coated arm shot out toward Char's bare one. Even from this distance, halfway across the manor ballroom, his fingers wrapping around the crook of her elbow drew Falcon's gaze and riveted it.

The feeling of her teeth pressing into her cheek was almost painful at this point.

As the gray-haired young man strode off toward the other side of the balcony with his burden in tow, Falcon at last tore herself away from the spectacle, though not without some difficulty.

She supposed following them would ease the bubbling jealousy that unsettled her belly and sent her recently-consumed dinner into convulsions. The balcony wrapped itself around this floor of the manor, so she could simply follow that path rather than risking wading through the crowd.

Or, worse, risking running into Copperhead.

Falcon snorted to herself, eyes rolling up to the night-tipped heavens. Doubtless, he was among those swaying to the now-waning music, working his so-called _charm_ on some hapless, vacuous girl.

She didn't know whether the pang she felt arose from disgust or envy.

The thought petered off and the annoyance toward her heart's capriciousness along with it. It only took a couple of seconds for her to notice her focus was sliding steadily and worryingly toward where Char and Riku had disappeared.

Quickly, with a growl whose fervency made her extremely grateful that she stood alone out here, she wrenched her head away from it. Deciding she had tortured herself long enough, Falcon pivoted her entire body around, so her wrists could dangle over the edge.

In an attempt at diverting her attention from even brushing the thought of finding Riku, she gazed up at the sky, trying to pick out the tiny pinpricks of silver light. The lights emanating from the manor all but bled over the stars, but a bit of concentration allowed her to pick out a few bolder ones poking up from behind their stronger counterpart.

History class had taught her that each star symbolized a different world, hovering out there beyond the scattered clouds, and that whenever a star blinked out, that world had just succumbed completely to darkness. Remembering that particular lesson, Falcon fought back a shiver, one that seized her spine for a reason other than the newfound chill the storm had brought to the air.

Because the very night after she had learned that, her subconscious had plunged her into the very first dream of stained glass platforms and given her a weapon she had never wanted.

And it seemed no matter what direction her mind tried to take, it inevitably riveted itself back on Copperhead again; this time that annoying tendency manifested itself in recalling how he had found her practicing summoning her Keyblade in the glade just near the school courtyard.

_I'm not gonna tell,_ he had promised that day. Rather than try and dispute him, though, as her reaction should have gone, she had felt herself become overwhelmed by relief… and the intrinsic reaction of trusting him to keep her Keyblade – and the destiny that came attached to it – a secret.

Now, though, four years and one love and two tragedies later, Falcon found herself wondering how things might have panned out had he not crept into the courtyard's shadows in search of her. _I'd have my parents here, first of all. And Copperhead would still annoy me… _

_ But not for the same reasons he does now. _

Not for the much less petty reasons she had for abhorring his very name now.

As though just the very thought had summoned it, a disgustingly familiar voice slithered up from behind her and traced taunting fingers along her back.

"I'll be back in a sec. I just need to get some air."

The invisible fingers crawling along the curve of her spine were forced to change their angle as she stiffened. Her fingers, suspended in space over the driveway leading up to the manor as they were, curled into fists.

She heard a distinctly female, distinctly giggly voice tell him to hurry right back, to which the voice only rumbled out a chuckle and a promise to heed that. However, even though said voice's owner only now grew closer, his amusement sounded rather hollow.

Her nails dug into her palms in a way that made her regret having discarded the pale blue gloves she usually wore when honey-colored hair swayed in her periphery. If the artificial light radiating from both within and outside the manor hadn't lit and filled the newcomer's face, she might have tricked herself into thinking Riku had approached her intending to alleviate his boredom.

But the lights were there, and Riku had picked Char for that particular task instead of Falcon, and the person standing next to her wasn't nearly tall enough to be him.

Bitterness welled up deep within Falcon's chest, but she stuffed it back down into the deepest confines of her heart. _Not in public,_ she firmly told her desire to whirl around and snap at him to go away.

As fate would have it, the man next to her let out an explosive sigh. A typical gesture for him, and yet she knew him well enough to notice it didn't carry its usual dramatic flourish. "Your latest victim falling for it, _Nigel?"_ she asked, putting as much mocking emphasis on his real name as she could possibly manage.

While she didn't dare shift her eyes away from the stars and onto him, the groan that coiled out from him reverberated through the balcony railing nonetheless. "There is a _reason_ I've got a nickname that I've had since I was little, Fal," Copperhead said.

Hesitation marked the moniker he had adopted for her so long ago, and out of the corner of her eye she caught his body tensing, as if bracing himself for her to satisfy the frustrated urge she had just repressed. She briefly considered letting out all her rage from the afternoon – first fiercely regretting her impulse to hug Riku the way she had, then Copperhead following her back home and effectively stealing all her strong coffee – but relented after a couple of seconds. Just the thought of snarling at him now exhausted her, for reasons she did not even want to touch long enough to explain.

So she just sighed and shifted in response to her ribs digging into the balcony's edge. "What do you want?" she muttered.

She could almost see him blinking in astonishment at her lack of apparent anger. Her fingers unwound just enough for her fingers to stretch and curl over the balcony railing, and allowed her nails to tap against its underside. It felt smooth and slender under her touch, almost like the Azure Ice's charm, and she took comfort from the familiar feeling.

Then his form shifted in her periphery. Before she could stop herself she had glanced over, just in time to see him settle in much the same position she had abandoned: back curved against the rail, elbows draped over it, one leg loosely crossed in front of the other, gaze focused on the people in the manor ballroom. "I was being honest. I really did need to get some air."

Although he kept his tone neutral enough, the sidelong glance he cut across at her suggested he was leaving more unsaid. It wasn't difficult for her to figure out what, she reflected with a very slight roll of the eyes. _If he's expecting me to forgive him now, he can forget it._

She didn't realize she had spoken aloud until Copperhead snorted. "I wasn't out here for that, actually. Not everything I do is about you, you know," he added. The recently-faded crescent moon nail marks on Falcon's palms reappeared as her fists clenched again: not out of indignation, or even gratefulness, at his admission.

Because the way he tried to soften his words with an apologetic grin sent a bolt of fresh loathing into her heart.

_You could've fooled me._ This time, though, she managed to keep the thought fettered in the back of her mind and instead muttered, "Right."

Silence descended on the two of them, a silence that, disturbingly, comforted her more than the quiet music tracing incandescent fingers through the air did. Rather than eradicate the feeling, though, she chose to watch the sky again. Unbidden, the thought _Riku's world used to be up there_ popped into her head, and she heard someone sigh.

Perplexed, she swung her head around, searching for the source, but Copperhead was eyeing her with just as much confusion as she felt. _Oh. That was me._

Wasn't it?

"Anything wrong?" Copperhead had the gall to ask.

_Of course there's something wrong,_ Falcon wanted to say. _My parents are dead, I'm pretty sure my ability to feel anything other than anger and jealousy is gone, I hugged a guy who didn't even want me to hug him out of relief that his stupid stunt didn't get him killed, and, oh, lest we forget, _you're here.

Aloud, though, she only said, "Yeah, I guess."

He had had a doubtful look on his face – one that suggested all of those things in her thoughts were obvious – and said doubt only intensified at her words. "Oh, come on," he teased, "you're not getting off that easily."

Rather than be amused by his tone, Falcon rolled her eyes. "I guess not," she muttered. "I… it's about Riku."

She saw Copperhead tense. _Of course,_ she could almost hear him think. _In the end, it always is._

Rather than even try to refute that, though, she barreled on, suddenly, desperately clawing back the need to tell someone – anyone – about the things she had kept inside her since Char had arrived. "I was okay – well, sort of – until Char got here. And suddenly, I had to allow for someone else, you know? I had to watch someone else in battle and make sure _they_ didn't do anything stupid and make sure _they_ didn't get hurt and – it was just a pain. And – and it didn't help that she was so _familiar_ with him. Every single time I'd look over they'd have their heads bent close together or he'd have his hand on her shoulder and –"

Her voice broke, because just thinking about how Char had told her she felt nothing besides friendship toward Riku only confused her even more.

"So yeah," she continued, glowering fiercely out at the darkness and seeing all too many memories in their depths, "it's about Riku. I know Char told me she didn't like him like that, but it's hard to wonder whether or not he likes Kairi or whether he likes her in the end.

"And why shouldn't he? Char – she actually knew what to do against that Heartless today. She… she's this dual-wielding powerhouse, you know? And me?" Falcon gulped in a breath, for the last part had bubbled forth with the force of a dam being shattered and condensed itself all into one inhalation; took a couple more, not daring to acknowledge Copperhead watching with huge eyes in the background as she effectively whined out her insecurities at him. "I'm just this pathetic girl who can't get over the fact that her parents are dead and her best friend killed them."

It was out, then – the reason why the past had grown so painful to even touch on, the reason why she had built a wall between herself and the world. A wall that Riku's presence and friendship had already partially eroded, and that was crumbling in the face of her sorrow now.

Stupidly, all she could think was _maybe I can feel something beside anger and jealousy after all._

Copperhead had taken in this outburst fairly silently, bearing the brunt of her repressed emotions with a detached aura so false she could feel it falling apart even from here. He reached forward, as if to pull her close, then just sighed and ended up pressing his hand against the top of her head.

Startled into blinking out a single tear, she could only look on, too stunned to move, as he kept his bare hand still on her. It was stupid that she wanted him to move it, to cup her head and pull her close.

Then he spoke.

"I won't lie and tell you it's okay. I heard that way too much right after… right after Dyme died. And I won't say I'm sorry, because I know it won't help at this point."

Falcon focused on breathing in and out instead of how very warm and familiar his fingers felt against her hair and said nothing.

"But," he went on, breath hitching and drawing the word into a tetchy hiss, "we're going to keep helping Riku and Char. It's what you want to do. And what I want to do. If you want me to leave you alone, that's fine. Just… never forget who you are and why I fell in love with you in the first place."

He dropped his hand then, locks of dark hair sliding out from between his fingers, and strode off back into the ballroom.

Falcon remained staring after him as the music played on.

* * *

"So," Riku began once the two of them had emerged onto the balcony, "you and Sora."

It wasn't a question so much as a confirmation, and Char acknowledged it as such, even while pulling her arm out of his hold. His amber eyes flicked down at the feeling of her tugging herself away from him; once he took in her slightly annoyed glare leveling to his, he quickly pushed his arm behind his back with a muttered apology.

Rather than acknowledge him, though, she merely stared out at the all-but-obscured stars. In spite of the fog of incredulity that had wreathed around his mind, he couldn't help wondering if she was seeking the Gummi ship's bright light marring the darkness. "Yeah," she said, so quietly he almost didn't hear it at first.

He leaned in closer, disbelief yanking him forward on proverbial puppet strings. The abruptness of the movement all but forced his nose into her hair, but he found himself not paying much attention to the discomfort it brought him and instead appraising her with a mixture of confusion and concern.

Confusion, for the obvious reason, and concern, because while he had seen a not-so-subtle change worked through her the entire time they had been in the Shadowed Desert, he hadn't figured it would do so to this extent.

"Sora?" he ended up repeating.

Char whirled on her heel and narrowed her eyes at him. Any semblance of peace, albeit tempered by longing, twisted up into anger that would have forced Riku to cringe away had he not faced down the darkness without blinking already. "Oh for the love of – for the last damn time, _yes!"_ she hissed out.

Riku put up his hands in a placating manner. "All right, all right, I heard you," he said. A beat, during which she huffed and folded her arms to glare at a crack fissuring the balcony floor nearby, and he tried to gather his thoughts.

Then the silence, tempered by the gentle piano notes exhaling into the night air as it was, became too stifling for him, and he spoke again, the very first thing that came to mind spilling forth. "I just thought you had better taste in men, is all."

Apparently, his attempt at steering the conversation firmly _away_ from her feeling the very thing that had propelled him into darkness last year – and, moreover, Sora returning that particular thing – fell sadly flat. Char immediately slumped her shoulders and growled to herself, frustration dripping off the noise and every move as she turned to glare back out at the sky again.

"Oh, calm down," he tried, albeit with a note of aggravation permeating his voice as well. "What exactly –"

"I knew you would react like this," she interrupted, voice just as venomous as his. "Oh, like _what?_"Riku flared up in return. Despite his promise to himself to keep his temper at a steady simmer no matter what Char said, said temper was beginning to strain at its chains and taint his better judgment. "In the way that makes sense? Sora's loved Kairi his entire life; why shouldn't I get a little confused about his suddenly changing his mind?"

"Things have changed, Riku." Char had seemed to have a full rant already planned, and yet her tone had calmed considerably from before.

He heard himself panting with the force of his ire, felt the force of that feeling just now release its hold on his heartbeat, but couldn't bring himself to halt either one. Because Char was _right,_ things did change; the both of them were living proof of that.

And yet Sora changing his heart still felt wrong to Riku. So very wrong.

He shook his head, as if to clear his mind and eradicate just how perplexed he felt. Because amongst that disbelief, a glimmer of _hope_ lit a blurry light in the fog, a light whose source he almost didn't want to place.

Char misinterpreted his gesture as disagreement and stepped closer, head tilting back to look at him properly. _Is she seeing Riku, or Xehanort right now?_ he wondered.

"It's true. You've seen it in me already." She let out a self-deprecating chuckle, one bare hand sliding to tap a nervous rhythm against her thigh. A tendril of loathing reached up momentarily within him, toward her need to leave her gloves behind at Falcon's house. Falcon and Copperhead had opted out as well, but he didn't mind that near as much; somehow, the absence of Char's telltale green fingerless gloves made this more jarringly real.

"Your best friend's an idiot, by the way," she added, but the affectionate tinge that worked its way into her voice as she spoke made the insult an endearment. The pejorative she tacked onto the end of her declaration sounded practiced. As if she had spoken it so many times already.

"He's a dork, too. Him, and his friends both. But… you know, it's the damnedest thing. Wherever he went, he would just… light everything. I guess that _everything_ kind of involved me, too."

Riku surveyed her a moment longer. She seemed sincere enough, even though before now her making this kind of speech would involve considerably more obscenities and fierce disclaimers thrown at the end of every tender admission.

But she had had a month, and comfort at the hands of a boy who didn't know how to give anything else, to muffle the bitterness and temper that had, before, shone forth like the skylight now blazing across the sky.

_You're not lying. And I know Sora wouldn't, either._

For that, and everything else, he drew his arm around her shoulders and pulled her side close to his.

Char let out a surprised grunt as their hips bumped, and Riku winced at the underlying indignation in that surprise. After a couple of seconds, her tensed muscles finally relaxed, and the top of her head brushed the point where his jaw tapered up into his ear as she settled.

Together, they stared out into the darkness. Behind them, the band had stopped playing momentarily, and Riku heard the lead singer announce that after the next couple of songs, the party would end. The disappointed murmurs of the audience overtook the newfound silence; he focused on that instead of how very warm Char's back felt against his chest.

If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that shorter, darker hair tickled his biceps, and that the young woman who he had stopped in to Destiny Island to check in on more than frequently in the last year would smile in his embrace.

Riku shook this thought away. "I still can't believe Sora got his first kiss in before I did," he grumbled, taking refuge in a dry remark.

"Hm?" Char twisted up in his hold, then grinned as she took in his words. Any semblance of contentment faded in the face of amusement. "Oh yeah, that's true. It really wasn't everything they say it is, by the way," she added quickly. "Kind of awkward, actually."

Riku chuckled. Déjà vu; hearing her make light of something so important to her was lifting his spirits. Just like her sardonic words had done so many times over the past year. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah. I'm surprised he actually got my mouth on the first try." Her laughter soaked into his body, but rather than sounding spiteful, warmth and fondness infused the sound.

A few moments passed, during which Riku abruptly realized he still held Char fairly hostage. He hastily drew back. "Sorry."

One eyebrow lifted over an icy eye. "Don't make a habit of that."

He grinned. "Right, right."

Although the smile she returned looked relieved enough, he could clearly see slight regret in the way it faded and the way she turned to gaze out at the forest beyond the manor. Why she should regret that he had released her, he had no clue; however, catching how her eyes slid closed, he figured he had an idea.

_Everyone needs a hug every once in a while._ It was why he had embraced her just before she had left Twilight Town to go with Sora.

Her eyes opened then, and he followed her gaze, lifting his head to stare out at the citadel. Although the lights from the manor ebbed and bled into the nighttime shadows before it could touch the castle, he could still see the turrets rising up into the sky, stark and black as the sky that they touched.

Then Char spoke without turning to him. "You know the machine's probably out at the citadel, right? With our luck."

Riku blinked at the sudden change of subject to the very reason they had come out here in the first place. While it wasn't entirely unwelcome, its jarring nature forced him to allot a couple of moments to gather his thoughts. Once he did, he sighed ruefully. "With our luck, yeah, it is. I'd be lying if I said I'd never considered it. But Falcon's never taken me out there, as you know."

"Because whatever happened there, Falcon and Copperhead have too much PTSD to take us to the scene of the crime?" Char quipped.

The gray-haired young man let out a huffing, self-deprecating chuckle. "Yeah. Pretty much."

The corner of her lips that he could see from the side lifted just a bit, then she looked up at him, forearms shifting along the railing. Riku raised his eyebrows upon seeing the expression on her face: the conflict had returned in full force, and she seemed to struggle with herself a moment longer before sighing almost explosively. "Okay, I answered a question of yours, so I need one of my own answered."

"Sounds fair enough," he answered, though with measured curiosity in the words. He folded his arms and watched her straighten. "Ask away."

"Okay." Char took a deep breath and faced him. He tried to keep any undue predictions out of his mind and off of his tongue as she began. "I've just… been wondering why the whole thing with Falcon and Copperhead is bugging me so much."

"That's not really a question," Riku pointed out.

She simply rolled her eyes at him before correcting herself. "Okay, fine. Let me be politically correct," she grumbled irritably. A momentary pause, before her pride wilted even further and she all but blurted it out.

"Why am I so curious about what happened between the two of them?"

As the question burst free, Riku realized the careful neutrality on her features had changed to that of desperate curiosity. He wondered how long she had pondered over this question. Since yesterday, when Falcon had all but verbally ripped her open over a simple nickname? Since this morning, when Copperhead had handed Falcon her lunch and she had looked far too haunted over a simple meal?

Since her arrival here, when Copperhead had revealed they used to be friends in the first place?

_Why,_ her question said, but her expression all but screamed it.

The music petered to a gentle melody in the background as Riku began to explain, words coming slowly as they completely skipped the journey to his mind and just emerged in reality.

"Char… maybe… it's because you care about what happened."

A startled grunt ripped itself from her as he finished. "But –" she began, completely flummoxed. She drew in breath to continue, then cut herself off with a growl. "I haven't even known either of them for two days. Why would I _care_ about what happened between them?"

Yet even as she spoke, she knew Riku's words held more than a bit of truth to them. It explained why she had unconsciously found her old self in Falcon, and why Copperhead's antics from earlier had failed to annoy her as much as they should have.

"Well," Riku said – and his next words made her draw in a sharp breath that caught in her throat – "that's the funny thing about Sora, you know? He kind of… lets you care about people you normally wouldn't."

Char was still trying to catch her breath again when the guests began to clear out.

* * *

...God. I'll write a more coherent A/N when I'm not so tired.

EDIT: Due to people being assholes and not having the BALLS to show their faces, I'm disabling anonymous reviews. Nothing personal. I'm just sick of douchebags spewing insults and then dancing back to cower behind anonymity. To Mr. m/whatever the fuck your real name is: Sweetie, this is for you. :3

**Please review saying more than "update soon" or "this is good."**


	72. Chapter LXXII

**Important message at the end of the chapter.**

**_Disclaimer-_** I do not own Kingdom Hearts.**  
**

* * *

"Thanks for letting us stay the night," Sora told Santa. "We really do appreciate it."

Santa nodded and smiled at the trio, who stood just outside the plaza where they had taken down the experiment. "You're very welcome, Sora. And, ah, for what it's worth…" He paused, and the Keybearer cocked his head to the side, wondering what he was going to say.

However, as the red-clad man continued, Sora's eyes flew wide and a gasp of happiness escaped him.

"That position on my 'nice' list has just been given back to you."

For a few moments, Sora could only stare at him, mouth gaping and fingers curling into delighted fists. Behind him, Donald and Goofy sniggered to themselves, but he ignored them as best he could, because _he wasn't on the naughty list anymore. _"Really?" he got out at last.

Santa laughed, the action rippling along his ample belly. "I decided you more than deserved it, after everything you've done. All three of you," he added, friendly gaze sweeping over Donald and Goofy as well.

Donald had had one feathered hand over his mouth to at least slightly muffle his chuckles, but at this he dropped it back to his side immediately. "Are we really?" he demanded, though the forceful desire to know was tempered by eager pleasure.

Goofy cleared his throat. "Donald, we were there before, remember?"

Sora blinked, then a grin spread across his face as he recalled what had happened the first time Jack had led them all into Santa's home. Santa had announced Donald and Goofy's names being scrawled on his list of those to give gifts to; reminded Sora of what Riku had told him all those years ago; and Char had dismissed the subject entirely, commenting that she already knew she had no place on that particular roster. "You know, he's right, Donald," he put in.

The duck raised a finger to retort, then froze as he realized they were right. "Ah, phooey," he grumbled, lowering his hand for the second time and tapping his webbed foot on the ground. He glared down at the imprint it made and accentuated in the fresh snow and spoke to it instead of the others. "We already know Char isn't off the naughty list, though."

His comment had seemingly come from out of nowhere, and yet as the disdainful words emerged, Sora turned and gave Santa an almost pleading look. When Char had first acknowledged with a kind of dry self-deprecation that she didn't exactly deserve Santa's respect, the way she had scoffed and balked at the idea of saving Christmas from the Heartless had been fresh enough in Sora's mind for him to readily agree.

Now, though, a week later, after finding out she could never readily support a holiday and time denied to her for the last five years – after finding out her connection to the Organization, and why she mistrusted them even more than Sora and his friends did – he found himself only addressing Santa earnestly.

"You could… take her off, right? I mean, I know she might not exactly deserve it, but…" He trailed off when it hit him that any cohesive way to argue in her favor would involve admitting the true extent of how he felt about her.

Santa pressed one finger against his temple in thought. After a few moments, during which Sora forced himself to release the breath he'd unconsciously trapped in his chest, he lowered his hand, not taking his eyes off the group. "You know, Sora, you may have a point. I'll consider it."

The Keybearer's jaw dropped; the rebuttals that had swarmed about in his mind and readied themselves to transfer onto his tongue went forgotten in the face of his pleased surprise. "I… really?" he blurted at last.

"It's probably more than she deserves, but I guess you should at least think about it," Donald said, grudging agreement etched into every syllable.

"I dunno, Donald. What about everything she's done to help us?" Goofy pointed out.

The duck waved a dismissing hand. "Okay, I guess you've got a point." At his companions' mildly startled expressions at his easy acquiescence, he quickly turned away. "Anyway, we should probably get going." His clumsy subject change coaxed a grin onto Sora's face, one that proved uncontrollable in light of what Father Christmas had just said.

_He's going to think about it. That's enough._

Maybe Char would actually get a Christmas of her own this year, life as a researcher hindering her or not.

"You're right, Donald. We've got people to see and a dark realm to find." Only after he had spoken the last sentence did Sora realize how much of their goals he had just unintentionally revealed; but the initial fear that danced along his heartbeat vanished when he remembered how he had mentioned the dimension of shadows only yesterday.

Santa had only proffered a cryptic response to Sora's inquiry – whether or not he, Donald, and Goofy would find their friends in the Organization's world – but he hadn't disproved the theory at all. Nor had he reacted in confusion.

"Wait!" Donald cried suddenly, startling his other two companions into turning to him. Much to Sora's bemusement, the mage already had his broom-headed staff gripped in one hand.

"We've gotta get back to the tree first," he said, giving the others a hard stare.

Sora blinked, now more perplexed than ever; Goofy, however, let out a sound of understanding. "Just go with it, Sora," he muttered into his leader's ear.

He turned his head sharply toward the knight and opened his mouth to speak, only for a voice from around the corner to interrupt. "Wait, you three!"

_Oh for the love of – how many interruptions are we going to have?_ he could almost hear Char groaning. Another stout figure in red rounded the side of the house, holding something that glittered in the early morning sunlight.

Mrs. Claus halted in her tracks, one hand releasing her burden momentarily to push a strand of gossamer gray hair out of her eyes. "I wanted you all to have this for the road," she rasped. As she spoke, the movement of her arms extending toward them drew Sora's eye, and he couldn't stop the grin that widened on his features at what he saw.

He took the plastic-wrapped plate of cookies and met her anxious gaze. "I know it's not much, but at least you won't go hungry," Mrs. Claus said.

"We don't mind at all. Thank you kindly, Mrs. Claus." Goofy dragged his eyes from the food in Sora's hands to their giver.

The elderly woman's face was set almost gravely. "Good luck with finding your friends, Sora. I enjoyed hearing your stories last night."

Her words reminded him of what all he had said – of the tales from Donald and Goofy of their castle that had, seemingly, segued themselves up within the duo's minds as the moon had climbed higher above the snow-capped horizon. Thinking of all the stories, of the memories, of the friendship that drove him, Sora lifted his chin and his features creased into a determined expression. "Thanks. We all really appreciate it."

As Santa waved them off, the three of them trudged through the snow and closer to the tree emblazoned with a pumpkin that would carry them through its vertigo-inducing current back to Halloween Town. Thinking of the fall that accompanied each journey to and from the holiday towns, Sora winced and looked at Donald as they ascended the crest of the hill. "Donald, do we really have to go back to Halloween Town?"

"Huh? Back to Halloween Town?" Donald gave him a bewildered glance. If the mummified tape hadn't covered his entire body, doubtless, his white feathers would have rendered him all but part of the like-colorless snow.

"Well… yeah." Sora's grip on the plate grew a little slack; the plastic under his fingertips crackled in protest as his fingertips shifted against it. "I thought that was why we had to be back here before we left," he explained uncertainly.

"What are you talking about?" Donald asked, folding his arms and tapping his foot. "I couldn't very well warp us back up to the ship in the middle of town!"

"Yeah, Donald's gotta do that magic… teleport… doohickey." Goofy gestured vaguely with one hand. "I, uh… kinda thought you knew, Sora. We couldn't really say it right then and there with all them people around."

Of course. That made sense. Sora rubbed the back of his head sheepishly; now that he thought about it, while the sun had yet to make any real headway in the sky, a couple of Christmas Town natives had been lumbering sleepily around the town square. "Oh yeah," he said. "I, uh… didn't really notice."

Donald rolled his eyes, not even dignifying that bit of obliviousness with a response. Sora's back blazed in embarrassment.

"Well, whatever. Let's just head back up to the ship." He lifted his staff, sparing it one final glare and grumble about how undignified it was.

Before the light engulfed them in translucent globes and shot up into the heavens, Sora quickly readjusted his grip on Mrs. Claus' gift to them. Couldn't afford to have them floating around in the world between worlds, after all.

Sora had forgotten just how much magical travel dislodged his stomach; in the past, before Donald's old, wizard hat-capped staff had been replaced by that of the fiery Heartless, he had always used his magic to both swathe the three of them in disguises and transport them from the Gummi ship down to the world below. Of course, none of them enjoyed this form of travel, but over time they had grown accustomed to its effects.

Now, though, the Keybearer's most recent memory of beaming back up to the Gummi ship involved a splitting headache and not knowing why Roxas had disappeared. As a result, he arrived in the ship's command room bracing for the former.

However, when the white spots eating away at his vision faded, he found himself relatively safe. Except for said rattled stomach.

He groaned, pushing a hand into his bangs. Goofy, who had just gotten shakily to his feet, spotted his leader and approached, concern showing despite the strain of just having made contact with the ground. "You all right, Sora?"

"Your head's not hurting, is it?" Donald cut in roughly. Unlike last time, the soft green light associated with the Curaga chain did not glimmer around his staff's head, but from the fierce set of his jaw Sora figured he was ready to cast it at any moment if necessary.

He hastily tried to assuage his friends' fears. "I'm fine. Just a little dizzy, is all." From the looks on their faces, he could imagine how it must seem like a lie: seeing him still on one knee, thumb pushed to his temple as if to stave off a headache, had to worry them after the effective coma he had been in last time.

To calm them down and show he was telling the truth, he rose to his feet, remembering to do it slowly so as not to stumble. Immediately, Donald reached out as if to steady him as best he could with his meager height, but much to Sora's relief he managed to stay steady until he reached the pilot's seat.

He stared down at the control panel, registering the sound of the chair's seat giving under Donald's weight as he climbed up on one side. On the other, Goofy shrugged before settling there.

Even as the boy sought out the next closest world on the map, he couldn't help remembering the last time Donald had used his staff to warp them down to a world. First the peculiar, painful sensation of his heart dividing, cell-like, in his chest, then finding the extra lion cub, one whose fur was shaded honey-blond and whose eyes matched Sora's own all too well.

_Maybe that should've tipped me off that Roxas was connected to me somehow. That and the dreams I kept having about him. _Gazing down at the screen – Agrabah, he noted, the next closest world was shaped like Genie's lamp, so that had to be Agrabah – Sora uttered a quiet sigh, one that could almost answer to breath.

"You know…" he began, not looking up at his friends' curious expressions. "The last time this happened, I wondered what had happened to Roxas."

He didn't dare meet their eyes, but he did hear them let out disconsolate murmurs. "Oh yeah," Donald mumbled. Goofy remained silent, his own remembrance kept within his mind.

"It's funny, you know? If I'd known he was my Nobody before then, maybe I could've asked him about the Organization. Maybe about why he and Char hate each other so much." Mentioning the redhead was as much due to genuine curiosity as to his desire to tempt fate, to summon at least a twitch from Roxas deep within his heart.

_How does that work, anyway? What does the inside of my heart look like to him?_

When he felt nothing, not even a mild stirring from his Nobody as he always did with Anxclof and Axel, Sora sighed again, fingers curling into the armrests.

"Maybe when we get to Twilight Town, we can ask about him," Goofy suggested at last.

Now that surprised Sora into glancing up. The two of them were regarding him with desperate worry, as though by reassuring him they could reassure themselves. Recalling the relief that had shown on their faces when his resolve had returned in Port Royal two days before, Sora knew they were saying this for all three of them.

"Why Twilight Town?" he asked, tipping his head to the side.

Donald's eyes widened in realization. "Wait a second, we had that picture of him with the Twilight Town gang!" He put his hands on his armrest to lean closer to Sora. "Do you still have it with you?"

"Well, yeah, of course I do." Firm response aside, it took him a couple of seconds of rooting around in his pockets to dig out the photo. Placing it in front of him, he peered down at it, at the white glow outlining its square shape and attempting to pierce through the photograph paper. On either side of him, Donald and Goofy leaned in for a closer look.

"Y'know," Goofy murmured, "I never got a real good look at it when we found it. But… they look kinda happy."

"Yeah," Sora breathed. At the very least, this explained the nostalgia and near-painful desire – for the Twilight Town trio, whose formation so resembled both his and Roxas' own circle of friends, to acknowledge his presence – that cried out within his heart whenever they were in Twilight Town.

"But if Roxas really is Sora's Nobody," Donald protested, "he would only _look_ happy. Right, Sora?"

He angled his head up to the brunette, clearly seeking his agreement, only to blink and draw away slightly. "Sora?"

For some reason, the Keybearer couldn't take his eyes off the photo; off the pale light from the screen rimming the four teens depicted in a nigh angelic glow. Donald had a point, he reminded himself; Nobodies had no hearts.

But that didn't explain the alien shiver that had been so decidedly not his own when Anxclof had appeared, lucid and honest and embodying a past that was so decidedly not his own.

Quickly, he shook his head. It crossed his mind, oddly, traitorously, that he had only Char to blame for revealing Roxas' identity in the first place; his resolve wouldn't have suffered this much had she only dismissed his question as to who the blond was.

If she had kept one last secret for him.

And then the feeling of angry spite vanished, leaving guilt just as raw in its wake. _It's not her fault,_ he told himself firmly. _It's no one's fault, really._

Aloud, he only agreed, albeit somewhat tentatively, with Donald's words. "You're right, Donald." Even to himself, though, the words sounded hollow, and he hastily changed to their original topic. "Anyway, we can ask the Twilight Town when we get there. Right now, we have to get to Agrabah."

"Why Agrabah?" This time, it was Donald's turn to tilt his head in confusion.

Sora's lips curled upward in a smug grin at how the tables had turned. "It's the next world on the map," he informed the duck. "And I want to see how Aladdin and Jasmine are doing."

When they had left, only about a week ago, the two of them seemed to have resolved their conflict, if their dancing close together – a commoner and a royal, right in the middle of the palace square – was any indication. Still, though, Sora wanted to see how things had gone between them since then.

And then his smile vanished as quickly as it had come, along with the affection that had come with it. Because that same night, he and Char had mimicked those movements just as readily, had stayed close together without springing apart for the first time.

It was the first time he had properly acknowledged that he just might feel something a little more than friendship for her.

Of course, he recalled with a small flinch, his dozing off against her shoulder may or may not have destroyed the peacefulness of that moment a bit. _At least it wasn't in the middle of the song… right?_

The attempt at optimism fell down sadly, but he shrugged it off; the emotion he felt at recalling his awkwardness, her warmth against him, and frantically scraping together every bit of dancing he knew didn't resemble sorrow, but only gentle nostalgia.

"Remember when me and Char danced out there?" he asked Donald and Goofy. The duck's face had been contorted in annoyance when Sora had mentioned Agrabah, but now he calmed considerably.

"And you fell asleep on top of her?" he asked dryly.

Sora groaned, palming his forehead as he pocketed the picture of Roxas. "Don't remind me," he laughed. His fingers found the controls, and with a few buttons pushed, he had shifted the Gummi ship from its neutral position in the pale green sky into motion.

Goofy uttered a surprised grunt and clung to the dashboard as the Gummi ship began to move. "Gawrsh, Sora, could you tell us before y'start the ship?" he managed, without a trace of exasperation in the question.

"Oh. Sorry, Goofy." The brunette tossed a genuinely contrite look over his shoulder at the knight before refocusing on the wisps of cloud clearing ahead.

On his other side, Donald just growled under his breath and summoned his staff, presumably to take them down into the desert city once the mists had cleared.

* * *

Char padded down the stairs just in time to halt in her tracks as her bleary eyes took in an odd sight: Falcon, standing alone in the kitchen, back to her. Something black shifted next to the dark-haired girl, and panic flashed throughout Char's still sleep-bogged mind before she realized the idiocy of Heartless having gotten in here.

The black object moved again, showing Char that it was only Falcon's elbow moving down against the countertop. Complete silence pervaded the kitchen, broken only by the sizzle of whatever was on the frying pan.

Oddly, Riku was nowhere to be seen.

Awkwardly, not knowing what else to do, she greeted, "Morning."

Falcon's shoulders stiffened, and she glanced over her shoulder; Char got a glimpse of a spatula in her grasp before she almost dropped it on the frying pan in front of her. "Oh, um, hi," she said, once she had double-checked to make sure whatever she was cooking had been spared her bout of surprise.

However, this diversion in attention didn't last long; just as quickly as she had looked at Char, she was focused on her brewing breakfast again. Char narrowed her eyes, immediately tracing her ignoring her back to Riku again, before her common sense kicked in and shoved that bit of selfish thought aside. _She probably doesn't want to burn whatever's in the pan, you idiot._

In spite of that, though, she found her eyes roving over the room – which Falcon had apparently spent time picking up, as the clean bandages and rolls of gauze scattered about looked somewhat lessened – in search of the black robe she so hated. When she found no trace of Riku, her brows drew down over her eyes in both a frown of puzzlement and frustration.

She tamped down the latter and looked back at Falcon, who was now flipping the batter-encrusted food with a new fervor. Pancakes, Char realized, she was cooking pancakes; but the momentary triumph offered by her yawning stomach vanished at what she saw next. The older girl's shoulders had hunched a little too far over her work, as if to distract herself from how Riku had apparently left her alone with Char.

Char couldn't blame her for her newfound concentration; she shared the same feeling, the same almost-not quite-dread that welled up within her.

"Where's Riku?" she asked, arms crossing over her chest as if to excuse her own bluntness.

To Falcon's credit, she did not react as dramatically to the sudden influx of sound into the otherwise-quiet room as she had before. Her arm only twitched once before she responded fairly briskly, without turning around. "He had somewhere to be. He, ah… said he might not be back till later today."

_Oh, fantastic. Good to know you left me alone all day with a girl who hates me, and a guy who doesn't know the meaning of the words "personal space." _Char swallowed an irritated grumble and instead chose to sit down on the couch.

Staring down at the ground, she couldn't help wondering just how urgently this other task called to him. Annoyance pulsed throughout her body, white hot and impossible to ignore, at the thought that whatever this was, it had dragged him away from the mission whose high priority had required him to force her into breaking their promise.

Unable to keep silent, even out of common courtesy, Char spoke again, glaring at the floor beneath the glass-topped table as she did so. "So who exactly pulled him away from this mission?"

She heard a sharp exhalation, whose pitch and guttural emergence gave it more than a hint of exasperation, from the kitchen. "He didn't say," Falcon growled. Daring to crane her neck to see over the top of the couch showed Char that the other girl was leaning over the pan in front of her, hands gripping either side of the counter tightly. "Gods forbid he should tell me _why_ he had to go."

"Well, it's not like he's obligated," Char muttered under her breath. It wouldn't be the first time someone hadn't trusted her enough with information, she reflected bitterly, as Ansem floated into her thoughts.

After a few moments, during which the sound of the stove dying down rumbled throughout the area, she shook herself and stood up. "That smells good," she tried, clumsily. She grasped about mentally for a good topic to lead into from there, but her mouth chose to act ahead of her brain anyway. "What are you cooking?"

Falcon turned around fully then, actually spared her a look that didn't blaze with anger and vitriol. The emerald stare she fixed on Char carried only the telltale narrow of fading anger, as well as a hint of wariness. For some reason, the same thought that had come into Char's mind a couple of mornings ago reappeared: that at least the latter suspicion struck a familiar chord deep inside her.

Before she could pursue that formerly dormant notion, though, Falcon answered, still not dropping the ice-laden tone she tended to use around the redhead. Rather amusing, really, considering the element she was proficient at. "Blueberry pancakes. I had a third one ready for Riku, too, but he told me he had to leave pretty much right after I started cooking," she explained.

"Oh." Char blinked stupidly. She mentally chided herself, for choosing to throw her intelligence into a deep pit somewhere inside and locking it up.

Then again, in the face of Falcon's obvious lingering disdain toward her, her normally prolific dry remarks shriveled up before they could get to the tip of her tongue.

In the end, she turned back around and gazed down at her reflection in the glass tabletop, listening while Falcon bustled about in the kitchen, presumably adding her finishing touches to the results of her morning labors. She found what she would have expected staring back at her, albeit with more dark red veins shot through her irises and the scarlet line of a healing cut stretched lightly across her cheek.

_Where the hell did that come from,_ she wondered for a moment, before recalling the arduous battle against the Behemoth yesterday. Just thinking of the fight made exhaustion nudge the edge of her consciousness all over again. The rain cascading down in a light curtain and framing every flash of shadowy lightning with a halo of steam; her instinctively lying about how she knew of the Behemoth's weakness; Falcon and Copperhead willingly playing decoy while she and Riku worked on striking it down; and, finally the relief they had all experienced at how Riku had finally struck the Heartless down.

Recalling how Falcon had all but flung herself into Riku's embrace out of gratefulness, Char couldn't hold back a flinch of sympathy, tinged by both budding wakefulness and amusement at Riku's expense as it was. Her reflection mimicked her intentions, and, seeing that, she quickly brought her countenance back to neutrality again.

Her timing with that proved fortunate, because Falcon's face slid into the makeshift mirror, eyebrow vanishing into her side-swept bangs. Apparently in the few minutes Char had spent reminiscing on yesterday's battle, Falcon had put the pancakes onto two plates and set them onto the table. "Everything okay?" she asked, though the question echoed hollow concern with every syllable.

Char looked up and inwardly brushed off every bit of lingering sympathy. _Just the machine,_ she told herself firmly, but then what Riku had told her yesterday reminded her why said sympathy edged her consciousness in the first place. About how she actually cared about near-strangers, and not just because the boy she loved did.

Aloud, she only said, "Yeah," finding to her bemusement that it wasn't entirely a lie.

She stared down at her plate and blinked at the fact that two out of the three Falcon had cooked were there, already covered in maple syrup and their freshly-added blueberries glistening in the artificial light. As she glanced back at Falcon, she found the dark-haired girl already watching her, a vaguely anticipatory expression on her face.

"I thought you'd be hungry, so I just gave you the extra one." Uncertainty replaced her expectative aura, and she added, "That's okay, right?"

Char thought about lying, or at the very least softening her hunger as much as possible; but her stomach chose that moment to betray her with a bellow of agreement. Quickly, she ducked her head and impaled one pancake with the prongs of her fork, back growing hot with embarrassment at Falcon's chuckle.

Yet it didn't resonate with spite. Just genuine amusement.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, with Char moderating her own desire for sustenance so as not to seem too rude. Just because she had spent the last eleven years of her life – year with Riku and Ansem and month with Sora included – living with men, did not mean she shared any sort of disregard for common courtesy.

_Doesn't mean I have to like it, though._

Rather than dwell on that, though, she found her thoughts drifting back to the much closer past: last night, when the party had ended and she had recovered from her stupor long enough to follow Riku back indoors. The tide of people had carried them closer to the exit, which had worked out fine for the two of them, as not even Riku had the slightest idea of how to get back to Falcon's house from here.

As fate would have it, though, Falcon and Copperhead had lingered much closer to the ballroom doors, since by the time Riku and Char had wound their slow but careful way down the manor's stairs and to the lit pathway outside, they had spotted the others immediately. Falcon's dark jacket and hair had blended almost perfectly into the night, but Copperhead's mostly white coat had caught Riku's eye almost immediately.

To Char's confusion, Falcon's gaze – hell, her entire stance – carried a much more haunted gleam than she would have thought her capable. A much larger shadow than when any of them had accidentally uttered the nickname _Fal,_ or when Copperhead brought up a part of their shared past so carelessly.

And Copperhead had kept his demeanor blithe and carefree as always, but his mask, differently colored from Falcon's though it was, had suffered more than a few undue cracks and breaks as well. Riku had noticed this before Char had, and asked him about it as carefully as he could with fatigue hanging over his head, but Copperhead had fairly dodged his query.

Obviously, something had transpired between Falcon and Copperhead last night. Char slanted a glance at Falcon; she was focusing a little too determinedly on tearing her pancake apart – not aggressively, not like she was imagining her former friend's pretty little blond head in its place, but definitely fastidiously. Like she was distracting herself from something more important.

The redhead's stomach beckoned then, and she heeded its call with a few more bites of pancake, finishing the first one on her plate. She figured nothing truly unsavory had happened; otherwise Copperhead would have come away with his bound wounds from the Behemoth battle reopened.

_So then what was it?_

She spent a couple of seconds grappling between her desire to know and her manners, but then it hit her. That maybe it didn't matter _what_ had happened, exactly.

Falcon's belligerence toward her food had allowed her to finish rather quickly, and so now she glared down at her crumb-sprayed plate, as if now she was pretending to incinerate Copperhead's face in the process. Char fought back a chuckle at the sight.

She swallowed her mouthful of pancake, using the moment it took to do so to gather her thoughts. "Hey, Falcon?" she asked, carefully tacking the final syllable of the name at the end so as not to rouse her temper.

"Hm?" Falcon mumbled, not taking her eyes off the plate.

The terse, barely even verbal response served as the final catalyst for Char's pride to flare up deep in her heart, scarcely exercised as it had been these days, and scream at her to deny Falcon the offer for truce. However, she forcefully shoved it back into its nook within her and spoke anyway. "I, um…"

When Falcon finally turned her head to stare questioningly at her, Char felt a sigh compress out of her, one of surrender and frustration. "I can't stay here if all we're going to do is dance around each other," she confessed. Remembering the last time she had had to enact a truce – with Roxas in the Pride Lands – her resolve strengthened, the knowledge of her having successfully done this pushing her on. "If we want to help anybody, we need to work together to find the machine. So…"

She trailed off, then, because suddenly the word _truce_ didn't seem like a fitting name for what she was seeking. _Friendship _sounded a bit extreme.

_Trust,_ maybe, was what she wanted.

Falcon blinked once, then something seemed to melt away on her countenance. The breath that had passed through Char seemed to volley into her and back in the form of her own sigh. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"You guess?" Char inclined her head skeptically.

"Okay, you _are." _Falcon rolled her eyes, but her lips had begun to tug very slightly upward. And somehow, that false, empty quality about her seemed to have vanished, if only for the moment.

Char felt a grin of her own begin to take over her own face and thought, _so this was what it was like for Sora._

She stuck out a hand. "Well, then, I guess we can work together now. Right?"

"You guess?" Falcon echoed, taking her hand and shaking it.

It was Char's turn to roll her eyes and grin. "Okay, yeah, we can."

A sudden knocking at the door made them both drop their hands and turn toward the source of the noise. "Riku can't be back already," Falcon mused, not taking her eyes off the door.

The pounding grew more insistent then, and Char's fingers briefly tightened against the material of the couch as fingers began tapping out a staccato rhythm. "If he was back, you would know," she tossed over her shoulder as she rose and began walking toward the offender. She had the sneaking suspicion that blond hair and violet eyes and an overly snarky grin would greet her; just the thought made her exert every ounce of mental effort to stifle a groan, because Copperhead's presence would just resurrect every ounce of tension all over again.

_There goes all the progress I made in the last few minutes._

Her tread very nearly faltered then. Since when had she begun to think of Falcon's actually expressing genuine happiness as her own venture?

Since the moment she had allowed the parasite created by her wondering about Falcon's behavior to infect her thoughts in the first place, she supposed.

With that wry explanation ringing in her head, she crossed to in front of the threshold and pulled the door open. Sure enough, true to her intuition, Copperhead stood there, fist raised as if to knock again; thankfully, though, he reacted quickly enough to Char's sudden appearance to lower his arm before he could rap her forehead by mistake. "Good morning, Blaze," he chirped.

Char didn't even bother dignifying his prolonged aversion to her actual name with a rebuttal, occupying the back of her throat as it was. "Don't you have work today?" she asked, not daring to open the door more than a little ajar.

When he tilted his head to try and see into the house, she shifted to block his line of sight. His eyes narrowed, but instead of pointing out her lack of hospitality, he just shrugged. "I've had the next couple of days off for a while." As he spoke, he hefted the scabbard strapped around his chest, where the scythe's blade protruded out from behind his back.

"Uh… can I come in?" he added sheepishly. "This is kinda heavy."

She surveyed him a moment longer, briefly weighing the consequences of turning him away. For Falcon's sake, if nothing else. However, her better judgment won out over the careful hand of friendship she had extended to Falcon not minutes before; they could use all the help they could get.

Someone who knew this world as well as Falcon did, so Char could find Sora again.

So she pulled the door open enough to accommodate him and his dangerous burden. "Feel free. At least this way we won't have to waste time pulling you out of work."

Copperhead's shoulders slumped in relief. "Thanks, Blaze."

Char turned away, rolling her eyes once her back had faced him. "Don't call me that," she muttered under her breath, but it was half-hearted. Ironic, considering that only a month before, she would probably have robbed him of his most valued organ if he'd dared call her anything other than Char.

Turning around proved a mistake, however, because that brought her face to face with Falcon. Her eyes darted to the fork in the dark-haired girl's hand, which had begun to scrape together the meager crumbs remaining on her own plate, but she froze mid-lift when she saw just who was stepping inside behind Char.

"Sorry about this," the redhead announced, suddenly feeling the need to fill the newfound silence whose tension could have choked a Behemoth. "But, well, he said he had the next two days off, and with Riku gone, we need the extra fighting power."

Falcon regarded her with more than a hint of dread budding in the widening of her eyes and her eyebrows drawing together. Her eyes flicked from traitor to newfound ally and back again, and Char could almost hear her thinking _why would you let him in, after what he's done,_ _after –_

And she felt a strand of mild anger stir inside her at not knowing exactly what that was.

The resentment toward the secrets Falcon and Copperhead still kept allowed her to trot off and sit on the couch beside the other girl with relatively little guilt. She signaled toward his side of the table. "Sit. We need to talk about where we need to go today."

_Like, oh, the _citadel,_ maybe,_ but her sense of courtesy caught up with the poisonous suggestion and muffled it before it could make itself audible.

However, Copperhead was now glancing around the room with more than a hint of curiosity. Char cringed as he echoed the thought still reverberating lightly at the edges of her consciousness. "Where's Riku?"

A moment's silence, during which Char glanced to Falcon and found her staring at the ground in lieu of at him; even from this angle she could see the carefully blank expression plastered on Falcon's face again and fought a frustrated growl.

She took it upon herself to reply to his query. "He had somewhere else to be, apparently," she explained, and could not hold back a caustic grumble of, "Don't know what was so important he couldn't stick around."

"Oh." Copperhead blinked, but the confusion furrowing his brow didn't last long. He grinned, the action so forced that Char couldn't even roll her eyes at him. Again, she recalled the lamplight bending against the contours of both Shadowed Desert natives' forms, highlighting the uncertainty and pain that much more deeply, and she had to shake off the almost-maybe-concern that lifted dangerous fingers to squeeze her heart.

Not for the first time, she found herself longing for Riku's presence; this time, though, the desire originated not from a need to palliate some of the blinding idiocy Sora and his companions sometimes exhibited, but to share the burden of this worry weighing down her shoulders.

Copperhead had already crossed the room and unwound the scythe's scabbard from around his shoulders. He set it down, something a little like nostalgia darting across his face and in the ease of the movement. Char spent only a moment wondering why it looked so practiced before his explanation from two days ago told her.

In her mind's eye, the city hall's wooden floors and stretching hallway flowered up around her, Copperhead, and Riku. Falcon had fled upon entering the building, which she looked so desperately like she wanted to do now.

Copperhead had explained how he had come to live with Falcon for a bit after his brother had died. It only made sense, then, that he had grown accustomed to sitting at this very table.

If, of course, the way his eyes briefly flashed over the rest of the room – an unspoken affirmation as to how nothing had changed in the motion – told her anything.

Then she frowned. Why was she examining every bit of movement either of them made so closely, anyway?

The annoying part was that she knew why. Because some part of her, some part that had actually come to terms with the whole "actually giving a damn about strangers" thing, desperately sought an opening through which she could dance and slice the secret open for all to see.

_Maybe… it's because you care about what happened._

_ That's the funny thing about Sora, you know? He kind of… lets you care about people you normally wouldn't._

_I didn't know caring would suck this much,_ she mentally spat at Riku and Sora.

Wherever the both of them were.

* * *

Riku made a mental note to never wear black leather into the desert again. Not only did the heat channel that much more strongly into his body, assisted by both the material and color of his garb, but the swirling sands that managed to filter in from outside clung to his coat and forced him away from the ruin entrance.

With nothing else to do, he shuffled off to the back of the small corridor and settled down against the stone slab resting against the wall. He yelped in undignified, unrestrained surprise when said slab gave just slightly under his weight, but soon he had gotten into a relatively comfortable standing position. One hip pressed against the wall next to it, and his body facing the shadow-engulfed corners of the room.

Unfortunately, this killed a total of about forty-five seconds.

Riku glared at the limited view of the desert ruins outside. Before he had summoned a dark portal far enough past Falcon's house so as not to arouse her suspicion, he had drawn his hood up to conceal the face that wasn't his own. A last-minute decision, really, but one that had occurred to him just in time. Whether Sora was here in Agrabah or not, Riku really didn't want to touch the risk of revealing himself to his best friend.

_What's the problem with that, though? _He flinched, amber eyes narrowing beneath the hood, as the echo of Char's protest from a month ago spoke out against his decision to stay hidden as it always did. As it always had since the day she had taken umbrage at his sending her away in the first place.

Really, it wasn't an invalid question.

He knew why he had to conceal his face from his best friend, though, even after everything he had sacrificed to return him to normal: his heart, his body, his conscience. For the time being – until he found a way to cast off the shawl of darkness Xehanort's Heartless had wrapped about his shoulders since he had first reeled him in back in Hollow Bastion – he couldn't let Sora know just how close he was.

_I wonder where he thinks I am,_ he thought, and then fought back a wince, one that tensed the side of his body that soaked up the wall's cold stone. That might have been a good thing to ask Char last night.

Before she had dropped the whole _your best friend and I like each other_ bomb, anyway.

Gods. Sora with someone other than Kairi. Just thinking it left a strange, but not wholly unpleasant taste in the back of his throat, along with an odd feeling deep within his chest. Like… something had been dislodged.

Yet, he found to his surprise and budding concern, he did not find it a terrible sensation in the least.

The oft-exercised selfish part of him reared up inside him then. Wound itself about the place next to his heart reserved for his past envy toward Sora and everything he had that Riku didn't and whispered _he's not after Kairi anymore, you know – _but Riku sent the proverbial Soul Eater down to thoroughly cut off that thought.

He narrowed his eyes at the desert ruins beyond. The winding corridor pulled most of the view offered to him behind the stone pillar's unyielding stone, but he still glimpsed sand cascading down, skating against the wall cutting off the immense valley from the rest of the ruins. It ran light-colored fingers down said wall before vanishing into the pale abyss.

Watching the makeshift waterfalls, Riku repressed a shudder. Even though he had grown up surrounded by sand, water and salty air and beautiful skies had always accompanied it. Back home, at least they had had _water,_ a horizon that only blinded him at certain points in the day instead of perennially.

The irony of his longing for the home he had once wanted to escape was not lost on him.

To distract himself, he shifted against the wall and thought on the reason why he had come to this gods-forsaken world in the first place. Before Ansem the Wise had sent him off – Riku refused to call him DiZ, refused to believe that just because the old man had all but mummified himself he had the right to a new alias as well – he had told Riku to leave the search to Char for a bit and meet him at Agrabah's desert ruins if things weren't going well.

At the time, Riku had scoffed and dismissed the request. He had counted on the Organization having been controlled by recklessness and the desperate need to triumph over their master one more time; he had thought, _they're probably going to hide it in the most obvious place you can think of. _

Now, though, two days had gone by, it was the morning of the third, and, true to Ansem's caveat, things weren't going well.

Char's words from last night floated back into his mind onto the current of frustration. _You know the machine's probably out at the citadel, right? With our luck._

_ Yeah,_ he answered mentally, with a very verbal sigh. _But, like she said, Falcon and Copperhead have too much latent misery over what happened there._

As much as their refusal to go near the old castle annoyed him, empathy tempered that as well. Gods only knew if he dared return to Hollow Bastion – as much as the past year spent restoring its old glory had changed it since he had escaped from it into the realm of darkness – only terrible memories would haunt him at every corner, at every glimpse of Maleficent's skull-littered castle in the distance.

So maybe he could understand why Falcon had never taken him near the citadel.

Something rippled at the edges of the shadows then, and Riku instinctively whirled toward it, for an instant forgetting his desire to remain hidden to anyone besides who he was meeting here. His fingers twitched at his side, but the readiness to summon the Soul Eater if it was a Heartless faded when he saw someone emerge from the darkness.

Someone who appraised him with a single amber eye surrounded by crimson.

Riku narrowed his eyes, muscles relaxing only just as Ansem – the true one, not the alias or the shapeless being of darkness – stepped as far into the open as he dared. As he would challenge himself to, rather, coward that he was. Rather than antagonize him by calling his true name, though, Riku reined in the urge just in time. _If he has information for me, the last thing I want is to piss him off. _"DiZ," he greeted stiffly.

"Good afternoon, Ansem. Or shall I call you by your true name, and you return the favor to me?" DiZ angled his head ever so slightly, almost tauntingly, to the side, and Riku gritted his teeth. Gods, but the old man had no idea how badly he wanted to take him up on that offer… and how much he regretted telling the true Ansem to call him that a month ago.

Too late, he remembered the hood still swathed his face, and he inwardly cursed himself for giving away his identity so soon. Aloud, though, he only demurred, "I'd rather keep things like this. If it's all the same to you." Despite himself, the last part caught a sharp, contemptuous edge upon slipping out.

Instead of taking offense to Riku's tone, DiZ threw back his head and laughed. "Still concerned about Sora discovering you as you are? Well," he continued, "it's certainly not an unfounded one."

Riku's eyes, just as golden as the single one currently slitted in amusement, widened. "So Sora's here?" However, he quickly shook off the desperate curiosity that had flared inside him, not knowing whether or not he wanted the answer. "Look," he growled, "I think I should be the one asking questions here."

DiZ's hands vanished into his red-wrapped sleeves. "Fair enough."

The belligerence turned to confusion at once, and, completely flustered, Riku blinked. Then he shook his head and fixed his glare on the stupidly _open_ glimmer in that single visible eye. Over the year he'd spent living with this man and his last remaining protégé, he'd learned all too well how to read emotions in that one eye. Triumph when Sora's memories grew closer to regeneration; anger when Riku had returned after Roxas had first defeated him; amusement at his and Char's easy friendship. "Oh, no, you don't," he said. "That was way too easy."

"Call me a liar, if you wish. It is not the worst name I have been called." DiZ spread his palms wide, almost in supplication.

Riku thought of the many names he would make for this man and knew he had a point. "All right, fine," he sighed at last, sitting back on his haunches. "First things first. The search? Not going so well."

DiZ's affable façade faltered considerably at this piece of news: a crack in the mask, so very palpable that Riku expected red bandages to start peeling away with the force of it. "I'd hoped to meet you here with better news," he finally said.

"Yeah, well, you're not the only one." Riku folded his arms, frustration surfacing anew at every memory of the last couple of days – and, really, the last month or so: Falcon and Copperhead both skirting around both the physical and verbal recollections of the citadel; Char's annoyance proving contagious and filtering into his own, well-buried emotions; his discomfort at Falcon's not-so-subtle longings.

His mind brought him up short at the thought of Char. "Oh yeah, and the whole thing with dragging Char to the Shadowed Desert to help with the search?" he began, throwing every bit of scorn and amplified reluctance he had initially experienced at the whole suggestion into each word. "It wasn't one of your better ideas."

The red-clad jaw slackened just slightly, allowing the mask of deceptive indifference to repair itself again. Watching this transformation, Riku felt sudden fury ripple across his consciousness. _Everybody's hiding something,_ he thought. _Falcon and Copperhead and DiZ. All of them._

At the very least, Char had had the strength to let hers fall and crash and shatter on the floor for not just Sora, but him, as well.

"I would have thought Charisa would enjoy the respite from Sora and his friends," the former master of Hollow Bastion, the man who had fallen so far in his vengeance, remarked. Amusement trickled throughout his voice: that, and incredulity, as well.

Riku rubbed one hand along the back of his neck, suddenly heated beneath the hood. "Let's just say she's not so happy about the whole arrangement. About me kidnapping her from Sora, I mean."

And then he had to stop there, because the words she had spoken to him last night were beginning to push at the tip of his tongue, longing to escape and share their burden. For some reason, though, even though the man standing in front of him carried at least part of the final remnants in Char's past, even though he should have had every right to know why his last hope had yet to fulfill her purpose, Riku balked at the notion.

Maybe because Char had put her trust in him, and passed on her burden to more than one person. All secrets had to end somewhere, after all.

So Riku remained silent while DiZ considered his comment about Char's not-so-hidden resentment toward leaving Sora so forcibly. Then he laughed again: but more quietly, this time. Less derisively and a little more self-deprecatingly.

Riku's chin lowered beneath the hood. "What's so funny?"

But DiZ only shook his head, shoulders still trembling a bit with mock mirth. "I might have known," he murmured. "Every bit of truth I've known has crumbled in the face of that boy's heart; why shouldn't hers as well?"

It was all Riku could do just to stand there and not shake him by the shoulders and demand what he was talking about.

Before he could, though, DiZ's body suddenly straightened. He stepped backward, into the shadows, and Riku took a step forward, irritation already blazing within him anew.

Then a flurry of movement, along with an all-too-familiar battle cry from outside, froze the blood in Riku's veins.

"Do tell Charisa I wish her well," and then DiZ was gone, darkness having swallowed up even the loose red bandage trailing in front of him on the ground.

* * *

Okay. So the first thing you guys might notice is that this is much shorter than usual. While the majority of you are probably sighing in relief that it's not so tl;dr, it's mostly because I have something to say.

I... don't usually get sick of things. Not apparently, anyway. Hell, this and my other completed WIP will tell you once I've got my nasty little claws in something, I won't let go until it's finished. But... lately, both happenings on here and RL events are conspiring against my inspiration for this fic.

Trolls and sudden dearth of reviews aside, there's a bit of discrepancy between this fic's length and my true ambitions. As some of you may know, I have college stuff to do, and while last semester had both the disadvantages of my not knowing what to expect out of college and NaNoWriMo forcing me to slack off, this semester? I don't have those excuses.

Last semester, I barely kept my scholarship by the skin of my teeth. This semester, I'm going to try and change that. And doing that while keeping regular updates for this fic? Not really a correlation.

And, well, let's face it, I've been severely falling down in quality as far as updates go. Any of you ever looked back on something you wrote and, rather than cringe at how shittily you wrote, think you set the bar a little too high for the future? Yeah. That's me right now.

So yeah, this means I'm going on a semi-hiatus of sorts. I know this was a really shitty chapter to leave you guys with, along with a somewhat-cliffhanger ending, but I wanted to get this done before classes start tomorrow and I'm fully inundated in the real world. (Yes, it's a place. We live in it. We all live in it eventually. And if there's anything life has taught me, it's that "later" is never as far away as you think.)

How long this will last, I don't know. Weeks? Months? Till summer? Maybe, maybe, and maybe. If I churn out anything between now and then, though, it'll most likely be oneshots.

If you want to know when the hell I'm going to get off my ass and update, a link to any possible progress is in the form of my Twitter on my profile.

I'm sincerely hoping you all will stick around until I start writing this again. Until then.


	73. Chapter LXXIII

So after almost three months of hiatus - of college, and psychological issues, and realizing I've basically become Falcon - I've got a special treat for you all. A double update.

You're welcome.

Enjoy!

_**Disclaimer-**_ I only own the characters that are obviously not in the game. And the Shadowed Desert world, too, but that was obvious.

* * *

Sora was beginning to regret having agreed to this.

Coming out here, to these sandy ruins at the far reaches of the desert, did not bother him; in fact, the reason behind said ruins' appearance at all – Jafar's release from the lamp – enforced the need to go.

They had arrived at the oasis just outside the marketplace, where Genie had cleared the thick vortex surrounding the ruins with one mighty sweep of his hand. As his objections to Aladdin's lack of more extravagant requests had rung out with his disappearance, the street boy had turned to Sora, Donald, and Goofy and pointed out that one question.

How they would cross the desert to the miniscule towers, which seemed toy-like in the distance, in enough time to stop Jafar.

At that moment, the magic carpet had poked one tassel out from behind one seemingly-misplaced palm tree. Donald had caught sight of it and, of course, had mistaken it for a Heartless; before the others could intervene, a thin tongue of flame had shot forth from his staff and effectively coaxed the magic carpet out of its hiding spot. Once the group's initial amusement at Donald's expense had subsided, Sora had realized they could hardly all fit on the magic carpet.

Naturally, he had volunteered to head out to the ruins and take down Jafar. "Are you sure?" Aladdin had asked, dark eyes wide with anxiety for his friend. "You remember what he was capable of as a genie."

But Sora had shaken his head. "Someone has to go out there," he argued.

His friends only spent a couple of moments trying to dissuade him, but those moments felt almost obligatory to him then. So they did now, a couple of hours or so after he had left them at the oasis. Between the heat, fighting the Heartless that wove in and out of his path, and keeping a trained eye out for Jafar, Sora's grip on the Decisive Pumpkin had grown slippery with sand and sweat.

That grasp trembled slightly, as did the defiant cry that escaped him as he swiped at a gypsy Heartless. The ice-blasting foe went careening away with the force of his attack, and he took it upon himself to leap up again as soon as gravity pulled him down to finish it off.

Of course, almost immediately after defeating it, his mind chose to reflect on how at least the pain of an ice crystal shattering against his shoulder would have been tempered by a bit of cool air. He sighed to himself at the thought.

Turning upon landing, he drew in a few desperate breaths and assessed the pillar. According to Iago, Jafar was inside.

"You'd better be right," he muttered aloud. A moment's scrutiny told him that somehow, none of the healing items in his pocket had fallen out during his frequent transitions into the air and back again.

Uncapping the vial of a Hi-Potion, he gulped it down, gave it a few moments to work its healing tendrils into his wounds, both fresh and old.

The carpet sensed his desire to touch down and promptly heeded the unspoken command, floating forward slightly and aligning itself into a stair-like formation. Despite the Hi-Potion having taken effect, Sora found himself stumbling a little on the way to solid ground.

Immediately the magic carpet swooped forward to try and support him, but he shook his head at it. "Just wait out here, okay, carpet?" he said, smiling at it as best he could.

Maybe his imagination – and the heat – was playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn he saw it twist its tassels in a way that mirrored a human folding its arms. Skepticism had etched itself across the carpet's stance, but when Sora hardened his stare at it and reaffirmed his words with a look, it coiled back up into the air and settled.

He turned away, rolling his eyes good-naturedly as he did so. In the back of his mind, he could almost hear Char remarking _you're being awfully friendly toward an inanimate object. _

Fast on the heels of that thought came the mental image of himself scooting forward a couple of inches, accommodating another human in the space remaining. In the week or so since Sora and his companions had left Agrabah, Aladdin had finally managed to whisk Jasmine away on a magic carpet ride.

Every word he had used to describe the experience echoed in Sora's mind as, like with Jack and Sally dancing, the thought of Aladdin and Jasmine looping gently through the sky was replaced with Sora and Char. _Exhilarating. Thrilling. Amazing._

_ Like a whole new world._

Warm as the idea made him feel, Sora's growing grin faded at once and his blood froze in his veins when he stepped further inside.

And saw a dark-coated figure standing with its back to him.

The light created by the Decisive Pumpkin appearing in his grasp made the Nobody in front of him turn. Disappointment twitched through his belligerence at the presence of darkness from its hood, but that too vanished when the Nobody's spine went rigid with horror.

As much horror as its false not-heart could muster, anyway.

"All right, out with it, Nobody," Sora growled, trying to stave off the Roxas-shaped doubt in his chest. He swung up his Keyblade and pointed it at the black-cloaked being. "I know Jafar's here."

_Where is Kairi, where is Char, where is Riku,_ the questions shoved insistently against each other at the back of his mind, but somehow he knew he wouldn't get any straight answers to those right away. The thought made his grip on his Keyblade tighten.

Confusion filled him when the Nobody straightened. The half-light filtering in from outside caught something in the slat of darkness its hood created, as though the figure were widening its eyes. For a moment, Sora thought he detected those gloved fingers flexing, before that settled.

Almost as if it were considering summoning its weapon, then decided against it.

Then the Nobody shook its head.

"No?" Sora asked aloud. He blinked, arms growing slack and forcing him to lower his weapon. "You mean Jafar isn't here?"

_Then that means Iago lied._

Why wasn't he the least bit surprised?

The Nobody lifted its palms in a shrug, which only stirred Sora's frustration even more. "You Nobodies used to be a lot more talkative," he spat out. "Not that I mind it, but… what's with the sudden silent treatment?"

It froze, shoulders tensing visibly. A smirk spread on Sora's countenance; he had it there.

But _it _suddenly seemed an odd word to use to refer to the still-hidden being. After all, the Organization members Sora had met along the way had all been decidedly male; Anxclof aside, he didn't know if they even had any female members.

Besides, the figure's build seemed a bit too broad in the shoulders and back.

His eyes widened as his heartbeat spiked in sudden realization. That feeling only enforced itself when a stray, hot breeze from outside coiled into the pillar's interior and stirred a piece of gray hair from outside the confines of the stranger's hood.

Hastily, the Nobody pulled his hair back into its hiding spot, but Sora had seen all he needed to.

"Xemnas!" he barked, lunging forward. In his periphery, dark blue flashed in a blur, and he dimly attached the color to the carpet darting inside to see what was going on, but an instant later his attention refocused on the muscles in his arm lifting up his Keyblade and driving its end as hard as he could toward the face hidden by that hood.

He swung the Decisive Pumpkin's coiled-up shaft, intending to at least inflict a couple of bruises on this jerk before he fled into the realm of darkness. Gods willing, he could maybe keep a firm hold on Xemnas' attention long enough to follow him.

_At the very least, I can find Kairi, and try to keep her safe. Succeed where I couldn't with Char._

He expected the candy cane-like weapon to crunch against bone, or, more predictably, for Xemnas to draw his own blades. The very few memories that Roxas had of the Organization leader brushed up against his thoughts and told him if his target chose the latter option, this chamber's half-darkness would become bathed in a crimson glow of light blades. Ironic, considering what they both symbolized.

Before Sora could make a move to suppress that odd train of thought, though, the other's choice vanquished it much more thoroughly.

For a few moments, the clang created by his Keyblade colliding with his adversary's own sword resonated, sound ricocheting off the mud-bricked walls and finally reaching an impasse with Sora's senses. It vaguely echoed to his ears, but it reached him with a sense of numb horror and shock.

Because the figure's visceral reaction had been to block his attack, just as he had expected.

But the chamber remained lit only by the blaze of the early afternoon sun outside, and the bat wing-shaped weapon was angled in a belated attempt to parry Sora's attack.

It brought back so many memories: tussling with his best friend under a different sun and on different sand entirely; a voice that was not his best friend's own cackling and taunting with every roll and dodged strike with that deadly blade.

Sora strained forward to see turquoise eyes under that cover of shadows, but Riku – if it was Riku at all – lowered his head so he couldn't get a glimpse.

"Riku?" he whispered, his own dark blue eyes wide.

Immediately Riku pulled the Soul Eater back. His severing the connection that held them together happened so abruptly that Sora almost fell forward, but thankfully he straightened.

The tails of his Organization coat trailed over the ground, which suddenly seemed so unsteady beneath Sora's feet, as Riku backed up. "Wait!" Sora cried, reaching out a hand. "It… _is_ you. Right?"

His heartbeat roared in his ears, all but drowning out his desperate question, all but muffling his desire to just glean a bit of truth from at least _one_ person in that treacherous black coat. Like why Riku was wearing it, for one; and for another, why he had shown up here.

And although the _thump thump thump_ in his ears would have forced that particular cadence to have to work its way past the obscuring noise, Sora at the very least wanted to just hear Riku speak and confirm it was indeed him.

But that just loosened the gates for more questions to flood forth – like why he had taken Char away, not even twelve hours after he had finally untangled his feelings toward her – so Sora focused on maybe-Riku instead of his budding headache.

He didn't receive a verbal response, predictably enough. In lieu of yielding to his normal bluntness, Riku simply placed his free hand against the wall behind him. No sooner had the Char voice in the back of Sora's mind shaken his shoulders and screamed at him what Riku was about to do did his suspicions come to light.

"Come back!" he shouted. Just as much shock and fear marked his voice as before, but now, rather than a begging edge, anger sharpened the words and made them echo throughout the chamber.

He gripped his Keyblade tighter and charged forward, eyes training in on the black and purple, dark tendrils winding together between Riku's form and the stone slab. Somehow, the portal of darkness had coalesced in a way that pulled its brand of shadow apart from Riku's, and so gave his glare purchase as he lunged forward…

…only to pull up short as Riku stepped back into the darkness.

It took a few seconds' effort to backpedal and avoid sacrificing the top of his skull to the wall, but, contrary to likely expectation, Sora had enough balance to manage it. He stared at where Riku had stood not moments before, the part of him that still marveled at beings who existed without a heart blinking in disbelief at how quickly Riku had disappeared.

_It _was_ Riku. I know it was. But if it was… how did he do what the Nobodies can?_

Somehow, he couldn't believe Riku had lost his heart: not because he lacked the supposed strength required to produce a Nobody – so completely the opposite of the truth that Sora breathed out a shaky chuckle – but because he could never surrender to Heartless.

Questions. So many questions.

_And no answers in sight._

He sighed to himself, only to jolt in surprise. A rumbling shook from the pillar's sandy foundations and eventually worked its way under his feet.

An instant later, the ground beneath his feet shifted from beneath him, startling a grunt out of him before the surface under him became a bit more solid. He glanced down, saw the magic carpet's now dust-mottled fabric, and realized it had swooped forward to give him a better surface to stand on.

"Thanks, carpet," he told it, to which it lifted one tassel to its top in an imitation of a salute.

Sora only spared a couple of seconds of looking around before another quake wracked the pillar and told him he had to leave. Now.

"But if Jafar's not here, then where…?" The last part of the question stretched into a bewildered cry when the carpet suddenly lurched forward. He spent the next few moments rebalancing himself into a kneeling position, during which they managed to clear the crumbling pillar to the sandy waterfalls beyond. Those, too, were forced to change course as the ruins rippled and heaved with the force of some nauseating stimulant.

He considered glaring down at the carpet, which continued to dart around every bit of falling debris; the buildings that had once stood so quietly in the desert were now violently ejecting their burdens, scattering bits of brick and sand everywhere. As the carpet performed a particularly complicated maneuver to dodge a larger piece of rock, Sora clung on for dear life and began to remember why he hated heights in the first place.

"Carpet!" he finally shouted, glaring down at it. His knuckles strained beneath his gloves' confines with his vice grip on the carpet's edge. "What's going on?"

At that moment, a flash of light caught his eye, and he looked up, out at the bulbous silhouette of Agrabah's palace in the distance. Horror sank its fangs into his very core as he spotted the dark cloud of smoke wreathing about the towers.

"Jafar," he whispered, eyes widening. _He must be attacking the palace!_

Seeing that its burden understood everything now, the carpet tore off in the direction of the shadowy lightning in the distance.

* * *

Sora had experienced smoke – honest, powerful, lung-choking smoke – exactly twice in his life.

The first time, he was three, and his mother was chastising his father for daring to exercise his bad habit and spread the poisonous cloud of cigarette smoke in the house; his father had stubbed out his last cigarette exactly two days after that.

The second time, he was twelve, and Riku had suggested starting a bonfire on the beach; that had proved a mistake, as Sora gagged on the fumes and Kairi chided Riku for thinking that had ever been a good idea. Her expression – red with fury and indignation on Sora's part – had struck a chord of warmth within him, even as Riku ducked in sheepishness that was half-feigned.

Now, though, he could count now as the third: fifteen, much less ordinary circumstances, riding on a magic carpet and watching in revulsion as a bright red, humanoid shape towered up into the sky. Dual fireballs hovered at the massive genie's fingertips, the heat that flowed off Jafar's hands in waves even more palpable after the time Sora had spent in the desert.

All he could think was _Char would hate what's going on right now,_ both because of the greedy vizier's return to Agrabah and the flames' effect on her.

Jafar's shoulders twitched. Sora tensed – his knuckles howled in protest at the increased emphasis on his Keyblade – but the genie hadn't noticed his approach, much to his relief. The sounds of terrified cries from far below drew his attention downward; relief tempered his initial dread when he saw an aqua-clad shape herding a group of people farther away from the palace gates. _Jasmine,_ he realized.

Fast on the heels of that thought came desperate curiosity, the need to know Donald, Goofy, and Aladdin also stood far below. Seeming to detect his concern, the magic carpet angled itself into a sharp dive, being careful not to dislodge its precious burden in the descent.

But then Sora's stomach was lurching for a different reason entirely, as a bright yellow light suddenly bathed the carpet's fabric beneath his feet in a sickly green.

"You!" Jafar bellowed. The yellow of his solid-colored glare fixed on the Keybearer intensified, as did the desert heat's remnants, and Sora's eyes widened. The fireball began to coalesce in his periphery; he pressed himself further down into the carpet, hoping to both avoid the all-incinerating attack and hasten his vehicle's descent –

Suddenly Jafar reared back, snarling in pain. The fireball sizzled away to nothingness on his fingertips, which dipped low to grip his belly. Sora looked down, a process eased by the carpet's continuous descent, out of confusion.

Relief pulsed throughout his entire body as he glimpsed his savior: Donald, lowering his broom-headed staff with a glare that came into full view as the carpet halted right next to him. "Don't even think about it!" he spat.

Sora jumped down off the magic carpet, which promptly slumped down on the ground, as if exhausted from the panic of its flight here. He swept his gaze around the area and saw Goofy trotting up from further back, something bright red cradled in his hold.

"Iago!" he gasped as he recognized the prostrate bird in Goofy's arms, just as Aladdin shouted, "Sora!"

The brunette turned to see the street boy running up to him, scimitar in his grasp. "Good timing," Aladdin panted, free hand falling to his knee to support himself. "It was all –"

"A trap?" Sora finished. "Yeah, I know." He glanced up worriedly to see if Jafar was readying another attack, but his fears stiffening his spine left him and made him sigh in relief when he saw the genie mutely clutching his abdomen.

_Probably a weak spot,_ Char whispered in the back of his mind, _keep that in mind._

And then Sora blinked, because the memory of Char serving as his mentor lay far in the past – far enough that an injury had hindered her from continuing further in their training session. In fact, those rare days lingered so faintly in his mind that even in Port Royal, when the Heartless reaper's ruthless assault had forced him to transform into his golden-clad form and wield dual Keyblades, he hadn't thought about her advice even once.

He had a split second to push momentarily into his reserves of memory to try and remember the bits of advice she had given him before a tap on his shoulder brought him back to reality. A glance back gave him all he needed to know about the horror of the situation: Jasmine was still trying to get the Agrabah citizens to safety; the palace was still lying open behind Jafar; Jafar was still swaying in midair from Donald's blow to his stomach; and Goofy was standing in front of him, eyes huge with anxiety, offering the unconscious red burden in his arms toward Sora.

"Iago got hurt," was all the knight said.

Sora couldn't help noticing the gentle way in which the white-clad fingers supported Iago's limp spine, as if he held a wounded dove and not the traitor who had distracted them all while his master swooped in to attack Agrabah. _Maybe Goofy should have been the one with healing magic._

"Doing what?" he asked, and could not restrain a derisive jab of, "Saving his own feathers again?"

"Actually, no," Aladdin said. Turning to him, Sora picked up the gleam of frustrated confusion on the world native's face. "He saved Jasmine's life."

Sora's eyes widened. "What?"

"He pushed her out of the way, Jafar blasted him, got mad, and now we're here," Donald growled testily. His glower hadn't wavered from the still-prone Jafar in the slightest. "Now let's _do_ something about this big stupid genie trying to kill us!"

A frown stole across Aladdin's face and he opened his mouth to speak; Sora registered his mild indignation through a film of surprise. Disgust and anger toward Iago permeated that surprise, but even now the two former emotions were fading, eclipsed by the latter. The entire trip from the crumbling desert ruins to the palace courtyard had been spent stewing in fury toward Iago, who had led them all to believe that Jafar would defy his slippery nature and lie in wait in one spot. In spite of the red bird's insistence on having changed, every bit of doubt had come rushing back and formed a poisonous cloud in Sora's mind not unlike the one Jafar himself had formed overhead.

And yet in light of Donald's hasty explanation of events, that cloud was dispersing.

Suddenly the dark shadows overhead writhed, making all of them look up and cutting off whatever Aladdin had to say. Even the screams of the townspeople ebbed, if only briefly… until the crimson shape drew itself up and bared his teeth. "Insolent street rats!" Jafar screeched.

"Guess he's better," Donald said obviously, tightening his grip on his staff.

"Oh geez," Aladdin hissed under his breath.

As if on some sort of signal, panicked howls and wails lifted up from the crowd all over again. "Aladdin!" Jasmine cried, desperation etched into the name.

"Just get everyone to safety, Jasmine," the street boy shouted over his shoulder. Though the princess eyed him with more than a hint of reluctance, she squared her own shoulders and gave a determined nod. Sora had a split second to follow the end of her ponytail as it carved a shadowy whip in the air; then a screech zigzagged through the air behind him and he spun around to see Jafar glaring down at them.

"You have no hope of defeating me, little rats," the genie taunted.

"We'll beat you down as many times as you keep getting up!" With that determined claim, Donald raised his staff, only for his eyes to widen in surprise when only sparks crackled in its bristles. "The heck is wrong with this thing?" he barked, shaking it furiously.

"Calm down, Donald," Goofy whispered, leaning down to the duck's eye level while still cradling Iago's unconscious form. "You probably just used all your magic."

"Well, we don't exactly have time to wait to get it all back!" Donald shouted, rounding on his friend. Goofy flinched back only momentarily.

As much as the fact rankled him, Sora knew they were both right. He cast his eyes about frantically – for what, he realized abruptly, he had no idea what he was looking for – but predictably enough, nothing useful came to mind. Just the terrified people, and Donald looking furious, and Jasmine pulling a couple of wailing children along, and Goofy still holding Iago's body, and the magic carpet gesturing urgently at him.

Sora's eyes widened. _Of course!_

He tossed a shout of "guys, cover me!" over his shoulder as he dashed toward the blue shape. Although the carpet hovered only a few feet away, with Jafar's solid amber glare fixed on them, Sora might as well have been running a few hundred. Sure enough, the genie roared and flame rippled on his fingertips as he formed another fireball in his hands.

Fortunately, though, the magic carpet dove forward as well, just as Sora leaped forward. Gravity tugging him down almost made him trip over the Decisive Pumpkin's curved blade, but he quickly righted himself before he could tumble off the carpet's edge.

Crimson enveloped his vision as the carpet lifted high into the air. The momentary embarrassment at his almost-fall vanished in favor of determination then. _Yeah, that would've killed your cool moment,_ a very Riku-like voice remarked in the back of his mind, and that bit of imaginary taunting tightened his jaw out of both reinforced resolve and reborn bemusement.

He focused on the slitted gold of Jafar's eyes instead of the questions beginning to form anew in the back of his mind. Like why Riku had shown up here and now; why he had taken Char; and, most importantly, why he could vanish in the same darkness that the Nobodies swathed themselves in. "I'd say we've got a chance of beating you now," he spat, channeling every ounce of frustration toward the incident at the ruins into the narrow beams of sickly yellow light.

Jafar snarled, fingers curling close to his palms in angry fists. "How very touching," he hissed. "Do you truly believe a little key like that can hope to combat the most powerful force in the universe?"

A smirk tugged the corners of Sora's lips. "Yeah, actually. I do."

The vizier's roar rang out in the air, rendering the encouraging cries from below little more than a dull buzz, as the Keybearer leaped up and aimed the coiled shaft of the Decisive Pumpkin right for one of those solid yellow eyes.

He twisted in midair when Jafar lashed out; shadow blurred into the clouds before his eyes as those deadly nails raked the air inches before his face. The carpet quickly lunged forward to accommodate its rider's ties to gravity, and Sora landed safely again.

Staccato bursts of fear had wracked his heart at his foe's counterstrike, but now that he had escaped relatively uninjured, he allowed that smirk to take over his face again. "C'mon, Jafar!" he shouted. "I thought you were stronger than this!"

_C'mon, Sora. I thought you were stronger than that._

Just thinking of the friend he sought injected fresh determination into his veins. That, and frustration, propelled him forward to land another series of blows along Jafar's head; because while it seemed Riku was all right, he still had so many questions shrouding his appearance in a thick, dark cloud.

Not unlike the one that suddenly bloomed in front of his face and obscured his vision.

Quickly Sora brought himself up short, before the fall that would have likely resulted could finish him off. The surface beneath his feet twitched, as if even the carpet felt the wreathing shadows' effect. He would have spared it a pat of reassurance, but now the darkness had swirled up around his feet and given him the illusion of standing on solid cloud.

_Just don't look down,_ he told himself, told the nausea beginning to build up in his stomach. _Just don't look down. Just don't –_

Suddenly a blur of beige assailed his vision. His eyes widened. _Oh, geez._

Neither he nor the carpet could act quickly enough to dodge; the object splintered against his torso, little knives of broken brick and stucco slicing into his ribs, and the part of him in which Char had drilled a greater sense of rationale dimly realized Jafar must have flung a palace tower at him. _We're gonna have to fix that somehow when I finish this._

Then the pain of the lacerations those shards had scored across his body hit him, and he dropped to his knees, barely keeping a firm grip on the Decisive Pumpkin. Beneath him, the carpet brought its tassels up to where its face would be in fear; then it lurched and whirled toward Jafar, who still floated in midair, shark teeth bared in a smug grin.

"Well, Keyblade master?" he demanded, already twining his immense fingers together. In the slats between his fingers, firelight was beginning to coil together and bathe their crimson prison in a hellish glow. "I believe it's time to finish you –"

"Okay, that's enough of that!" a voice suddenly boomed from the distance. Even though just raising his head somehow sent more jagged bursts of pain into his wounds, Sora managed to do so, just in time to see a flash of cyan blue swoop up.

Somewhere in the back of his skull, a dull throbbing began – Sora searched his mind for the likely source, but in the amount of agony that already wracked his thoughts and rendered them little more than half-blurred truths he could only scrounge up _Xaldin's lance hit me there and it must have reopened somehow_ – and that throbbing only intensified at the sight before him.

"Genie!" The shocked cry floated up from below. To the ears of everyone below, Aladdin's speaking the newcomer's name probably boomed and resonated loudly; but to Sora, it sounded both like it came from far beneath him and like it was echoing at him from the bottom of a well.

The carpet flinched very tangibly as he angled his elbow just far enough upward to let the Keyblade's shaft find purchase in the fabric. Dimly, he registered the tiny rendition of Jack Skellington's face between the hilt and the blade becoming coated in red as blood oozed from his fingers down into the miniature skull.

Char would have laughed at the irony – and Riku probably would have, too. _The king of Halloween finally looks the part._

Sora tried to stand, using the Keyblade as leverage, but dizziness promptly overtook him and he ended up on his knees again. But light-headed as he was, even with how that robbed him of the concentration necessary to heal himself, he still saw Genie in front of him, hands locked together with Jafar's larger red fingers as they clashed in midair.

"I'm not gonna… just sit here… while you hurt Al's friends!" Genie growled through clenched teeth, in as close to genuine fury as Sora had ever heard him. Although he was much smaller in size than Jafar, he was putting up an admirable fight against the vizier-turned-genie's iron grip.

Then the blue genie risked a glance at Sora over his shoulder. "His tail," he bit out.

"Huh?" Sora managed to get to his feet, swaying precariously.

"Y'know, the thing that goes into the lamp?" Genie rolled his eyes. "Geez, kid… you can't be that tired yet." In an instant, though, his brow drew down in concentration, thoroughly crushing the humor on his face. Sora looked on in growing horror at Genie wincing in pain; Jafar had renewed his efforts, and a few dark cackles escaped him as the red gaps between Genie's pale blue fingers began pulsating with a dark glow.

"All right, all right! What about his tail?" Sora demanded urgently. At the same time, his eyes landed on the tapering crimson line that ended not so far below.

"Grab it. Spin it around him." Genie's order grew more strained as the shadowy flame blazed beneath his fingers. "And hurry it up," he added in a high-pitched voice.

Quickly, Sora maneuvered the carpet into a sharp nose-dive; after a couple of moments of his blood-slippery fingers fumbling, he seized the whip-like appendage in his grasp.

Just as he lifted upward, though, he made the mistake of bringing one hand to his temple and loosening his grip. It was a gesture brought on by dizziness – _I have items,_ he thought suddenly, _why didn't I just drink a Potion or something instead?_ – and apparently it was also enough for Jafar to notice.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, releasing Genie. The smaller being promptly careened off into the shadowy skies; whether the twirling movement came from his sense of melodrama or the force of Jafar pushing him away, Sora wasn't sure.

Either way, he chose to ignore Jafar's query. "Step on it, carpet!" he shouted. At the bottom of his vision, he glimpsed his transportation bringing one tassel upward in a salute before beginning to spiral around the massive, crimson genie.

Jafar had just lowered his still-glowing hands when Sora bound his arms up. The carpet ascended to meet that opaque, Heartless-yellow stare; now the situation had reversed, because in spite of the persistent dark ooze in Sora's periphery and the way that tower had battered him, triumph flared throughout his entire body at the panic tightening Jafar's face.

No more fireballs.

No more tower throwing.

_Infinite cosmic powers, my foot,_ Riku snorted in the back of Sora's mind. _If you can keep him still just by tying him up, you've still got a chance._

In an imitation of how Genie had spun away, Sora released Jafar's tail, flinging himself and the carpet outward with the movement. Jafar became little more than a bloodstained blur; once the momentum stilled, he groaned, apparently too dizzy to muster the concentration needed to fight back.

"He's vulnerable!" a tinny scream came from far below. "Finish him off!" added another.

Sora could easily pick out Donald and Aladdin, and felt himself grin at their encouragement.

He dove in toward Jafar's head and delivered a flurry of blows to the vizier's skull. The assault jerked him out of his stupor, and with a roar of pain, Jafar brought a hand to his head. Those fingers crushed down furiously as a dark cloud wreathed about his body.

Somewhere far below, someone had deposited the black lamp that had once held Jafar.

"No!" Jafar screamed, writhing in midair while still clutching his skull. "How could I be bested again by a bunch of filthy street rats?"

Sora narrowed his eyes, crouching down low on the carpet to glare down at the still-convulsing vizier. "Don't mess with street rats!" he spat, and spurred his vehicle downward.

The carpet deposited him on the ground below. He spotted it initiating a series of triumphant loop-de-loops in midair and couldn't hold back a smile at just how contagious that feeling was.

Of course, his pleasure at having defeated the enemy in his way ebbed immediately when the blood loss kicked back in.

"Whoa there," Aladdin said, rushing forward when the Keybearer stumbled. He seized Sora by the shoulders to hold him up, a little too tightly in Sora's opinion. He appreciated the effort anyway, though. "Nicely done, Sora."

The brunette lifted his head and saw a mixture of smugness and concern twined awkwardly together on Aladdin's face. _There goes the awesomeness of my landing,_ he thought with a twinge.

Behind the Agrabah native, Donald hovered anxiously, staff already swathed in the green glow patented by a Cura spell. A sigh of relief escaped Sora as the emerald tendrils lit a pathway to the back of his skull and the wounded area began radiating a different kind of warmth. "Thanks, Donald," he said. Gently, he pried Aladdin's hands off him and folded his arms. "That was…"

"Al!" Genie bellowed from midair, making them all jump. Even the formerly-terrified townspeople poked their heads out from behind the palace walls to watch curiously as the blue man swooped forward. Sora leaped back with a cry of surprise to allow Genie a proper path to float in front of Aladdin.

"You guys were gonna go mano a mano with Jafar and you didn't even invite me?" Genie asked, jabbing a finger toward Aladdin.

"Sorry, Genie," the street boy laughed sheepishly. "It kind of all happened at once."

"I'm just glad Sora got back in time," Goofy said.

Donald shrugged, turning away. "I guess we couldn't have handled it without you," he muttered.

Sora chuckled. "You're welcome, Donald." Suddenly, the fact that Goofy had torn himself away from his precious patient hit him, and he turned a wary eye toward Iago. Conveniently, the red bird was just groaning as consciousness strung webs back together in his mind.

"Iago," he greeted in a warning tone.

That seemed enough to wake him up completely; he cringed before flying forward, practically crashing into Sora's face with his fervor. As it was, the brunette had to lean back to avoid a mouthful of feathers. "It wasn't my idea, promise!" he insisted, a pleading tone etched into every syllable. "When Jafar got out of the lamp again at the ruins –"

"Yeah, how _did_ that happen?" Aladdin interrupted. His dark eyes were suspicious as he rested them on Iago. "You never properly explained it."

"I can send this chicken back to the coop if you guys want," Genie offered, already lifting a finger to point it, gun-like, at Iago. The parrot squawked in terror and hid behind Goofy.

"Hear him out, guys," the knight protested. "He has no reason to lie to us."

A beat, then Aladdin sighed. "Okay, fine, Iago. But this is your last chance. I mean it this time," he added. Clearly, he remembered when he was saying the exact same words to the bird in the peddler's shop.

Iago deflated visibly in relief. "Thank you so much, Aladdin!" he cried, flying forward again. "I'll be honest, I promise."

"Sure," Sora muttered under his breath, but said nothing else. If Iago truly had taken a blow for Aladdin…

He at least owed it to him to hear him out.

Iago took a deep breath before speaking. "Jafar told me to keep you preoccupied by telling you he was at the desert ruins," he explained, turning to Sora. The Keybearer blinked; just like that, every ounce of frustration and confusion at seeing maybe-Riku at the ruins came flowing back.

"Was there a guy in a black cloak involved?" he couldn't help asking. "Maybe someone who was in cahoots with Jafar?" As soon as the words escaped him, he wanted to snatch them back again and cover his mouth; regardless of all they had been through, from last journey to this one, regardless of how Riku still seemed to walk in darkness, he couldn't bring himself to believe Riku was working with Jafar to distract him.

_It's not something Riku – not something my best friend would do._

Was it?

"A guy in a black cloak?" Donald queried, eyes widening. "Did Organization XIII show up in the ruins?"

The fury in the duck's voice was audible, and Sora quickly hastened to prove him wrong. "No, I don't think so. I… I think it was Riku."

Silence descended on all of them; even Genie lowered his finger, eyes huge. "Isn't that who you're looking for?" Aladdin asked. At Sora's almost-guilty nod, he continued, "Then why would he look like one of the bad guys?"

"I wish I know," the brunette murmured.

Iago's head swung anxiously from one speaker to another. Somehow, that uncertainty had carried over to every wing beat. "I don't know about a guy in a black cloak," he said. "But I think that guy might." He pointed with one stubby wing to a figure in the crowd. Everyone shuffled aside to reveal the peddler.

The peddler glanced frantically around, arms dropping from where he'd apparently been twiddling his thumbs. "Who, me?" he simpered. "But I am just a humble merchant."

"I'm just repeating what Jafar said," Iago said hastily. "Maybe he didn't do it."

"Or maybe he needs something to jar his memory," Donald growled.

Tittering nervously, the peddler finally rested his eyes on Sora. Admittedly, the boy probably seemed like the least dangerous of the group; after the battle that had just transpired, though, and the various bruises littering his body, the dishonest merchant was quickly proved wrong.

Besides, while he claimed to not remember releasing Jafar, he definitely remembered the Keyblade at his throat and the fierce blue glare that was fixed on him now.

At the time, Sora hadn't been particularly proud of having to extort the man for information, but now he found himself grateful for that bout of ferocity. That ferocity flickered now as the memory of what had followed floated into his mind – Char in a dress, dancing with her, the longing in her eyes – but he managed to keep his emotions under control.

However, it became increasingly difficult to do even that at the peddler's next words.

"There was a man in black," he confessed hurriedly. "B-but he said he would give me all the riches in the Cave of Wonders if I released the genie in the black lamp."

_Well,_ the brunette thought helplessly, _that explains all the stuff in his shop._

"So your greed almost killed us all," Jasmine said incredulously, walking out from the midst of the crowd. Even in their anger toward the peddler, they bowed before the princess as she moved to stand next to Aladdin.

While Donald had his staff at the ready and even Goofy had his eyes narrowed, somehow Sora couldn't share the same rage. Confusion and disbelief tempered that rage. _Riku wouldn't do that._

_ But he's not the only one in black running around._

"Did you get a glimpse of what the guy in black looked like?" he heard someone ask, and nearly gave a start – someone had apparently read his mind – before realizing it was him.

"Sora?" Aladdin looked at him bemusedly.

"Just tell me what he looked like," Sora pleaded. "Please."

The peddler hesitated, but when he saw the bloodstained Keyblade in the boy's hand twitch he spoke. "He kept his hood up so I could not completely see his face. But when the wind caught his hair and pulled it free, I saw he had red hair. And eyes like the palest emeralds when the light caught them."

Sora's eyes widened.

"That sounds like Axel," Goofy remarked, scratching his head.

"But why would Axel want to release Jafar?" Donald asked.

"He said something about getting a Heartless and a Nobody. I am not sure what that means," the peddler quickly added.

A few moments of silence passed, during which Sora shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. For some reason, the blood loss had chosen now to reassert its effects on him, tainting his contemplation with nausea and anxiety rolled together. Roxas stirred within his heart then, a belated reaction at the notion of his old friend's presence, and Sora had to repress a wince at the longing that stretched, raw and painful as the injuries from the battle, across that part of his heart.

Through the current of wistfulness, the mire of nostalgia, a stronger, more powerful emotion surfaced: one that, due to Roxas' influence and his own judgment of what he knew about the brash redhead, Sora found himself agreeing with. Something did feel off about the situation. When he tried to delve into the reason as to why, though – the trait about Axel that Roxas had placed, however namelessly, into Sora's considerations – he couldn't quite grasp it.

_But I guess there _is_ something wrong about the peddler just leaving it at that. _Thinking of his own experiences with the fire-wielding Nobody, Sora suddenly realized he could vouch for Roxas' unspoken theory as well. Hollow Bastion's cliffs and Char's own expression of shock steeped his support in gray and ice blue; more than that, though, the black of Axel's glove as he had pointed to the Photon Debugger in Sora's hand.

He wouldn't just tell Sora the Organization's motives and manipulation of him and then freely work for them.

Obviously, if Saïx had punished him for his insubordination in kidnapping Kairi, he hadn't kept those chains very firmly wrapped around Axel.

And then Sora's heart, weighed down by exhaustion and missing Char and wondering about Riku and resenting Roxas as it was, lightened substantially.

Because at the very least, if Axel had been here –

Maybe he could get closer to finding Kairi.

Some ounce of his revelations must have lit up his face, for he jolted back to the present, fully intending to ask if Axel had said anything else, to see his allies looking oddly at him. Donald had narrowed his eyes, Iago was eyeing him nervously, Aladdin had folded his arms, and Goofy had tilted his head to the side. "Sora?" Jasmine asked, tilting her head to the side.

The brunette shook his head – to which, predictably, she blinked, not satisfied with that dismissal – and looked at the peddler. "Did he say anything else? The guy in black, I mean."

"Ah… he did, actually." Sora's heartbeat kicked up furiously within his chest, and he unconsciously leaned forward, bloodied hands curling into eager fists. The merchant leaned back, bemused; by now most of the citizens had cleared out, thereby sparing him the humiliation of nearly colliding with a taller person's legs. "He said to meet him in the Pride Lands, and he would tell you how to get where you need to go."

In the silence that followed, Genie's jaw hitting the ground echoed that much more loudly.

* * *

Falcon had pushed aside her pride and found it in herself to trust someone else exactly twice in her life.

The first time had happened in the school courtyard, when she had glanced up and felt a thrill of horror along her spine at Copperhead's wide eyes fixed on her. The moment when she had decided to lock away every bitter memory of his childhood tormenting skills and share the burden of her Keyblade's secret with someone else.

The second time had occurred amidst a torrent of blood, when Riku had sliced the chameleon Heartless' tongue off and facilitated her victory against it. The heightened emotions toward Riku – the sense of wanting to impress him; the way her heartbeat spiked around him; the desire for him to heal the wound Copperhead had scored on her heart – had come later, but in that moment, in the heat of battle, she had trusted him.

Now, she could count today as the third time: when Char had looked at her with a mixture of defeat and desperation on her face and asked for her trust. Just like Copperhead and Riku had before.

What surprised Falcon was that she had agreed to the armistice. To controlling her previously-rampant jealousy.

Partly, her decision stemmed from the most obvious: that she wanted to help Riku any way she could, his very likely not returning her feelings notwithstanding. At the very least, she wanted to support him as his friend.

Even if she only ever meant that to him.

The other reason she had acquiesced to the truce – inwardly, she snorted; _truce_ fit the way she had decided to lower her proverbial weapons against the redhead all too well – was because she agreed with the way Char had phrased the reason behind her need to amend Falcon's open distrust. They had a task to complete, one star to find amidst the darkness, and they very well couldn't accomplish said task and find said star if wires of tension choked the bonds between them.

Unfortunately, though, there, the logic ended: because that tension still remained between her and Copperhead, and had increased in intensity when he had looked around her room with that cursed familiarity in his eyes.

And she couldn't very well anticipate approaching him to resolve that tension anytime soon, especially when both of them knew damn well why not.

Still… Falcon knew everything she had accepted as truth about him – his violet eyes, his dead brother, his desperate dedication – had vanished like a candle's flame in the face of a gale on that horrible night; but at that moment, when her former friend had stepped into her home for the second time in as many days, she could almost hear his thoughts as his eyes swept over the table where she and he and her parents had spent meals.

_Nothing's changed at all._

The irony in that statement was so palpable she could have screamed.

Under normal circumstances she would have scoffed at the look on his face, the memories that condensed there in a form she could only call wistfulness.

But after last night…

Just as she was considering relieving her frustration – maybe darting around the corner, finding something to muffle the noise with, like a pillow or a mound of leaves – the object of her thoughts spoke up. "We've already been here."

"Huh?" Falcon asked coherently, stopping in her tracks. She shifted, mildly startled, when the abrupt cease in her stride went unnoticed by Char and the redhead's foot trod briefly against the back of her heel.

Copperhead's mouth twitched in slight amusement as he glanced back over his shoulder at them, but fortunately he had enough sense to keep any snarky comments firmly at the back of his tongue. "I said, we've already been here," he repeated patiently.

"Which means we're walking in circles and still not getting anywhere," Char guessed, groaning aloud to herself. The dismayed sound resonated quietly, but Falcon had enough experience with restraining the true extent of her own emotions to recognize the true frustration just in that one guttural syllable. "Fantastic."

Before their conversation this morning, the gaze Falcon cast over her shoulder at Char might have had more than a little disdain narrowing it. She might have regarded the way Char was firmly pressing her fingers into the bridge of her nose with more than slight irritation, or what was visible of her eyes closing – as if just the sight of this familiar terrain would annoy her beyond measure – with more than just one eye-roll.

Now, though, after Falcon's promise to curb her jealousy for the time being, the once-visceral scorn twitched only momentarily inside her before the memory of that promise rose up and tamped it down.

So instead of scoffing at Char's frustration, she instead found herself stepping forward and awkwardly tapping her fingertips against the younger's hunched shoulder. "There's bound to be a place we haven't searched yet," she pointed out. _Besides the citadel; no way are we going there. _The last part remained unspoken, but it rattled about in her mind as strongly as if it had escaped into reality.

Char straightened at once at the contact against her shoulder, eyes immediately flicking down to the source. Falcon tried to staunch the prickles of indignation beginning to rise along her spine, though she did drop her hand. Only when she glanced over her shoulder, her now-free hand sliding to the opposite elbow in discomfort, did she notice the reason behind said prickles continuing.

Copperhead. Watching them. With his bangs having swallowed his eyebrows.

Something inside her twitched, and she quickly turned back to Char just in time to see the redhead's lips quirk halfheartedly upward. "You have a point," she said. As she spoke her strained smile faltered. Clearly, she was remembering how she had pointedly shoved Falcon and Copperhead's avoiding the citadel at them only yesterday. Falcon had to wonder, if only to distract herself from Copperhead's steady gaze on her – another damnably familiar feeling, and one that was not entirely unwelcome – why Char was reining in her obvious skepticism now.

Then again, this time yesterday, they hadn't fought and worked together. They hadn't decided to put their emotions aside, and Char's now-waning annoyance had been much stronger.

"Anyway," the redhead went on, "if I know the Organization, they've stuck the machine in a place they figure we wouldn't go." She angled her head expectantly at Falcon. "Any ideas?"

Copperhead had remained silent till now, which was a feat in and of itself. Now, though, he spoke, making them both look over. "I know a place," he announced.

Falcon's eyes narrowed. "Do you now?" she couldn't help asking.

Genuine as the derisiveness echoing in every word was, revealing that much proved a mistake. He swung his head toward her, brows drawing down over equally-slitted violet eyes; the fault line that her scorn had etched across his affable façade, the very same one she had cursed last night, revealed more than a little exasperation gleaming raw on his face. "Yeah, I do. I _have_ done a bit of exploring of my own, you know," he added.

Recalling the year that had passed since that horrible night, Falcon sank her teeth into the inside of her cheek and said nothing.

They remained locked in that glare for a moment, during which Char cleared her throat to no avail and Falcon noticed her fingers pushing into the side of her forearm with more pressure than before.

Despite her stalwart refusal to break their eye contact, though, she found herself hoping she could stave off the tremors beginning to work their way up from within. The look on his face – jaw bulging out, eyes blazing, crack in the congenial mask spreading fissure-like all the while – reminded her of the day he had first moved in with her.

_"Oh, yeah, sure. _'Fun.' _Hey, Fal, remember why I have to move in with you in the first place?"_

The memory clawed its way up her throat and curled itself comfortably there, baring its teeth at the breath that dared try to pass it. Falcon's chest tightened with the weight of that day's roots clutching deep down in her heart, and her teeth loosened their grip on the inside of her cheek. To Copperhead's credit, he kept his countenance fairly clear of anything but annoyance, though his eyes did widen just a fraction.

_Stop,_ she screamed at herself, _you know what he did to you, stop missing him –_

"Uh, hello, guys? Where are we going to go?" Char asked, yanking Falcon out of her miserable trance.

Falcon shook herself, eyes squeezing shut in a vain attempt to clear her emotions. It took a couple of seconds, but she did manage to disperse the imaginary obstacle in her throat.

Copperhead looked away. She had an instant to feel absurdly, pathetically proud of her victory before he spoke up again. "Right," he muttered, then raised his voice. "Right. Yeah. New place to search." He pushed his hair out of his eyes, which slipped shut for a moment as a sigh escaped him.

When they opened, Falcon couldn't help noticing those pupils shifting to her.

As had Char's, she realized abruptly. Char raised one eyebrow, this time not in doubt, but in concern. _You okay?_ her expression asked. The very small nod Falcon sent in her direction failed to wipe that worry from her face; rather, Char settled back on her feet slightly, arms folding across her chest. Her quirked brow and wryly twisted mouth spoke the volumes of skepticism she kept back.

Falcon's fist clenched, fingers digging into her arm. So much silence. She found herself wishing for Riku's presence more than ever – moreover, for someone who could change the subject and get them on their way. He had always kept the river of their friendship from becoming dammed up with just a few words.

At least until he had tossed these two boulders into the stream.

And suddenly, her whole body was thrumming with the desire to tell the truth. The secret that had lain festering deep inside her fought for purchase at the tip of her tongue, but she forced it back.

_Because keeping things bottled up has worked out _so _well for you in the past._

In the end, because someone had to speak up and keep the demons at bay, she turned to Copperhead. "Well?" she asked him, praying to whatever gods existed, if any, that he would forego the chance to be snarky and just lead them on. "You know the way, right? Let's go."

"Huh? Oh yeah." Copperhead's ability to piece false happiness together, no matter how painful the mosaic created, annoyed Falcon as much now as it had before yesterday.

_I won't lie and tell you it's okay._

_ I won't say I'm sorry._

"Follow me," he was saying. Try as she might she couldn't ignore the redolent stirring deep inside her heart at the sight of his jacket's tails waving as he turned away.

It would have felt like old times – the days they had wandered the forest fighting Heartless and talking about what now seemed so stupidly _mundane_ – had she not known what she did.

* * *

Next chap should be up before long!


	74. Chapter LXXIV

Part two of the double update! You're probably all going to hate me for how it ends. But hey - gotta get you guys to keep sticking around after I left for so long, right?

Disclaimer was in the last chapter. I might just stop doing those...

* * *

For the life of her, Falcon couldn't understand why Copperhead had sent them here, of all places.

The underground tunnels. _Really? _Of all the stupid places he could have found in the eighteen months since her parents' deaths, he had to have found the Shadowed Desert's underground tunnels.

History class had told the story of this place: of its role in the Keyblade War, and how Xehanort and his ilk had won the battle here because all his mages had used Graviga on the part of the cave his opponents were in. That had torn the Shadowed Desert fighters away from their search for Xehanort quickly enough; the cavern roof in that area had yielded to the gravity-intensifying spells at once and crushed them.

Falcon knew for a fact that Copperhead hadn't taken them here because of that history lesson; if that were the case he would have jabbed at her about how she knew so much more about this than him and Char.

At least the redhead had recognized this place, which had surprised Falcon until she remembered she was supposed to give Char the benefit of the doubt from now on. Only when Char had explained she had read it in a book – the same excuse for how she had known what the Behemoth Heartless was – did Falcon also remember Char had said something about being a researcher once.

She scanned the dimly lit area. Someone had thought to line the walls with torches, for some reason unknown to her. This place wasn't exactly a tourist spot, after all. Nonetheless, she found herself grateful for the source of light.

Her sense of foreboding returned when she heard a splash from below. Instinctively, her fingers clenched her Keyblade even more tightly, to the point where she nearly gasped in pain. An instant later, though, she felt moisture soaking into her boots and cringed in discomfort. _Of course. I _would_ step in the only puddle for miles around in here._

Char and Copperhead didn't seem to notice; the former did whirl around briefly, dual swords out to her sides. Falcon couldn't help the wry twist of her mouth as she kicked at the air, causing water droplets to fly in all directions. "Sorry to disappoint you," she said. "Just stepped in a puddle."

Char's shoulders slumped. In the dim light of the cavern, the irritated furrow of her brow was outlined that much more. "Don't _do_ that," was all she said, and turned back around.

"A little high-strung, are we?" Copperhead asked, stopping in his tracks and grinning playfully at Char. How he could keep that blithe demeanor even this far from the world that so demanded it was beyond her – and Char, too, if her ensuing glare was any indication.

"Who's the one who had the bright idea of going down here in the first place?" she retorted. Her swords vanished so she could properly fold her arms and glower at him.

"I figured it's the one place we haven't looked. And correct me if I'm wrong, but you're slightly more desperate than I thought." Char's mouth opened, then closed again, and she turned her head away with a bulging jaw visible through the curtain of red hair.

Two counts for the history books: Copperhead actually reacting in frustration, instead of burying it beneath a smile and the figurative act of stepping down. And Char actually keeping silent, instead of offering up whatever snarky comment had been percolating inside.

Maybe the truce from this morning was controlling Falcon's thoughts, but she found herself thinking, _Char misses someone too._

Seeing the redhead had no sharp jab ready for him, Copperhead turned back around and resumed his brisk stride down the tunnel. "And avoid puddles, okay, Fal?" he called over his shoulder.

Falcon's contemplative mood faded at once. "Don't call me that," she spat, though she kept the fury muffled. Much as the unnatural quiet down here rattled her, somehow, she felt like tearing the dream-like haze of it to ribbons would be worse.

Unfortunately, this left them in the same state as before: Copperhead keeping a steady gait up at the front, with only the slightest twitch in the scythe strapped across his shoulders belying any anxiety; Char with no weapons out, but with a tension in her spine that suggested she was ready to summon them at any moment; and Falcon straggling along at the back of the line, fingers clenched tight to the lifeline of her Keyblade and the reality it represented.

Not only did the silence's quality press down and instill regret for her longing for such quiet in her heart, but it was _cold. _Much colder than the spring air and admittedly-crisp remnants of yesterday's rain would have had her believe. Shivers rippled down her spine as the air bit through her jacket's thin fabric. Ice may be the only type of magic she had bothered to master back in the day – a decision she found herself regretting now, if only because the torches lining the walls failed to warm her up – but that didn't mean she enjoyed her Keyblade-free hand permanently set on the same path rubbing her freezing arm.

Just when the sound of three sets of footsteps alternating rhythm became too much for her, though, something jolted in her periphery. A startled yelp tore out of her before she could stop it, and the next thing she knew the flame-tinged shadows at her vision's edges had lit into solid white.

Quickly, she glanced over her shoulder. Char was focused straight ahead, as if in defiance of Copperhead saying she was "high-strung." If she had noticed whatever had startled Falcon into running ahead of her, she hadn't let it have the same effect on her.

"You see something?" Copperhead's voice rumbled next to her, making her glance over. Despite his brisk pace earlier, he had slowed down to accommodate her shorter stride and was regarding her with concern.

_Talking tears warmth on his face fingers in her hair no apologies –_

"N-no," she managed. "Just a rat in the shadows, I guess."

Damn it, where was Riku? He could easily rebuff Copperhead and fill the spaces the blonde had left behind.

To his credit, he only seemed to struggle with the desire to pry further before letting it go. Falcon breathed an internal sigh of relief. "I'm actually surprised we haven't come across any Heartless yet," he remarked, raising his voice so Char could hear him.

Deciding Char was a safer person to keep her gaze on than this reminder of her past, Falcon looked over her shoulder. The redhead blinked at his abrupt change in tack, then relaxed as much as the environment would allow her. "To be honest, so am I," she confessed. "But it's better that way, right?" A beat, then she added hesitantly, "Or any Nobodies."

"Nobodies… Those are those white things that just started showing up, right?" Copperhead tipped his head to the side.

Char nodded. Every trace of viciousness toward this new foe gathered on her face, along with another shadow Falcon could only describe as bitterness. "They're the ones who took Master's machine."

Even though now she was only delving into what Falcon already knew, the dark-haired girl found herself listening more deeply than ever. Gods knew Riku had hidden that part of the story from her, though she couldn't bring herself to think he had done so on purpose.

Suddenly Copperhead halted in his tracks. The tails of his coat swung with that abrupt action, droplets of water sprinkling through the air as he trod in a shallow puddle. "Someone's here," he said.

_Someone… or something? _Falcon didn't dare speak that question aloud. Keeping it confined in her thoughts allowed her already-frayed nerves to stay intact.

Dual flashes of light rent the air as Char summoned her weapons to her side. The three of them backed close together, blades and scythes at the ready.

White spots stained Falcon's vision as she glanced around warily. The cavern widened out where they stood, forming a small clearing ringed by torchlight. Archaic machinery lined the walls, and as Falcon swept her gaze over them, she had an instant to wonder if what they were looking for sat among the vestiges of an ancient past.

Then something dark eclipsed the torches. This time, Char was the one who let out a surprised cry; Falcon flinched as the younger girl stumbled back into Copperhead and all but pushed his spine into hers.

As if their formation becoming unbalanced was a signal, the dark thing reappeared, this time set off by ice-blue lights. Falcon braced herself in fencing position – _blade out, free hand on same hip, legs apart_ – in preparation to parry the blow, but the intruder had bypassed her entirely. Copperhead snarled with exertion at the pressure that dual, blue lightsabers pushed down onto his scythe's blade.

And as Falcon watched, eyes wide, the past immobilized her.

_Dark cloak, hood up, lightsabers as weapons…_

Before she could assess the situation further, the past set her free of its chains and propelled her forward.

She vaguely heard Char shouting for her to wait, and dimly saw Copperhead turn his head to stare at her. But the fury that had enveloped her senses and turned her world into little more than a cave bathed in crimson kept her from heeding either of these warnings. Only her heartbeat howling in her ears anchored her to reality, where the previous chains had just released her.

The shockwave that lanced up her arm at her Keyblade landing against one lightsaber roused her. Jarringly, the world came back into focus: Copperhead still straining against the single, wavering blue dagger's weight on his scythe; Char dashing forward, her own dual blades at the ready. The dark-clad shape had flung his arm out to meet Falcon's strike, easily blocking her reckless charge while still keeping Copperhead in check.

Falcon glared into the darkness where the figure's face should be, unconsciously seeking out amber eyes and strands of gray hair. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the past was rallying to restrain the rage it had brought forth – _Xemnas has red blades, not blue, now get back before you lose your arm_ – but she couldn't care about that urgent voice.

She thought she shrieked his name – the name of the man who had helped Copperhead ruin her life; the irony of the two of them possibly being together in the same room would have made her laugh under normal circumstances – but could not be sure.

"How…?" Char cut herself off, shook her head; how Falcon knew Xemnas' name wasn't as important as the intruder's presence itself. She clutched her swords tighter as the nameless figure turned to her. _It's not him,_ she had to tell herself, _Xemnas has red blades, not blue, and besides this guy is too short to be him._

"A little help here!" Copperhead gritted out. Just as Char looked at him, he somehow found a spare bit of adrenaline that he wasn't spending keeping that single ethereal blade from goring his throat and lunged forward. In the action, he twisted his scythe around to point blade-first; before he could do any real damage, though, the mysterious figure had leaped back.

Char risked a glance at Falcon and saw the remnants of her anger dying down. Again, the chord of familiarity twinged in Char's heart, as did the mental replacement of the blazing green with gold; and again, she knew that the letter-rearranging could wait.

She spared the redhead a sidelong look, then narrowed her eyes fiercely, as though deciding the opponent before them took precedence over her ally's opinion. Falcon leaped forward again, Keyblade out and at the ready, and Char abruptly realized she should do the same.

No sooner had their opponent dodged Copperhead's attack than he recovered, slicing forward and easily meeting the whirlwind of red that was his scythe. The pale blue swords created a domineering shade of cyan and bathed the room in a glow that reminded Char disturbingly of the Space Paranoids' surroundings.

Although the figure met every swing of Copperhead's weapon smoothly, the blonde had no such luck. Dark liquid stained his white coat; the pale blue light illuminated his bulging jaw, as though restraining cries of pain. As the two of them clashed in the center of the room, black coat sharply contrasting the tails of Copperhead's white, Char dove in for a distracting blow. An instant later, though, she backpedaled, pulled up short and ducked to the ground to avoid the newfound blast of light that was launched her way.

The light burned an X-shaped blur into her vision; just as she spotted Falcon racing forward, agony flared up in her leg. Her eyes widened. _You've got to be kidding me!_

The ground came up to meet her, and a pained snarl ripped free from her as the roll back to her feet failed and her shoulder hit the concrete. Shockwaves of pain reverberated through her shoulder and in her calf, but she still managed to stagger to her feet and reassess her surroundings.

Copperhead had freed himself from the figure's overpowering assault. Apparently Char's attempt to distract their opponent from attacking had succeeded, a fact that sent wobbly triumph surging through her.

But now he was focusing on Falcon, lashing out with his blades and trying to catch her. Copperhead was trying to catch the dark-clad man off guard, but every swing of his scythe carried less force than the one before.

Quickly, Char dug around in her pockets for a healing item to offer him, before the idiocy of that move hit her. With a foe like this, a moment's pause could be the death of any of them.

And as much as the guy annoyed her sometimes, Char didn't want to risk his life just to stem his blood loss a bit.

She readjusted one sword back into her grip and charged forward. It occurred to her, in the part of her mind still capable of dry thought, that were she facing this Xemnas wannabe with Sora, Donald, and Goofy at her side, shouts of encouragement and grunts of exertion would be rending the air relentlessly.

But Sora, Donald, and Goofy weren't there, and only the snarls of battle sounded, and the only relentless things in the room were the black-coated figure and Falcon.

Falcon lunged, heedless of the deadly whirlwind of pale blue spiraling in her direction, and formed a cyan cascade of her own. Even though every blow landed on her made her steady attacks falter, still she pressed forward, teeth bared and viciousness resonating from every angular strike she aimed.

No Heartless they had fought had elicited a response that ferocious.

Maybe that was the moment Char's mind finally allowed her to connect the dots and tell her bluntly who exactly Anxclof's Other was.

For some reason, that realization – the reminder that Sora aside, her rational mind had yet to vanish completely – spurred Char to another.

"We can't win this!" she shouted. _Not even with Riku._

Unfortunately, it came out a desperate croak, one accompanied by a twinge in her shoulder. Dammit, but that fall had hurt. Hurriedly, she tried again.

"What the hell does that even mean?" Falcon spat. With the words came a globule of something dark, something that splattered against the floor. Somehow, just the few minutes they had spent fighting had sufficed to coax forth that degree of injury.

Copperhead stilled his weapon, staring at Char. She glared challengingly back at him, knowing how this must seem to him: she had barely participated in the battle, had been held back by the reminder of who her heart belonged to, and was relatively unscathed while his and Falcon's every step heralded a miniature, bloody waterfall.

Besides that, their unspoken leader – the one who had led their charges into battle before, the one who had left for a still, frustratingly unknown reason – hadn't said it.

Char made a mental note to appreciate the irony in her usurping Riku and not Sora at a later date.

Uncertain, hazy violet locked onto determined, firm ice blue; then he twitched in response to a rivulet of blood tracing down the line of his forearm.

"Char's right, Falcon!" he roared. His hand trembled as he pushed his scythe toward the sheath still hanging heavily along his spine, only for him to stop and curse shakily when he realized he had tried to insert his weapon curved blade-first. "We have to get out of here before we get hurt any more!"

But Falcon shook her head furiously. "It's a bit late for that, isn't it?" she screamed, suppressed ire and attempting to surpass her lung capacity turning the sentence hoarse. "We're already hurt, aren't we?"

Char could only look on, eyes slowly widening, as Falcon actually whirled around from the dark figure lifting its arms into the air and fixed a fierce glower on Copperhead. The room's main source of light – those blue lightsabers – faced away from them, but the torches still remained to light the cavern.

Firelight swathed the bloodstains and lines of crimson on the others' bodies and reflected in the whites of Falcon's narrowed eyes. Falcon's words seemed all too literal to Char, but Copperhead froze, staring immobilized at her. The side of his face turned toward Char offered her a view of horror – horror and desperation and emotions so different from his normal blithe mask.

_Masks. _

Something scrabbled at the back of Char's mind then – screamed _you're so close you can find out what happened oh _crap_ what is he doing with his lightsabers –_

At that moment, a new kind of fire joined the torchlight entirely.

Immediately Char put out her arms, ordered her swords to vanish as quickly as she had ever done, and, with her hands free, darted forward. Terror throbbed in her heart and tugged her muscles to run away, cursed her fear of fire more fervently than ever; but the knowledge that getting the others out of here took precedence over her stupid fears kept her from bolting.

But Copperhead stood closer and had longer legs. The scythe clattering as it dropped to the ground mingled with the crackling of the fiery pillars now surrounding the intruder. Fortunately, Copperhead wound his arm around Falcon's middle quickly enough that Char could indulge her phobia and flee.

Her world became little more than the sound of her feet pounding the tunnel ground. The occasional increased staccato-bursting of her heartbeat when she trod in a puddle. The heat of the fires blazing along the ground behind her. The thought that whatever machines had lined the walls down here, they had to be falling before the fire's attack.

Beyond that thought, though, her instincts shrank down to _flight flight _flight and the increasing disk of light in the distance.

Then the firelight enveloping her silhouette in orange and red converged with the sunlight, and she mustered up the energy her fear hadn't killed off to make that one final stride.

No sooner had she charged into safety than her rational thought returned and told her to look for the others. It took her a few humiliatingly long moments to stop striving to find a different shade of dark gray amidst the smoke – and even longer to put the instinctive tugging toward brown spikes – before she could scan properly.

In the full light of the sun, the stains mottling Copperhead's jacket and matting his honey-colored hair to his head were visible in all their bloody glory; one of the injuries along his chest heaved with exertion and fading adrenaline. It hit Char, abruptly, that with the threat having passed, she had time to give him the help he so desperately needed.

However, she found herself approaching him warily anyway, because the other member of their party remained locked steadily in his grip, a struggling blur of black and translucent blue.

To Copperhead's credit, he kept the much smaller girl in a firm grasp, even though every movement resulted in her squirming right against his belly and her Keyblade missing him by mere inches.

Char knelt down and offered the Hi-Potion whose glass cap her fingertips had caught back in the cave. "You all right?" she asked shakily, at the same time trying not to wince at the undue strain on her bad calf.

_Stupid Sora,_ she thought, _he's the reason I'm like this,_ but like the times before she couldn't bring the bitterness her weakness deserved into that thought.

Despite both Falcon's valiant attempts to get free and his draining strength, Copperhead managed to look up at Char. The movement served two purposes: both to see what the redhead was doing and to dodge a clumsy hurl of the Keyblade at his skull. "Thanks, Blaze," he rasped.

The nickname was back; that had to be a sign that his injuries weren't as horrible as they seemed. Char seized that fact and clung to it, rather than the knee-jerk irritation brought on by anyone calling her anything besides her name.

Freeing one arm from his hold around Falcon's waist proved a mistake. The instant the Hi-Potion passed from Char's hands into Copperhead's, accompanied by a fierce eye-narrow from her as their fingers brushed and a nervous chuckle from him, an incensed screech tore itself from his burden. Char and Copperhead both glanced up, surprised, as with one roll away from them Falcon seemed to transform from angry beast to angry girl again.

Char wasn't sure which one to fear more.

About two seconds later, she got her answer. Falcon shook with repressed anger for a moment, gloved fingers digging into her palms on her knees; the grass beneath her trembled hard in the distorted view of it through the Keyblade in her hand. Just as the last drop of sparkling, blue-green fluid had vanished from its vial, Copperhead rose to his feet, stumbling a little at first but then getting his balance back.

As if this were some sort of signal, Falcon leaped up as well. Char stood as well out of impulse, already opening her mouth to say the other girl's name.

But then Falcon's Keyblade disappeared in a flash of light, she curled her now-free hand into a fist, and drove it forward into Copperhead's jaw.

The force of the blow made him stagger back, one hand flying up to the already-reddening area. Flecks of sparkling liquid, remnants of the Hi-Potion he had just followed, arced through the air before settling on the grass around them.

Startled, Char stepped forward, tried to speak again; only for Falcon to cut her off again, though this time verbally rather than physically. "Why did you stop me?" she demanded, trembling with suppressed wrath.

"Would you rather he'd just let you die in there?" Char found her voice and folded her arms. The look she appraised Falcon with carried more than a little annoyance; truce that had formed barely four hours ago aside, staying behind to fight an opponent that could do… _that_ would have killed her.

And, Riku's friendship with Falcon aside, Char didn't want to have the older girl's blood on her hands.

Thinking of the fight they had only narrowly escaped, the redhead shivered, a violent spasm along her spine born of dying fear more than the spring breeze. _That guy wasn't Xemnas. Definitely wasn't Xemnas. _As far as she knew, Xemnas couldn't launch beams of light or engulf the area in columns of fire.

Thinking of the fires that had chased them out, Char gave the cavern a sidelong glance. But no sooner had she seen that the tunnels had not, in fact, collapsed behind them did the heaving, raspy breaths beside her form a voice.

"You stay out of this!" Falcon spat. In a few strides that belied the extent of her wounds, she had marched right up to Char, and the latter turned just in time to narrowly avoid bumping noses with her.

The thought from this morning – about having lost all her progress in breaking down Falcon's cold shell to her trusting side – echoed fleetingly in her mind.

Falcon whirled back around to glare at Copperhead, who had just regained his balance. He lowered the hand still rubbing his red-marked jaw and stared back at her. Char tensed, expecting a sardonic remark from him to stoke the already-leaping flames of Falcon's anger further, but he remained silent.

"Well?" Falcon cried at last, throwing up her hands. Her action's abruptness heralded a series of rustles from the trees behind her. Char turned, half expecting Riku to have materialized there, only to sag in disappointment when it was only birds flying up into the sky.

She hadn't realized how badly she wanted him to be there and mediate where she couldn't.

"Come on!" Falcon snarled. "Give me –" She stopped, swallowed audibly, took a ragged breath, then tried again. "Give me a _damn_ good reason why you stopped me."

"It's like Char said," Copperhead replied. His quiet tone sounded unnerving compared to Falcon's explosive fury. "I couldn't just let you die in there. We were outmatched."

As he spoke, Falcon had stared challengingly at him, a childish demand for him to justify his saving her blazing on her face. The last part, though – about the Xemnas lookalike far surpassing them in speed and skill – pushed her tensed shoulders down and relaxed them, if only for a second. For that second, Char saw her green eyes lose their fire and her mouth open slightly. Maybe his logic would succeed where her own, muted by surprise, had failed.

But Falcon ended up shaking her head and bristling again.

"What if I wanted to die?" she hissed.

Ice blue and violet eyes alike widened.

_Wanted to die?_ Char thought incredulously. But no, Falcon was serious; her anger swelled up inside her, carried over to reality and took up the previous fire's mantle of roaring across the area. Burned up any chance of theorizing and left no room for lies.

In all honesty, she herself had shared that desire once upon a time, the strongest moment being when she had locked eyes with Xehanort just before the Heartless ate away at him entirely. In a twisted way, she could understand Falcon's words; could understand the grip the past had on someone.

Now, though, after everything she had gone through, after seeing how many of Sora's friends had been willing to fight at his side no matter what happened…

_How could you just give up?_

Incensed by the others' lack of rebuttal, Falcon clenched her fists and turned on her heel. As she stormed past, she made a point of leaning down to pick something up, which confused Char until she saw the sunlight gleam off glass.

"And throw this away, you stupid litterbug!" She slapped the empty vial into Copperhead's hand and continued her haughty departure.

The foliage swallowed up her boots and the dark tails of her jacket.

Surprise, and the steady throbbing of her heartbeat, froze Char in place. Only the return of bird song to the air jarred her from her shock-borne trance.

Almost unwillingly, she looked at Copperhead. If Falcon's outburst had rooted her in place, it was nothing compared to him.

She took in the way his brows had drawn down over his eyes, the way the veins in his knuckles bulged through his gloves, how he was clutching the empty Hi-Potion like it was the only thing chaining him to the present.

He had something to do with Falcon's past. They both knew it. It had been obvious from the moment he had saved their lives in the glade and Falcon had demanded to know why he was following her.

But never before had the past hung so thickly in the air. Never before had it _replaced_ the air so thoroughly.

If this was how Sora had felt in the face of all her secrets, Char couldn't help thinking, then he was stronger than she had ever given him credit for.

Copperhead looked up at Char, seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. Then his shoulders slumped, as much under the weight of resignation as of the memories he had strung a brash, happy mask over.

"Go," was all he said.

Char blinked. "Huh?"

_Oh, very good, very intelligent, _but before her dry side could chide her any further for her lack of response he elaborated. "It's time you knew," he chuckled, self-deprecatingly. "But I think it's better you didn't hear it from me."

For the second time in as many minutes, an internal struggle took place, this time within the lone outsider, the girl whose best friend had dragged her so unwillingly into this situation, the woman who had found it in herself to bear the burden of concern for someone other than the brown-haired, dorky boy with a key. She should have rounded on Copperhead and demanded what he had done, how he had broken this other girl so thoroughly.

Eventually, though, something else won out over that.

_Ask Falcon,_ the Sora-like voice in her head urged, and just like that, she found herself turning on her heel and dashing off after Falcon, leaving the boy gazing after her.

* * *

"Sora, you're gonna put a hole in the floor," Donald said, watching with round eyes as the Keybearer paced in the Gummi ship's main room.

Sora didn't answer at first, only kept his eyes on the floor. Somehow, looking up at his friends' concerned faces would materialize the situation into something he wasn't ready for yet.

Four steps later, the wall loomed up before him and forced him to turn back around. Under normal circumstances, no hesitation would be plaguing his heart; he would have just asked Donald to take them down to the Pride Lands and been done with it.

Now, though…

Knowing Axel's identity – Nobody, Organization member, Kairi's kidnapper, a friend in another life – made him balk.

"He wouldn't trick me," Sora heard himself mutter to himself. "Right?"

"Sora?" Goofy tilted his head to try and look into the brunette's eyes.

Sora lifted his head and glanced from duck to dog. The former was tapping his foot almost impatiently, only the loose set of his brow belying his true worry; the latter had the fingers of one hand pressed tightly over the fist of the other.

"I don't think Axel would trick us," he said, more loudly than before.

"Are you sure?" Donald asked, squinting. "I wouldn't put anything past the Organization anymore." Although he sounded suspicious enough, something in his tone hinted at a deeper hesitation, one that mirrored Sora's own.

_Things were so much easier,_ was left unspoken in Donald's remark, _when our enemy was more predictable. When it was just the Heartless, mindlessly scraping hearts together, and the occasional villain fighting our friends in each world._

_ And Riku, who I know better than anyone else._

Or at least he thought he had back then. But that was another headache added to an already-pounding migraine, so Sora left it alone.

Besides, it was true, he thought with a veiled wince. Xehanort's Heartless had only shown his true face right before their decisive battle with him. They had had no time for moral dilemmas to take place.

Goofy's widened eyes and lowering hands suggested he was having the same thoughts as Sora. Rather than voice them aloud, though, he addressed Donald. "But he told us what the Organization was really doin'," he pointed out. "And that he was sorry for takin' Kairi."

That last part sounded almost tacked on for Sora's benefit, but, misgivings aside, Sora let it pass without comment. He hesitated – Roxas was tugging at him, hard, at the notion of what he was about to say next – but in the end, his own will won out over the other, strong though it resonated, drifting in and out of sleep in his heart.

"Axel used to be friends with Roxas. And Anxclof, too, I guess," he added reluctantly, after a moment of balking at mentioning the other person – Nobody – who sent so much conflict burning through his heart.

Goofy clasped his hands together again. "Char didn't tell us about that part," he murmured.

Quickly, before Donald could do much more besides narrow his eyes in renewed suspicion, Sora cut in. "She probably didn't know," he said. _Even though she knew about everything else. _"I just know because…"

And then he stopped. It occurred to him now that he had never told Donald and Goofy about his dreams of Roxas, about the real reason why he had regarded the pale golden lion who had appeared in the Pride Lands with so much shock. About how it seemed like his dreams had twisted and rolled and assimilated into the fabric of reality.

"Because?" Donald prompted, almost aggressively.

Sora looked from one to the other and then back again. Not for the first time, he felt himself wishing for ignorance about Roxas' existence; longing for the days when his objectives and finding his friends had been blissfully single-minded. The piece of his heart that was Roxas voiced a faint objection before receding, as if sensing his presence wasn't wanted right now.

Then the Keybearer sighed. What was even the point of keeping this secret anymore? Hidden as it had stayed from him before, now that he had become aware of how he had never told Donald and Goofy, he could not hold it back anymore. "I used to have dreams about Roxas and his days in the Organization," he confessed. "That's how I knew he existed. That's why I was so freaked out when he showed up in the Pride Lands."

Now that he brought up the Pride Lands, he remembered the black-and-white sphere that had surrounded the Nobody: how, instead of floating up toward the sky like the others, it had dived into Sora's chest.

"You told us that at Hollow Bastion," Goofy reminded him.

"But not what Axel had to do with you," Donald pointed out. He regarded the Keybearer with a mixture of confusion and resignation. "So… that's why you feel like he won't lie to you?"

Sora nodded, pushing back the burning embarrassment at Goofy's words. At the same time, though, he couldn't help thinking, _Char told me who Roxas was that day, and then later on, after we had that fight –_

"Yeah," he said, before reminiscence of her could drown out his resolve. "I think if we meet Axel, we might actually get some straight answers." Ironic, considering what his dreams had told him about the pyro.

He thought about Axel: the tear-shaped marks under his eyes, the acidic green whose shade rivaled Anxclof's in brightness and sharpness, the wolfish smirk that softened around the two people who seemed to be his lone friends in all the worlds.

More importantly, though, the memory of Axel's genuine contrition when he told Sora about Kairi – about how Saïx had snatched her away – rose up to the forefront of his thoughts and lingered.

"Can you take us down to the Pride Lands, Donald?" he asked, turning to the duck.

Donald blinked, then indignation brightened his eyes. "Can I?" he huffed, sounding affronted at Sora's apparent doubt. Grumbling affectedly, trying almost too hard to recover a lighter atmosphere, he lifted the broom and closed his eyes in concentration.

Sora had a split second to recall, with more than a little discomfort, how the trip down to the lion-dominated savannah had felt: like something was squirming inside him, splitting away from him, like something was rending his entire being in two.

Then the light enveloped his vision.

* * *

Something stained the inside of Sora's eyelids a pasty orange, and he hesitantly opened them. Dizziness had woven through his body and marked their descent from the Gummi ship down to the Pride Lands; he had to squint at first to accommodate that dizziness ebbing. Once his stomach stopped feeling as if it would fall out of him, he widened his eyes fully.

Donald flapped his wings nearby, hovering close to Sora. Only now did he notice his muscles had unconsciously bunched together, pushing his lion form into a crouch. He straightened as best he could, shaking his head with a groan.

"You all right, Sora?" He turned to see a tortoise with Goofy's head staring at him.

With a startled cry, he leaped back; but the advent of two more legs made the normally-fluid movement clumsy, and he tripped over his own paws to fall flat on his back. He peered over the tuft of white fur on his chest sheepishly, as Goofy ducked his head in embarrassment. "Sorry, guys," he said. "I forgot how different you both look in this world."

"And you apparently forgot how to move around in it," Donald remarked, eyeing the prone lion with both derision and sympathy on his feathered face.

"Aw, come on, Donald," Goofy said, padding up to stand beside Sora. "It's kinda been a while since we've been here."

"Not that long," Sora pointed out. He flailed his paws around for a moment, awkwardly trying to get upright; much to his relief, he managed to do so even with his lack of coordination. "Maybe five days, tops."

_Five days…_ He'd had no idea so many things could happen in such a short time. Finding the virtual world, learning all of Char's secrets and some of his own, fighting for Hollow Bastion's survival, kissing Char, expanding the desperate search to include her after her disappearance…

Then he brought himself up short with a frown. At least his facial muscles still worked the same. It was the first time he had managed to think about what had happened between him and Char with only a hint of heat swelling up within his cheeks.

_Axel,_ he told himself firmly, _find Axel._

"Where are we?" he murmured aloud, glancing around. Now that his initial vertigo had faded, the orange light's source became clear to him: someone, or something, had placed torches all around the area, casting the bones strewn about in a sickly pallor. He shivered as his gaze followed one curved, ivory bone up to its origin; it wasn't a bone, it was a _tusk,_ and one that led up to an unnaturally large skull.

Naturally, when a couple of gray shapes crawled out of the hollows of the elephant skull's eyes, all three of them jolted and cried out in surprise.

"Well, look who's back," one of the gray creatures chuckled in an unmistakably female voice.

Sora gasped. "You!"

The shapes loped into the firelight then, revealing them to be the hyenas who had tried to make the group into their next meal. "Aw, there's not as many of you this time," one of the males sighed in disappointment.

"That's all right," the female replied, fangs gleaming. "We'll take what we can get nowadays." She stopped right in front of the trio, who immediately tensed; Sora frantically tried to remember how he had summoned his Keyblade in the past, but then the female hyena drew herself up, glittering smirk curving into a snarl. "After you took out Scar, we got chased out. Now we're back to living on table scraps."

_Scar…_ Now Sora remembered, how Simba had returned to take the throne his tyrant uncle had usurped. Shame prickled along his spine, hot and real as the torches that had taken up residence here. Of course he needed to check up on the new king as well. "I guess Simba's doing well for himself as king, then," he said.

His words garnered a completely different reaction than he had expected: the last male hyena threw back his head and cackled, practically collapsing to the ground with the fervency of his amusement. The action's abruptness pulled a surprised grunt out of Goofy.

"What's so funny?" Donald demanded, thrusting his head forward aggressively.

Now the other two joined their comrade in laughter, and Sora narrowed his eyes. "We just gotta laugh every time we hear that dude's name," the first male grinned, wiping imaginary tears away from his eyes.

"And why is that?" Sora demanded, wishing more than anything that he could summon the Decisive Pumpkin and teach these jerks a lesson.

"See for yourself," the female hyena purred. The trio followed the hyenas with their eyes as they strode past. "Simba is one wishy-washy king."

"I've even heard about some ghost popping up 'cause of him," the first male added over his shoulder. "Only pops up around fraidy-cats."

"Simba isn't like that!" Goofy said.

"Yeah," Sora agreed, "you've probably just heard wrong." Yet something like doubt twitched inside him at their words. True, Simba had ascended to the throne well enough, exhaustion and triumph mingling dually on his face and in the blood on his coat; he had fought the caricature of his uncle, and won.

Winning the battle and winning the war were two different things, though.

_Oh, come on! _he argued with himself. _These guys are probably just trying to psyche us out._

As the pale green of the savannah swallowed up the hyenas – whose gray shoulders still trembled with suppressed laughter – he turned to Donald and Goofy, about to tell them of his skepticism.

He froze instantly, though, when an all-too-familiar, arrogant voice sounded nearby.

"Geez, I thought they'd never leave."

Sora registered the "wak!" from Donald, but the sound had to force its way past the sudden throbbing of his heartbeat in his ears. For lying atop the elephant skull, dangling his paws and looking for all the world like he had declared himself king of the graveyard, sat a vibrantly crimson adult lion.

Axel regarded them with a single narrowed eye – the feline equivalent of a raised eyebrow – and a vague smirk. He idly dangled one paw over the skull's rounded edge, eventually pressing that paw against his makeshift throne as he rose.

"What took you so long, Sora?" he queried lazily. With a few sinuous movements, he had leaped from the skull down to the ground. Donald immediately swooped forward at the sudden movement, staff materializing in his talons at once and bill formed into a growl, but Axel slid his gaze toward him only for an instant before looking at Sora.

For some reason, the brown-furred lion took immense comfort in the fact that Axel's disguise wasn't perfect. When Anxclof had appeared in the Pride Lands, consumed by fury as she had been even then, she had scraped together enough knowledge of this world to swathe herself in a suitable lion form. However, Axel's vibrant red fur gave the first hint that he didn't belong here. At least when Donald had made Char's form, he had turned her into a tiger, which fit her equally crimson hair a bit more than a random red lion.

Axel gazed down his strong muzzle at Sora, something flickering in his acid eyes, before he seemed to recover himself and shrugged as best he could. "Fine, give me the silent treatment. I understand." Turning with a flick of his tail, he padded a couple of steps away; frustration stirred inside the Keybearer at how much this form suited the pyro, who was fluid and nigh feline in grace anyway.

"Unless you want to find out about Kairi?" he tossed over his shoulder.

That proved the exact wrong thing for him to say. In an instant, all thoughts of trying to dig up the memory of how to summon his Keyblade in this form flew from Sora's mind and into the lukewarm air whose heat he could smell more than feel.

Somehow, just thinking of his heightened senses injected a fresh flood of anger into his veins, because if this – this – _Nobody_ hadn't taken Kairi he would at least be somewhat closer to home –

Donald and Goofy yelped, springing apart as much out of shock as to give their leader a clear path, as Sora's face contorted in rage and he charged after Axel.

The pyro-turned-feral cat swiveled his head around. Sora found immense gratification at how Axel's eyes widened, just before the grunt that tore free from him at the moment of impact.

"Where is she?" he shouted. Somehow, his cub-like form had managed to pin the much larger adult lion to the ground; his front paws had settled at Axel's shoulders, and his tail lashed freely behind him.

Axel's calm arrogance returned as quickly as it had fled, albeit tempered by an odd nostalgia. _What is he thinking?_ _That even as a lion, I look like Roxas when I'm mad? _Sora found himself wondering, through the red veil that had enveloped his vision.

Red, red, everything came back to red, didn't it? Axel, Kairi, Char…

"I already told you," the Nobody said. "And I already told you I'm sorry for letting Saïx get her. Now if you could just, you know, _let me up –"_

Suddenly Goofy cried out. Sluggishly, just remembering the others who still stood there, Sora looked up, only for shock to force him up onto his hind legs and gasp. Even Axel's eyes widened.

Before them stood a figure Sora had never wanted to see again. Darkness swirled around the phantom, the same kind that had marked him in their last battle with the monster this being emulated.

_Scar._

* * *

Before long, Char had found Falcon's tracks. In her haste to escape the scene, the older girl had left a trail of dried blood in her wake, reminding Char of just how many injuries she had sustained before their forced escape.

The other sign that she was on the right track came in the form of a solid thump close by, which then heralded a series of curses. Char's mouth twisted wryly. _Found her._

She followed the continuous stream of angry expletives, worry tainting her dry amusement when that stream became incoherent with more than just ire. The foliage thinned out, and she pushed a few leaves that had strayed into her line of vision aside just in time to see Falcon lowering her fist from a tree.

"Not that I don't share the sentiment, but punching hard surfaces is a really bad idea," she commented, stepping into full view.

Falcon whirled to face her, injured hand flexing at her side. "Oh, great," she spat, though the prevalence of angry tears in her eyes negated any intimidation. "Are you gonna lecture me now? Say 'we need to get along if we're going to find the machine, Falcon. Go and apologize to that _bastard_ if you want to help Riku, Fal –" Halfway through the mocking rendition of her own name, her voice completed its journey from trembling to completely shattering.

Char watched Falcon turn away and glare fiercely at the ground, her eyebrows drawing down over her horrified eyes. "I wasn't going to say that," she said, voice little more than a whisper. As much lying as she had done over the last few months, at least that much rang true.

Now, though, the issue remained as to how she would voice the question. The one that had been on her mind for the past few days, that had tunneled deeply enough into her curiosity for her heart to quiver with unwilling anticipation at getting an answer.

"Good," Falcon huffed.

"I just…" Char stopped, hesitated. She wanted so badly to exercise her right to bluntness and ask what had happened, but something inside her told her to wait.

Not Sora. Her loyalty as a friend, maybe.

Sure enough, an instant later, Falcon looked up at her. The identity of whatever had restrained her desire to ask right out was confirmed as her loyalty at that moment, at seeing the brightness in Falcon's eyes and the tear stains on her cheeks.

_Wait,_ her mind breathed, _just wait –_

"You can't expect me to forgive him," she ground out. "Not the man who killed my parents."

Char's breath caught.

* * *

Riku stepped out of the trees in front of the tunnels. His prayers that the townspeople he had asked about Falcon's whereabouts had directed him right broke off instantly at the sight of two things.

The first was Copperhead, whose white coat he almost didn't recognize at first. So much darkness obscured that formerly-pristine shade, and Copperhead's normally confident shoulders were hunched.

Falcon and Char had vanished.

Riku's brow furrowed in bemusement, but just as Copperhead turned around and straightened as he spotted him – he could almost hear the older man thinking _better act like everything's okay_ – the second thing happened.

A whirlwind of dark brown flung itself out of the trees and slammed into Copperhead. Instinctively, Riku summoned the Soul Eater and dashed forward, ready to carve the Heartless into pieces; if he was right about the identity of the darkness on Copperhead's coat, he knew he had to act fast.

The blur pushed Copperhead back against the nearest tree, and Riku followed, raising the bat-shaped blade in preparation to drive it into his assailant… then stopped, his arm tensed in midair.

It was Char.

Riku could recall seeing her this profoundly furious, this darkly angry, a scant few times in the year and a half since he had met her; he didn't dare term it _known her,_ because ever since he had brought her here from her journey with Sora he felt like some parts of her had become too different for him to know anymore.

A few arguments they had had in the early days of their friendship had seen her like this. The day he had pinned her to the castle gates at the Land of Dragons had seen her like this.

The Soul Eater vanished in his grasp, but despite the dark light that differed so much from that of the sun, neither Copperhead nor Char noticed him at all.

"Damn, Blaze," Copperhead laughed, strained amusement in his voice. "I knew you secretly wanted me, but this is just –"

_"Why?" _Char demanded – screamed, really. Riku could only stare, slack-jawed, as she shook the blonde's shoulders in a way that made a few droplets of blood free themselves from his torn jacket. "Why – how could you hurt anyone the way you did to her?"

The grin sloughed off Copperhead's face at once. The color there drained into some invisible abyss as well, some darkness born of the past and everything it brought.

Even with dread permeating him so thoroughly, though, he craned his neck and spotted Riku still standing behind them. "Riku," he greeted breathlessly.

"He has nothing to do with this!" Char shrieked, pressing forward so her nose practically slammed into his. "Do you – did you _get off_ on making other people miserable? Was she just so happy having a family that you had to tear that apart? Some of us never even _had_ parents, Copperhead – some of us were just _cast away like nothing!_ Was that you, too? Were you jealous of her?"

Her voice shook to the point of near incoherence, but Riku was only dimly aware of this. _He tore her family apart?_

"Char," he said hoarsely.

That one word was like a red flag, a hammer that shattered into the glass panes of the window between them. She spun around, and it was all Riku could do not to flinch. Fortunately, though, he stood his ground against her ebbing rage, only staring down at her.

Never before had he experienced this degree of gladness toward the height this form had on her.

Copperhead slumped down against the tree, wincing and gripping one shoulder. More red oozed out from a wound there, as if Char's jostling him had opened it back up; sure enough, the half-gloved hand Char fisted to point at him had blood staining the green fabric. "You make him explain," she hissed. "Make this _murderer_ give me a reason to not sink to his level."

Riku appraised Copperhead, who gazed back at him almost pleadingly. It was a look Riku had seen before, and it was a look that resounded down to his very core.

It was a look that, barely a year ago, when the darkness had first begun to work its damaging effects into him, he had seen in the mirror.

Maybe that was why he relented, in the end.

"All right," he said, offering a prompting hand, palm-up. Copperhead misinterpreted the gesture as an offer to help him to his feet, and took it; the grip felt slippery with blood and sweat at first, but eventually the older man stood upright, albeit with one hand against the tree.

Char quirked one incredulous eyebrow. "You're going to let him explain."

"If he wants to," Riku confirmed. He slid his gaze across at Copperhead, whose eyes lit up in relief. Despite the pity he had just shown, the dark boy felt his nose wrinkle. _Pathetic. _"We're not going to sink to his level, though."

Copperhead's shoulders slumped. "Thanks."

_Don't thank us yet,_ Riku wanted to say, because Char still had more than a sliver of that murderous cast darkening her face; but he remained silent.

A pause, during which the Shadowed Desert native seemed to gather his strength. Then he straightened and fixed a calm, albeit pain-clouded gaze on them.

"All right," he said, and the next sentence, with how casually he uttered his crime, made Riku tense. "I'll tell you why I killed my best friend's parents."

* * *

Finally, the SD arc has come to something. Only took, what, 10 chapters and 200-something pages?

But we're finally gonna get some answers.

And Axel. Oh, Axel. I'm going to have a TON of fun with that little snark demon. Before, you know, he dies. Sob.


	75. Chapter LXXV

Chapter 75, everyone! See, I told you I wasn't on hiatus anymore. :P

In this chapter, Copperhead tells all, Axel pops up, and I try to cram all of the Pride Lands into less than 10k words. Whoo!

As a side note: no more disclaimers. It should be obvious, after 75 chapters, that I only own the original content of this fic. Which is... about half of it at this point. Lawd.

Enjoy!

* * *

For the second time since Char's arrival here, three people sat down in a half-formed circle to hear an explanation. Riku kept a close eye on the redhead, who still had a fierce glower fixed on Copperhead; but the defiance simmering low in that icy fire said she wouldn't just attack him now.

Riku allowed himself to properly look over the two of them. Char didn't have near the extent of the injuries that marred Copperhead's body and blotted out his jacket's pale color with red; as he watched, though, she brought up a hand to the opposite shoulder and winced, as if her fingers had grazed a bruise.

For the first time, Riku also realized that what he could see of Copperhead's curved weapon was charred in more than a few areas. He shifted on the ground in response to the sudden surge of unease in his veins, considered asking them what had happened.

But Char spotted his roving eyes first. "Someone attacked us in that cavern," she explained, jerking a thumb toward the tunnel sloping the ground downward nearby.

Her next words – before which Riku glanced at Copperhead, but he was playing with the grass tickling his legs and had dark nostalgia permeating his expression – made Riku freeze in place.

"The guy looked a lot like Xemnas."

Beside them, Copperhead drew in a sharp breath. Riku turned his head to look at him, bemused, but the other man continued to stare at the blade of grass suspended between his fingers, eyes huge in something like horror.

He said nothing, though, and after a few moments Riku looked warily back at Char. "Xemnas?" he asked, lowering his hand from where it had halted briefly above one upraised knee. He settled into a comfortable position, though he got the distinct feeling that his knuckles tensing over his fingers' grip on his kneecap gave his tenseness away.

_Xemnas?_ Why in the name of the gods had Xemnas shown up here?

_It's not completely impossible,_ he reminded himself. _Remember those Nobodies with the shields around them? They were his. He was here then._

Still… he didn't know what to think if Xemnas was here now. If the Organization leader was taunting them, prompting them to search a little more quickly. _Come,_ Riku could almost hear that molasses-like voice purr, _do you not have a goal to accomplish?_

His fists clenched in response to a fresh wave of hatred, and he had to remind himself that he had a job to do. It didn't help that the fake Xemnas-voice had a point.

Char shook her head. "I said it looked like him," she said, heavily. "I never said it _was_ him."

That coaxed a frown to Riku's face, more out of confusion than anger. From how resigned Char looked, he figured she probably had wanted Xemnas to show up. They both knew him better than that, though: they both knew he wouldn't be so direct unless he had a reason. "So…?" he prompted.

Again, the redhead shook her head, though this time considerably more frustration marked the movement. "His swords were a different color," she said. "Blue, not red. And…" She paused, fingers tensing from where they rested on her crossed legs. Riku recognized the anxiety in that gesture, the inherent annoyance at her own weakness: what he did not recognize was the latent fear shivering in her fingertips.

"I'm pretty sure Xemnas can't launch a bunch of pillars of fire at us," she admitted. The words nearly ran together in her haste, as if just remembering caused her pain.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he saw her draw up one leg slightly.

Riku blinked, at the same time feeling dread stir inside him. As if the Organization's presence hadn't hounded all of them enough; now this new enemy had shown up as well…

He didn't realize he had voiced this thought aloud until Char spoke. "If it makes you feel any better, he probably blew himself up with that fire attack," she said. "It… from what I saw the fire went in all directions."

She sounded more like she was reassuring herself than him, but Riku let the matter go. As much as he loathed admitting it, he shared the same sentiment: even though he'd had the fortune to avoid facing this particular opponent, he didn't want to have to deal with it.

Especially with Copperhead in the worst shape Riku had ever seen him. Ironic, that even though this enemy wielded blue blades he had brought forth red anyway.

Red, red, everything came back to red, didn't it? Blood, Char… Kairi…

Suddenly Riku remembered the other person sitting beside them. He faced Copperhead again, only to balk slightly when he saw the other had barely moved: still staring at the ground, only looking up when Riku called his name.

"You said you had an explanation," Riku said. "We're listening." Char uttered a contemptuous snort, though it shook a little in the aftermath of what she had just explained, and Riku cast her a withering glare to calm her down.

Copperhead took a deep breath, one that would have sounded exaggerated had Riku not seen him suspended in fear just moments before. Maybe he would explain that, too.

Good thing, too, because feeling concerned about this man and what he had to say rankled Riku more than anything else. Annoying and overly joking as Copperhead could become, somewhere between rolling his eyes and wondering at Falcon's anathema toward him, Riku had begun to regard him as less of an acquaintance and more as an ally.

"Or have you changed your mind now that you've had time to stall a bit?" Char added, belligerence resonating in every word. That hard, angry defiance had returned to her, that unspoken _give me a reason not to destroy you now._

Copperhead shook his head quickly. "No, I haven't," he rebuffed her, sounding calmer than Riku would have thought. With how the girl had had him so easily pinned only minutes before, he seemed rather relaxed. "It might help to get this off my shoulders, anyway."

He took a deep breath again before beginning his tale.

"I already told you guys my brother died," he said, though the way his eyes moved from one to the other suggested it was more of a question.

Char nodded; she thought about asking what that had to do with what he had done, but ended up relenting. She knew far too well the effect that a brother's death could have: knew because she had lost six, regardless of what they had become.

He nodded, a movement that another deep breath punctuated. It made Char wonder just how much he had mentally prepared for this moment, when the masks fell apart and allowed secrets to scatter.

"My parents died when I was really little. No one would tell me what had happened – I think I was maybe three, four years old when it happened. I still don't really know how they died. I just know I came home one day and my big brother told me Mom and Dad wouldn't come back anymore."

Listening to his words, seeing the way he didn't dare look away from Riku, forced her earlier words to echo harshly inside her mind. Guilt fluttered uneasily at the edge of that memory.

She half-expected a pointed edge to mark Copperhead's words, the words _so no, Blaze, I did have parents at one point _to follow caustically on the heels of his words. Some part of her sensed that edge trying to sharpen his voice. But fatigue, the ragged bitterness of secrets best left untouched, overcame what she once thought to be his instinctive response of lightening the conversation.

For some reason, that made her shiver a little.

"So Dyme basically raised me," Copperhead continued heavily. "For a couple of years, that worked out. The neighbors felt bad for us, so they would lend us money to be able to stay in the same house." A doubtful scoff escaped him. "More like they felt bad for starting the rumor that our parents just left us."

_Just left us…_ Another, stronger shudder wracked Char's spine, because that part reminded her so powerfully of her own situation it almost hurt. The part of her heart and mind that had once dwelled so obsessively on her parents' identity, on the nebulous shapes that had brought her into this world only to fade away once they had, kicked out violently in the sleep she had forced upon it years ago.

When Braig had all but laughed at her and told her that her quest to find out her parents' identities was, in his words, "totally pointless."

She shook off the latent anger toward her former apprentice-turned-Nobody, though not without some effort.

"Do you think maybe Heartless killed them?" Riku asked. Unlike Char, who, yet again, was letting her nostalgia control her ability to conduct a suitable conversation, he spoke with a mixture of curiosity and grudging sympathy.

He had his head cocked to the side, a position that might have disturbed her deeply to see from Xehanort's form three days ago. Char wondered, reluctantly, what Riku was thinking of all this. How, in a weird way, Copperhead's situation mirrored Kairi's? How this boy – man, biologically at least – didn't deserve redemption, but he had wasted enough time in this world to hear him out anyway?

Copperhead's eyes widened, as if the possibility Riku spoke of had never occurred to him before. "I… no, I don't think so," he managed at last. He drew up his crossed legs a little tighter, wincing all the while, until he could rest his chin on his knees. It crossed Char's mind for an instant to fish around and see if she had any healing items left for him – he couldn't very well tell them anything if he passed out from blood loss – but at this point most of his less onerous injuries had dried.

"I don't think Heartless did it. Because they didn't show up until…" He paused, then shook his head with a half-hearted smile. "Well, I'm getting to that.

"Anyway, for a couple of years, the living arrangement worked just fine." Here, he grinned, this time with less bitterness and more nostalgia. "Sometimes, when I remembered Mom and Dad and started crying, Dyme would play a song for me on his sitar. That always calmed me down."

At the word _sitar,_ something twitched briefly in the back of Char's mind.

Riku blinked, his brow furrowing in a much more familiar expression for both him and the face he wore. If his mind had completed the journey that Char's own had halted, though, he said nothing of it. "So what happened?" he pressed.

"What happened?" Copperhead repeated, without a trace of animosity. Rather, the soft expression on his face remained, the glimmer of better days almost overcoming his mental and physical exhaustion. Char almost hated him for it, in light of what he had done. "Falcon came, that's what happened.

"I think part of me saw something in her, even the first time I saw her. Because we didn't have any money until Dyme turned sixteen, I couldn't go into school until I was eight. That was where we met."

Somehow, that surprised Char, that this had all begun in such a mundane place as _school._ In the whirlwind of the last few months, anything having to do with traditional education had completely left the forefront of her thoughts.

"I knew she wasn't originally from here," Riku mused aloud, making Copperhead and Char look at him. He met their gazes evenly and shrugged, a little bitterly. "She told me at least that much about her."

Copperhead nodded. During the brief reprieve that Riku had brought on, the dark dread shadowing his face had receded, but now it crept slowly over his face again. Char prayed he wouldn't take much longer to tell them why. His story had too many damnably _human_ elements to it – the dead older brother and scraping money together to make ends meet and falling in love at age eight.

Then again, she didn't know what she would picture, had she actually entertained thoughts of his past. An arrogant boy, swinging a scythe around and making promises he couldn't keep?

Falcon's hatred of him had influenced Char's opinion of him more than she had realized, Char reflected.

Said boy rested his chin back on his knees again and continued.

"Everything was normal for a few years. I got a couple of fan-girls that wouldn't leave me alone, so at lunch, when they bugged me, I'd hide in the courtyard. It was there that I ran into Falcon… practicing with her Keyblade."

"And it started there," Riku said.

"Hey, this is my story, remember?" Copperhead shot teasingly at the other man. Secretly, though, Char thought Riku filled in the gaps maybe too eagerly.

She couldn't blame him, though. After all, Copperhead's voice had become strained and the playfulness feigned, as though the weight of what was coming next had become liquid and slithered up his chest into his tongue.

"But yeah, Riku, you're right," he confirmed. "I'd listened enough between naps in history class to know what a Keyblade wielder meant. And, I don't know, maybe some twisted part of me saw this as the opportunity I'd been looking for."

Char quirked an eyebrow, finding her voice for the first time. "To do what, exactly?"

"Hell if I know!" Copperhead sighed loudly. "To at least become friends with her. Sharing the secret of her Keyblade just… it felt good, okay? Like a stepping stone, a starting point."

Riku leaned over his upraised knee, trying to gauge Char's expression. Before now, she'd remained locked in steadfast silence, straight and alert in a way that told him she was definitely listening. Only that researcher's curiosity, the existence of which he'd thought only remained in vestiges, had spurred her to speak.

In all honesty, every bit of this, Falcon had told him at least once already. Before, though, darker parts of the past – parts that, he knew, were about to cringe at the light set upon them – had clouded her recollections and given them an angry bite. Copperhead sounded almost wistful, like he wanted to grab every fragment of good memories and keep them close.

"Anyway," he spoke before Char could say anything else, "we started hanging out more after that. Patrolled the forest together, killing Heartless and talking about stuff. She kept trying to tackle big Heartless on her own, so I asked to help her out. Even now, I'll never know why she agreed to it."

_Maybe because even she knew she couldn't handle it on her own. _Riku recalled the day they had met, how she had kept stubbornly fighting the chameleon Heartless and only reluctantly accepted his help.

"Somewhere along the way, she started liking me back. And that was pretty nice." From the smile on his face, _pretty nice_ was an understatement.

But the nostalgic grin faded away, puppet strings falling away from the corners of his lips.

"Then Dyme died. And that's when it all went bad."

Riku had heard that much too. Beyond this point in the story, though, Falcon had never told him: the bitter nostalgia tempering her voice had locked up, transformed only into the former. Something twinged inside him, maybe eager anticipation at the departure from what he already knew; maybe anxiety at how now the story stretched into darkness as deep as he'd ever known.

Or maybe that something was dread, a kind of queasy acceptance that told him Copperhead's mask dropping to the floor and shattering had happened before, and they were about to hear about it.

Copperhead uncurled from his progressing fetal position very slightly, straightening his legs out and using his hands to keep himself up. "After the funeral," he went on, quiet enough to make Riku lean forward to hear him, "someone knocked on my door. I'd skipped school for a couple days – just holed myself up in our house and tried not to think about what had happened. So naturally, when I opened the door, I was a little pissed.

"It was a guy in a black coat. Kind of looked like the guy we just fought." He directed this part at Char, who looked almost sickened at her viscerally moving closer to hear him better. Like this man was telling them a heroic story, instead of whatever this was.

When she took in his words, though, she jolted, horror intensifying. After all, that dark garb could only mean a member of the Organization had visited.

Seemingly ignorant of Char's powerful reaction, Copperhead went on. "He told me…" He stopped abruptly, shook his head with a choked-sounding laugh. "Now you guys are gonna think this is stupid."

Riku narrowed his eyes. "Copperhead, this is you. It's not anything new."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," the other said, rolling his eyes with a half-hearted huff. Riku resisted the mighty urge to roll his own eyes. _Pathetic,_ floated across his mind again, but even that contempt felt muted in the face of what he was learning.

That contempt, it turned out, died off completely at the next words.

"He told me he could bring my brother back."

"And you just believed this weird strange guy in a black coat?" Char asked incredulously.

Copperhead shrugged. "You know how it is," he said. "You're lost, you have no idea what to do; and someone comes along pretending to understand you. You grasp at that with everything you have, because what else are you supposed to do?"

Riku thought of Xehanort's Heartless, the entity he'd fought and grappled with for over a year now, and Maleficent, who had promised she would save Kairi, and realized he was right.

"I'm sure you've figured it out by now." Char's shoulders tensed violently at Copperhead addressing her again. "I'm more observant than you think," he went on, a sigh embedded so deeply in his voice that Riku only vaguely heard the hitching breath. "And you're observant too. You saw me react to Xemnas' name earlier."

"So it _was_ him," Riku said. The fingers on the grass completed their journey into a revulsion-filled fist. Somehow, it didn't surprise him – that desperation could force Xemnas into hunting down grief-filled boys and coercing them into…

Into…

Riku frowned, gazing down at the ground in contemplation. Up until a while ago, the Organization's motives had been just as muddled for him as for Char – no thanks to DiZ – despite both of their positions as the old man's closest confidantes. Before he could start thinking about how much DiZ using them for his dirty work annoyed him, Riku looked back at Copperhead.

He'd sat down intending to get some answers, and damn it all, he was going to get them.

"Why did he tell you he could bring your brother back?" he asked.

Copperhead winced visibly, rolling a blade of grass between his fingers again. "See, here's the point where things get a little sketchy. I never found out."

"You never asked _why_ he wanted to help you?" This time, Char's disbelieving query was spoken amidst a mounting rage. Riku glanced over to see her bracing clenched fists on her crossed legs, with the visible part of her knuckles stark white. "You should've known he was just setting you up!"

"Char –" Riku began, a sigh embedded in the name despite himself.

"Did he tell you killing your girlfriend's parents was the way to bring your brother back to life?" the redhead demanded, overlapping over Riku's impending order for her silence.

Copperhead said nothing – but then there it was, the only subtle thing Riku had seen from him: the slightest guilty twitch of his mouth.

"Don't you know _anything?"_ Char shouted."That's not how getting killed by a Heartless works! The only way to bring someone back if they're a Heartless is if they turn into a –"

At once, the near-practiced anger in her voice died, as did every venomous word. She had all but pushed up onto her knees, fury making her try to loom over its target as much as possible, but now she slumped back down. Riku recognized the horrified recognition on her face.

And he could have sworn he heard something like "Demyx" whispered from her direction.

It hit him then, too, what she had just realized about the fate of Copperhead's big brother. The revelation should have rattled him, too; instead, though, he felt laughter bubbling up from deep inside him. Fortunately, he managed to quell that strange amusement before it could take audible form, but the sentiment remained nonetheless, toxic and sickening in his veins.

Anxclof's Other, and Demyx's Other, both in the same world. Life had a funny way of making Riku laugh nowadays.

"You done?" Copperhead asked testily. His uncharacteristic display of irritation startled both Char and Riku out of their respective revulsion and amusement. Char dropped her hands into her lap and just stared at him; Riku quirked his eyebrows and closed his mouth when he realized it was hanging slightly ajar.

Seeing their nonverbal confirmations, the blonde leaned back and folded his arms. "I nabbed her parents when they had a day off," he said, barely audible. Every trace of fire from an instant before lit out in the face of what he was about to reveal. Once Riku caught the other's words, his eyes widened.

"Xemnas met me right outside their house and formed some dark portal thing." Copperhead wiggled his fingers in imitation of said 'dark portal thing,' the gesture almost disgustingly lighthearted. "When I stepped through, we were at the top of the abandoned citadel, and there was some Keyblade-like thing on the floor."

_Keyblade?_ The hand on Riku's knee found its way to his chin. _Where would Xemnas have gotten a Keyblade?_

Skepticism stirred briefly inside him, only for thoughtfulness to eclipse it. After all, at this point, Copperhead had no reason to fabricate parts of his story.

"Riku?" came tentatively from next to him. He almost started – that had to be Falcon showing up now, not Char; she never sounded so hesitant – but no, he found Char watching him curiously and knew that she had uttered his name.

Gods, but Sora had had a deeper effect on her than he had thought.

"I'm just wondering what Xemnas would've been doing with a Keyblade," he said, before Char could repeat his name and confuse him even more.

"I never said it was a Keyblade," Copperhead interrupted. When the two of them glanced back at him, he quickly elaborated. "I said it looked like one."

_So was it a Keyblade, or not? _Riku thought, suddenly frustrated.

"Either way, though, it didn't matter in the end," Copperhead said. "Falcon found us… right after we'd turned her parents into Heartless." A wry smile twisted his lips. "She didn't take it well."

Despite the remark's pathetic nature, Riku found himself cutting off his contempt before it could return. Somehow, Copperhead was leaving so much locked up in that severe understatement: images, sounds that weighed his words down and turned them into pain rather than just a statement.

"Xemnas practically threw that Keyblade at her and told her… told her if she sacrificed herself, she could bring them back."

Riku twitched, a disturbing sense of familiarity creeping up inside him. That sense only cemented itself as reality when Copperhead kept on, even though every word sounded choked. "She stabbed herself with it and released her heart."

_Coincidence. _Xemnas couldn't have just gotten ahold of the weapon Sora had used to unlock Kairi's heart a year ago – the weapon he had unwittingly birthed Roxas with.

From next to him, he thought he heard a muted gasp. That didn't surprise him; he knew Char would have figured out Anxclof was Falcon's Nobody eventually. This only confirmed it.

"But… then she'd have turned into a Heartless!" Char pointed out. Riku reluctantly swung his head toward her, willing her unnerving almost-fear from earlier to have vanished in the process. Much to his relief, sheer force of hope had sufficed to take her uncertainty away. Now she was regarding Copperhead with unabashed curiosity. "How is she even alive right now, if she lost her heart?"

"That's the real question here." Copperhead shrugged. The mental effort it had taken him to get this far had quite visibly taken its toll on him: as if the battle from earlier hadn't muted the crescendo of his normal enthusiasm, now even the simple rise and fall of his shoulders looked limp. Riku watched him push a shaky hand through his hair and scrape over mottled red.

"I watched her Heartless stand there. She – it – kind of wiggled its antennae around before looking right at me. I knew she was gone, but… for a couple of seconds, it was like she remembered me. The me that loved her, and wasn't a murderer. And I just broke down. Went on my knees and hugged it.

"The next thing I knew, a big light flashed and I was holding her again." He laughed shakily again.

"So?" Char pressed, voice almost as rough as his.

Copperhead cocked his head to the side at her. "Like I said. She didn't take it well."

Riku's mind seemed to have taken up the details where Copperhead had cast them away: in the deceptive shelter of his eyelids Riku could almost see the pink light of Falcon's heart, her body disintegrating, Copperhead running forward to try and catch the particles just as Kairi had to Sora.

Xemnas would probably have left at this point, the bastard. Knowing he'd succeeded with Falcon where he had failed with her parents – for Riku knew her parents hadn't produced Nobodies, or they would fight at the Organization's side – had probably been enough for him. If Xemnas had been the type, he probably would have laughed and said something alone the lines of _my work here is done._

And Falcon's Heartless…

Riku hadn't seen Kairi bring Sora back firsthand. No, if anything, watching it through the monitors in Twilight Town's basement had almost hurt more. Her desperation, the Heartless surrounding her and Donald and Goofy, the latter two throwing promises of protection to her…

The way she had flung herself over Sora's Heartless, how she'd had enough faith to know he was in there _somewhere._

By the time the light had cleared, the Heartless had vanished. All of them. And Sora had come back.

In the present, the shock and hurt and jealousy that had tunneled their way through Riku's body as he had looked on ached faintly inside his heart. He found himself thanking the gods that DiZ had gone to bed early that night, and Char had chosen to spend time watching Namine draw.

Kairi had been able to bring Sora back because of her role as a Princess of Heart. This hypothesis, Riku had arrived at long before obtaining every detail as to what had happened _after_ Sora's illustrious return to the living world.

But if Copperhead, a completely mundane man, had copied Kairi's method and succeeded…

Maybe the jarring force – the force whose light wove over every ounce of darkness and left it quivering in its wake – was…

Thinking on that, Riku suddenly felt stupid. It truly was a foregone conclusion, something obvious. After all, his love for his friends had pulled him out of the darkness and… not necessarily into the light, but into a twilit sanctuary far removed from the shadows he had sought after a year before.

Beside him, Char took a deep breath. She must have sensed the story was over. Curiously, Riku looked back over at her, trying to glean the contrast between her earlier angry defiance and now.

That, and he wanted to see if she had arrived at the same conclusion.

Judging by the crestfallen look on her face and the way her fingers curled against her legs, she had.

_Kairi loved Sora enough that it could bring him back from Kingdom Hearts,_ Riku could almost hear her thinking. _Can I really just get between that?_

From the sounds of things, though, she already had.

* * *

"The shadows are an improvement," Axel remarked dryly.

Donald groaned and rolled his eyes, dragging one wing over his face. In spite of his annoyance toward the Nobody-turned-lion, Sora had to agree. The last time they had seen Scar, invisible, fiery puppet strings had pulled his Heartless form about, and he'd proven one of the most difficult opponents that the group – which had numbered five, counting Char and Simba – had ever faced.

Just remembering that day made a shiver lance up Sora's spine. Simba's grievous wounds, the words that the true heir to the throne had hissed into his traitorous uncle's ear… and the fury clouding Char's face the first time Scar had nearly knocked the Keybearer off the precipice.

He pushed that disconcerting memory away and glanced over his shoulder. Even though Axel's legs were longer, he still padded along behind the smaller lion, as if pushing his arrogance aside long enough to respect the unspoken leadership he had only glimpsed.

"So," the Nobody said, staring with his head cocked to the side at Sora, "why are we going to this Pride Rock place again?"

Sora sighed. Even his own notorious forgetfulness didn't extend this far. "Because we have to see Simba. The current king of Pride Rock," he explained hastily. The explanation came instinctively: a very large part of him – the part that had propelled him forward to push Axel down and demand where Kairi was – was writhing in disbelief at his own failure to tear the pyro apart. Even Donald and Goofy shared that incredulity, according to the conversation they'd had before Axel had tagged along with them.

But another part of him – a part that definitely didn't answer to Roxas – had influenced his decision to keep Axel with them. He couldn't get a definite answer about where at least one of his friends was if he destroyed Axel now.

And maybe at the end of this, Axel would tell them how to get to the Organization's world.

That hope rattled thinly and felt frail within Sora's chest, but he found himself clinging to it anyway. If only because the battle with Jafar earlier today had exhausted him and reminded him why he had stopped darting from world to world within one day.

"Oh. Heh. Right." Axel blinked, focused on the grass his paws currently pushed underfoot with every step he made.

Sora almost stopped in his tracks, so surprised was he at Axel's relative quietness. In the end, he faltered only momentarily before walking on. Pride Rock's thorn-like structure protruded from the horizon in the distance, growing closer all the while with every greasy blade of grass the four of them passed.

Before long, the silence began to unnerve Sora's already-strained senses. Lashing out in fury toward Axel had sapped his emotional strength, but while that exhaustion weakly dueled with the desire for the truth in his heart, he still found it in himself to feel that anger stir again. This quiet felt more oppressive than those first few days with Char.

And at least with Char…

Bolts of lightning rent the air, along with multiple globules of swirling shadow. Immediately, Sora summoned the Decisive Pumpkin into his teeth; he almost spat it out at the taste on the hilt – apparently he'd forgotten to wash his own blood off the miniature Jack Skellington face – but focused quickly on the task at hand.

At least with Char, they'd fought constant battles to keep their minds off the weirdness surrounding their new comrade.

Sora was more than willing to admit he needed the distraction now.

Multiple Heartless converged on them, all tower-like creatures whose eyes leered out at the group on a dark sphere near the tower's bottom. Sora had fought these in the Land of Dragons, where, in retrospect, his search for his friends had expanded.

As he flung himself forward, though, images of something else flashed across his mind. White towers, a red carpet stretching across a pristine floor, Queen Minnie recoiling in terror.

Above all, though, one thing was prominent: a streak of brown and red dashing from Heartless to Heartless.

Sora nearly groaned aloud. As if he didn't have enough memories he couldn't explain.

In spite of his frustration – and the thread of longing that formed in his heart at the thought of _her_ – he leapt into the air and channeled everything he felt into his Keyblade. The jump proved a little wobbly, thanks to his shorter, increased amount of legs; instinct pulled his Keyblade forward, though, and disposed of the Heartless in moments.

Goofy pulled his shield forward, and the turtle shell flipped easily from invisibility onto his back. It was a strange sight, a hollow shell balancing on top of another one; this way it near blended into Goofy's body. Donald's broom materialized in his talons, which nearly fumbled the staff out of their grip. Sora stifled a chuckle at the sight of Donald tightening his grasp and looking around challengingly, as if making sure no one had noticed. He found himself glad he had remembered how to summon his Keyblade in this form.

Which was more than Axel could do.

He looked over at their newest companion, words of advice springing almost reluctantly to his tongue. _We can't really fight with someone who can't do anything._

Then again, he couldn't picture Axel just standing by and watching, weapons or not.

His suspicions died away, as did the rather paltry suggestion to hold his chakrams in his teeth, when one of the towers suddenly jerked. The ball at its base rolled free, as if the Heartless had lost control of its weak spot, which allowed fiery claws an easier target.

Axel landed, paws still coated in that flame. He leaned down and blew on the fiery paw prints left in his wake before looking up and seeing Sora gawking. "Don't you have something to do?" he prodded, though not without a smirk on his feline face.

His veiled insistence broke through Sora's trance. The brown lion cub shook his head and couldn't stop the grin that wove its way across his face. "Yeah!" He turned back to the Heartless and pawed the grass. "Let's do this so we can see Simba!"

Before Axel could form any response, he darted forward, veering around the towers in front of them to head for a dinosaur-like Heartless. Somehow, the Keybearer didn't want to see if Axel's eyes bore any kind of longing nostalgia.

Donald was frantically backing away from the Heartless as it advanced, flinging his staff frantically. Every spark from his attacks bounced uselessly off the Heartless' gleaming aura, though, much to his visible frustration.

Sora recognized this foe from last time they'd come here; even more, though, he recognized the dinosaur's mount, a twiggy, shaman-like beast waving its own makeshift wand about. A pale azure glow rimmed with swirling shadow enveloped the shaman, flames appearing in a circle before shooting forward at Donald.

Quickly, Sora barreled forward into the dinosaur's side. The remnants of its attack sputtered into oblivion, making him wince as the light blue fires doused his back and left minor burning sensations in their wake. Since they didn't have the same otherworldly heat as normal fire, though, he knew they wouldn't leave any permanent damage.

Normal fire. Hades. Char pushing Sora aside.

Glaring up at the Heartless, Sora pushed forward in his assault, spiraling in midair before landing with a roar. The sound tunneled up from somewhere deep inside him, a frustrated place he hadn't dared to probe before now, but that now was making its debut in this attack.

Beams of orange light rent the air; the shafts impaled the Heartless and rendered it a cloud of smoke and a glowing pink heart that had once been its burden. Watching it float, jewel-like, into the air and into the clouds, Sora felt the grip on his bloodied Keyblade – which was starting to hurt his teeth a little – grow more slack.

Oddly, he thought, that particular shade of pink reminded him of Kairi.

A hoarse voice squawking his name brought him back to reality, the reality that condensed him into a feline form and had none of his closest friends at his side. He whipped his head back toward Donald and saw the duck eyeing him with unabashed surprise.

"New attack?" was all he said.

Sora nodded. "Yeah. I guess."

As one, the two of them whirled and charged for the nearest Heartless. For Donald, it was a tower; for Sora, it was another sorcerer on a monster's back.

Between the four of them, the battle quickly ended; soon, though, Sora noticed the Heartless falling much more quickly than just their group was capable of. When the enemies cleared and he could again see the savannah grass swaying gently, his eyes widened at who had shown up.

"Simba!" Goofy greeted.

The dusty-pelted lion lifted his head and smiled at them. "You came back," he said, yet exhaustion threaded through every word.

"This the guy we're looking for?" Axel nudged Sora's shoulder with the human equivalent of his elbow. As a human, the gesture would have only been irritating; now, though, it only annoyed him because it nearly knocked him over.

"Yeah, it is," he hissed back.

Axel appraised the true king: ruffled red mane, sunken brown eyes, the haunted hunch to his spine and the forced nature of the welcoming smile on his face. "Looks kind of pathetic to me," he said at last. "Some king."

"Axel!" Sora gasped. He shoved the larger lion with the bony part of his shoulder, feeling far too gratified when Axel cringed away from the sharp contact. "This is the king of the Pride Lands you're insulting!"

"Yeah, you don't know what he's been through," Donald added. "Show him some respect!" Although he directed his anger toward the Nobody, he cast a withering glare in Sora's direction. As one, the Keybearer and Simba winced, both out of shame.

_Now are you glad you dragged him with us?_ Donald's glower demanded.

Simba straightened his shoulders, nodding gratefully to Donald and Sora. "So… have you gotten any closer to finding who you're looking for?"

That proved the exact wrong question to ask. Feline as the action was, Sora's ears and tail unconsciously fell anyway. "Not exactly," he murmured.

"Yeah, we found the King for a little while, but then we lost him. Uh, _our_ king!" Donald hastily amended when Simba looked bewildered.

"And now Char's gone," Goofy said, tentatively, as if dreading Sora's reaction to mentioning the addition to their search.

Simba's eyes widened. "I was wondering why she and Roxas were gone," he said. If he noticed the way Sora's shoulders tensed at Roxas' name, he didn't mention it.

His tired gaze sharpened when it landed on Axel. "And who this was."

Axel tossed his head of messy spikes, completely flippant of how his own comment had made Simba wary. Doubtless, he thought the vibrant lion was some remaining spy of his uncle's. "Just a guy passing through."

Simba lowered his head, fur along his shoulders bristling. "The last time we had strangers 'passing through,' she turned out to be working for Scar."

Axel's eyes widened a fraction at that "she." Just a fraction. Almost immediately, though, the confusion – and near recognition, a trait that the Roxas in Sora picked up despite Sora not knowing him well – in his eyes faded. "Oh, all right, if you have to know my name," he drawled. "The name's Axel. Got it –"

"He's like Roxas," Sora interrupted. That earned him a startled glare from Axel, and instantly he realized the mistake he'd made bringing up Roxas. After all, as far as Axel knew, Sora knew little to nothing of his Nobody's existence.

_Thank Char for that,_ he thought, and found himself suddenly, irrationally proud of what Char had done. Because it had allowed him to one-up Axel, if nothing else.

Regret at his verbal slip faded almost instantly, and he barreled heedlessly forward. "We found him… a little while back, so he's sticking with us for the time being."

He could feel Donald staring incredulously at him, the strength of his disbelief potent enough to contain both his feelings and what Char would have felt. In the corner of his eye, Goofy cocked his head to the side, before his rounded back shifted in something like a shrug. An unspoken _well, you're the leader, I guess you know what you're doin'._

Sora had to repress a laugh then, because that was so far from the truth it was sad.

Simba regarded him skeptically; Sora tried to keep his fur from rising along his spine, but as the instinct was too ingrained in his current species to suppress, it proved immensely difficult. He just quailed under the king's gaze, hoping he wouldn't see through the lie.

To his immense relief, Simba only straightened his shoulders again. "I see," was all he said.

Donald spoke up then, clearly itching to reach the crux of the trouble here. "We saw Scar's ghost earlier," he announced.

"Donald!" Goofy chided him, swinging his head to glare at the duck.

"Well, what? You guys weren't gonna tell him anytime soon!"

Sora's lips twitched upward at the others' arguing, but he ignored them mostly and watched for Simba's reaction. Beside him, Axel shifted his claws in and out of the grass; Sora could see the movement due to the dim light that meandered through the clouds flickering off his claws.

The curiosity at Axel's anxious movements died instantly when Simba let out a resigned sigh. He turned back to the true king and saw not surprise, not fear, but defeat. "I was afraid of this," he murmured.

"Y'mean that's not the first time it showed up?" Goofy asked.

"No," Simba sighed with a half-hearted shake of his head. "It… he's shown up all over the Pride Lands. Timon and Pumbaa invited me out to our old hangout the other day, and Scar showed up there, too." He gave a weak grin, one whose affection toward his oldest friends was tainted by resignation. "Pumbaa about broke our eardrums screaming."

Somehow, it wasn't the lack of concern toward his friends or his home that grabbed hold of Sora's heart and held it: it was that first pronoun replacement, that referring to Scar's ghost as _he._ It almost seemed like in Simba's eyes, Scar had come back to haunt him for good.

Simba lifted his head and stared Sora right in the eye. "You know what I said to my uncle that day, on top of Pride Rock? Just before I finished him, I looked him in the face and said…" He stared down at the ground, as if seeing that hellish, twisted glare of darkness once more. "I told him, 'you will never haunt us again.' It's like he's proving me wrong, even now."

"But that's not right!" Sora argued. "We took down Scar, remember? I'm sure it's just some other Heartless playing tricks on you."

"He's probably right." Axel had remained infuriatingly silent up till this point, but now he spoke. Simba listened on with undisguised hostility, making Sora repress a sigh. It was Char and Roxas all over again. "Sometimes Heartless prey on your heart, even though they don't try to kill you. They feed off fear and darkness, too."

His words sounded familiar, tickled a sense of déjà vu deep inside Sora's mind. Yen Sid had said something to that effect, too, hadn't he? He had to dig relatively deep down into his reserves of memory to recall even slightly what Yen Sid had said; a month had gone by so quickly, and held so much significance, that just those four weeks felt like an eternity ago.

As long as a shard of darkness remained in a single heart, the Heartless would never go away.

Goofy had asked something about whether or not the absence of darkness would destroy the Heartless, and Char had laughed at his attempt at optimism. At the time Sora had resented her pessimism, and the way she kept undermining his leadership, but now he knew she had a point.

Simba's situation only proved she had a point.

Simba shrugged and looked up at the darkening sky. Oh yeah, Sora remembered vaguely, the day was almost over. Now he remembered why he never tried to visit two different worlds within the same day anymore. It reminded him too much of only a few days before, when he'd found out so many things. Kairi's being so close, Char's secrets, his feelings for both of them having reversed…

"I tried asking Rafiki about it," he confessed quietly. "But he just told me to ask the hyenas, since they probably knew more about their old leader coming back." Despite the dullness in his tone, he all but spat out the word _leader. _Something like hope for Simba stirred in Sora's heart then.

That hope only died, though, when the king sighed again. "Then when I tried to ask the hyenas, they just laughed at me, and the ghost chased me off."

"Wait, wait, wait," Axel cut in. Sora cringed – the derisiveness blazing in just those words told him this could only end badly – and dared look over. Even from the side, those acid-green eyes looked scornful, and his face had twisted into an expression like he had just tasted a lemon. "You let a _ghost_ – no, a bunch of Heartless probably messing with you – chase you, the _king,_ back to your little throne? Probably with your tail between your legs, too."

"Axel –" Sora began.

"No, Roxas, give me a second," Axel tossed over his shoulder. Donald's jaw dropped, and Goofy covered his eyes with his ears; Sora's muffled gasp was drowned out by the Nobody charging on, voice growing more and more mocking all the while. He didn't seem to have realized his mistake. "Some king you are, if you let something that barely even exists shake you up like that."

Simba drew himself up, baring his fangs. "You don't even understand –"

"Oh, I think I do." Axel stood up, forcing himself right into the king's face. "I don't even have a heart anymore, but I know what it's like to have a reminder of your past looking you in the eye and taunting you. Hell – I've got two, right now."

_Roxas and Anxclof,_ Sora realized, sick to his stomach.

"But that never, ever stopped me. Why are you letting it stop you?"

He pulled back, settling on his haunches with that same disgusted look on his face. At some point, nostalgia for the old days with his friends had probably twitched across his countenance, sent a fissure into that façade of anger and disdain, but the cracks had repaired themselves almost immediately and left him the same as before.

Simba glared down at the ground, an internal struggle visible in both what they could see of his furrowed brow and his claws tearing at the grass. Sora's eyes darted from where he was riveted on Simba's conflict when Axel cleared his throat.

The brown cub opened his mouth, ready to chastise the Nobody for all but destroying Simba's already-fragile confidence. He could feel Donald's feathers bristling against his back and Goofy's shell raising in response to his tensed shoulders.

All three reactions dropped, though, when Axel winked.

He flicked his tail at Donald. The mage gave him a look filled with as much bemusement and rage as Sora had ever seen from him; when Axel hardened his gaze at him, though, he let out a faint squawk of understanding.

Sora and Goofy exchanged confused glances, only to blink when Donald's staff flashed. An instant later, both cub and dog-turtle gave a start at a familiar, shadowy figure springing up in front of them. The grass blew seamlessly across Scar's translucent, dark shape.

"Guys –!" Sora started, but Goofy's paw across his mouth silenced him. He struggled against the knight's grip, which held him fast even though he stood at maybe half Sora's current height, but Goofy shook his head frantically at him. He mouthed something, much to Sora's growing frustration; now not only had another Scar ghost appeared, but he was face to face with his reminder that he _couldn't read lips._

He was even more shocked when Donald spoke tauntingly.

"Simba, the do-nothing king…"

"That's what they'll call you in the end, isn't it?" Axel queried lazily, bringing up one paw to rest under his chin. "Remember that Simba guy? Oh, you mean the one who sat around quivering like a big fat baby when push came to shove? Yeah, that guy. Wonder what happened to him."

Simba's eyes widened at their steady derision. As Sora looked on, wanting more than anything to dispel the negative emotions undoubtedly brewing inside Simba right now, something flashed across the king's face.

Something akin to frustration, anger, and humiliation, breaking free of the chains Simba had bound tight about those emotions as they had festered in his heart.

In the stillness of the savannah, Sora could almost hear a snap within Simba.

With a roar, he lunged for the phantom, claws out. The ribbons of shadow undulating off Scar's form writhed in response to the charge, and his talons carved through the shape like a knife through hot butter.

As the ghost vanished, shadows twisting weakly through the air, Simba looked back at them, understanding flashing in his eyes. It was like something inside him, something that had lain dormant since the day he had taken his place on Pride Rock, had switched on, lighting his eyes and giving him resolve.

In the same moment, Sora realized what his friends had done.

Feeling his captive relax in the aftermath of epiphany, Goofy lowered his paw.

Simba grinned wryly. "Thanks for tricking me, guys."

"Anytime, Your Majesty." Axel lowered his paw to press it to his chest and dipped his head in a melodramatic bow.

"You guys could've told me that was what he was up to," Sora said to Donald and Goofy.

Donald rolled his eyes, bringing his staff out from where he'd hidden it behind his back. "I didn't even know until the last second, okay?"

"Guys," Simba said, a chuckle embedded in his voice. "I think I should tell Nala and the other lionesses that… I'm ready."

"Ready?" Goofy blinked.

"The king's back," Sora explained, feeling a grin spread across his face.

He glanced at Axel, not knowing whether to thank him or not. It was the polite thing to do, but… something about the Nobody's smug face made him reconsider it.

Fortunately, Axel beat him to it. He looked over, blinking when he saw the Keybearer's eyes on him, then shrugged his skinny shoulders. "You're welcome. Roxas."

The name seemed almost tacked on, almost a reminder of just whom Sora was a remnant. Anxclof had done that; Demyx had done that…

Yet with Axel, the visceral response, the need to confirm just what his name was, only stirred momentarily within him before falling silent.

* * *

As it turned out, nothing had finished yet.

Simba stared evenly into the sunken eyes of Scar's ghost. Behind him, Sora tensed, ready to summon the Decisive Pumpkin if necessary. Nala stood protectively in front of the other lionesses, fully ready to risk herself to help Simba despite the growing life deep in her belly.

Above the anxious murmurs of his subjects, Simba spoke two words to the phantom before him.

"Get out."

Just like that, it vanished in the same way as its fake from minutes before.

He heard a breathy sigh behind him and turned just in time to see Nala stagger. As it turned out, one of the other lionesses had fainted dead away.

Axel snickered, while Simba grinned and shook his head. Without waiting for his order, the other lionesses rallied to carry their unconscious fellow away, grumbles and triumphant whispers alike mingling. Nala alone remained, padding up to stand by her love's side.

"You did it," she said, nuzzling his neck. Her bravery from earlier melted away in the face of her relief, rendering her all but leaning against him.

"Yeah." Simba breathed deeply; clearly, he was taking as much strength from her as she was from him.

"Way to go, Simba!" Sora congratulated. He didn't realize he'd raised one paw in anticipation of a high-five until Simba gave him an odd look.

"Lions," Axel muttered into the Keybearer's ear.

Sora lowered his paw sheepishly. "Right."

"You sure that's the end of it?" Goofy queried, coming up to stand next to Sora.

As if his doubt had been a signal, suddenly tendrils of darkness weaving together from all directions obscured the view of the savannah.

"You had to say something," Donald sighed.

"Simba!" two familiar voices shrieked. The six of them turned to see Timon scrambling toward them with Pumbaa straggling behind. Sweat coated both meerkat and warthog's fur, as if they had sprinted here from the oasis.

"Even at the oasis?" Simba asked, eyes widening.

"Yeah," Timon said through heavy pants. He leaned his palms on his tiny knees, trying to catch his breath. "There are… ghosts of Scar… everywhere…"

"Told you it was Heartless," Axel said.

Ignoring the Nobody's snide remark, Sora gazed out at the savannah. "And now they're gathering," he said.

Simba disentangled himself from Nala's embrace. "You know I have to go down there."

Hearing the king's tone, the way his words were a statement and not a question, Nala gave a nod of defeat. "Just… be careful. I'm counting on you to do what you need to do. And so is our baby."

Simba nodded back at her, before turning to Sora and his companions. "Are you with me?" he asked. In that question lay all his remaining doubts, all the fears that had festered over the few days since he'd been crowned.

_A few days._ Simba had only ruled the Pride Lands for a few days.

With that knowledge ringing in his head, Sora dipped his head and bowed. "Now and forever, Your Majesty!"

* * *

Random side note: Is the formatting for documents on this site being dumb to anyone else, or is it just my laptop? The buttons are all blank, and I had to keep hitting them before I could find the horizontal rule. (That's what she said.)

Immature jokes aside, please review!


	76. Chapter LXXVI

Hey all! I thought I'd finish this chapter and get it to you guys. I'm done with my first year of college/finals, but I don't start working full-time till June. So I figured I'd be nice and get this to y'all before adulthood bitch-slaps me. You're welcome.

But... I promised myself I'd keep new chapters below 10k words. Obviously, this chapter did not meet that goal. DX

I DID put everything I wanted to put in this chapter, though! Hopefully the next one will come a little more easily.

Enjoy!

* * *

Simba's worried brown eyes followed the Scar-shaped shadows in their path. The breeze that had once tugged so playfully at the grass now tore relentlessly at the grass' roots, threatening to rend them free of their foundation as the darkness roared past it.

Hot at Simba's heels, Sora watched with no small amount of worry percolating in his chest; the Scar ghosts had made him shudder on their own, but somehow, the sight of what they were becoming concerned him even more.

"What's going on?" Donald shouted, rather unnecessarily. Even with the ghosts' haste to combine, their union was silent. Almost the instant that question escaped his lips, the dark, trembling mass before them began to shift into another, distinctively reptilian form.

"I don't know, but it doesn't look good." _Well no kidding, Sora,_ Char snorted in the back of his mind, _since when has anything involving Scar or Heartless looked "good?" _

Rather than inject fresh determination into his veins, though, the echo of her already-familiar voice made him tense. Phantoms. Everything had shrunk down to ghosts and memories of what they had been. Scar, Riku, Kairi, his parents, Char… even the Organization, whose origin lay twined so deeply with hers.

Thinking of the Organization, he risked a glance over at Axel. The Nobody was staring out at the spectacle before them, acid eyes narrowed and fur bristling along his shoulders. Sora surveyed with new suspicion that feline expression, that countenance whose infernal grace and aloofness matched his current form almost completely.

_No,_ the Roxas inside Sora whispered. He almost toppled over with the force of his surprise at his Nobody stirring. Rather than indignation, or anything Sora would have felt at someone accusing Riku of creating a foe like this, Roxas' voice was quietly firm. _Axel couldn't have done something like this even if he wanted to._

_ So then who's responsible for this?_ Sora demanded in his head. The fury toward Axel, the protectiveness toward Kairi – those feelings wore his mental voice ragged and raw. _Xehanort's dead Heartless?_

_ No. Maybe just the uncertainty in Simba's heart._

Suddenly Donald squawked and pointed with one wing. Following the duck's gaze, Sora caught one last glimpse of the dark cocoon dissolving in wisps of shadow, revealing what Scar's final remnants had condensed into.

Simba gasped and took a step back. "It's huge!" he whispered.

_Huge,_ as it turned out, was a gross understatement. The Heartless lowered its horned head to glare down at its prey, trees along its back swaying as it did so. It almost looked like the behemoth had risen up from the ground, taking a strip of the grass and trees and donning them as its cloak in its ascent.

At first the copse of trees along the small of the Heartless' back shifting confused Sora, until two fists detached from the mass of green. Fiery light began to shine through the gaps between those massive fingers; it reminded him all too strongly of Jafar and Genie's clash.

Before any exhaustion at the memory could slip loose of its confines, Sora's determination slammed itself down on it. They'd taken out Scar before, and they could do it again no matter what form he took.

Still, Sora felt a quiver begin to shake through his legs at the Heartless' size and the crackling force between the fingers on its spine. Not for the first time today, he found himself wishing for his true, human form, if only because the increased height would bring him more courage.

That, and he was used to fighting as a boy. As a lion…

Adrenaline and necessity had allowed him to again grow accustomed to the increased speed, the four legs, the lack of thumbs and the bloody tang that forced its way past the barrier of his teeth into his mouth. But he hadn't mastered the art of jumping, which he'd need to defeat an opponent this massive; the hundreds of muscles required for his haunches to bunch and propel him up into the air was a beast even he hadn't tamed just yet.

"Sora!"

He jolted and turned to see Axel staring urgently at him. "Are you waiting for it to make you a pancake or something?" he demanded. He swung out one already-flaming paw and narrowed his eyes even more fiercely. "Hop to it!"

Donald started, and swung his head around to glare at the red lion. "Don't tell him what to –!"

The Heartless lifted its head to the sky and shrieked, a cacophony that penetrated into their sensitive ear drums. Donald curled himself inward, Goofy pulled himself into his shell, and even Axel flinched. Sora flung his forelegs over his head, and Simba, snapped out of his terrified trance, hunched his shoulders as well. An instant later, the ground rippled beneath their feet, followed by dual cries of pain.

Cries that had grown very familiar over the year and a half Sora had spent fighting alongside their owners.

Sora jerked his legs back down and glanced frantically over his shoulder. What he saw made his heart stutter in his chest and his eyes widen in horror: Donald slumped against the underside of Pride Rock, skinny frame of this form all the smaller-looking in his unconscious state. Beside him, Goofy lay prone as well, the miniature earthquake having knocked his limbs out from where he'd pulled them inside his shell.

_Thump, thump, thump,_ went his heart in his ears, and then an insistent _thumpthumpthump _at the red puddle beginning to spread under both their bodies.

He heard Simba shout his longtime comrades' names, but registered through only the waterfall of his roaring heartbeat screening him from the outside world.

Dimly, he knew what had happened: the Heartless had taken a step, and the shocks that single, deadly foot had created had knocked Goofy back into Donald, where Pride Rock had broken both of their falls.

Dimly, he knew that the two of them had taken much worse blows than just a knock to the back of their heads: Goofy's miraculous return to them in Hollow Bastion, along with what all they'd survived on their last journey, told him that much.

Vividly, he knew he didn't care.

The blood from his friends' bodies was seeping into his vision, permeating everything in a thin layer of fury. Suddenly the waterfall in his ears was drying up and he was swinging around, propelling himself forward, heedless of Simba and Axel screaming for him to wait.

The Heartless lifted its foot again, clearly trying to complete its job and take out the Keyblade wielder. Only the shadow darkening the blood red to maroon snapped him out of his charge – but it was too little, too late, it seemed; gravity, or maybe just the malice of fate, tugged the instrument of his demise down.

Then something sharp penetrated through his thick, brown fur and into his skin, snagging on an area just next to his spine. As it turned out, Jafar had aimed one of his platforms at that part of Sora's body only an hour or so earlier.

Sora didn't realize how raw the wound still felt until claws were practically tearing it open again and he howled. The sound grated on his ears, which, after the ordeal his enemy's scream and his own roaring heartbeat had inflicted on them, he hadn't thought possible.

Then his center of gravity tilted sideways and he landed, hard, on the ground. Something stronger than mere physics pushed into him from above, effectively keeping him pinned. For a moment, Sora thought the Heartless had extended its claws and succeeded where its massive foot had failed; only a moment's writhing later, though, he twisted upward and saw his assailant.

Fortunately, Axel had retracted his fire before pushing Sora away from the attack. However, his powers seemed to have channeled every bit of their blaze into his furious glare. "When I said hop to it, that wasn't what I meant!" he seethed. "Were you trying to get yourself killed?"

Sora bared his fangs, even though he knew Axel's anger had a point. At the same time, though, he couldn't help thinking _why wouldn't he want that thing to finish me, Roxas would come out if I'd gotten squashed._

Axel whirled back to the towering figure overhead. The Heartless was blotting out even the weakest rays of sun now, while Simba dashed frantically around it, apparently trying to find a spot to attack.

"A little help here, guys!" the king shouted, voice straining to overtake the Heartless' roar.

Axel looked at Sora. His claws slid free of Sora's flesh, allowing the Keybearer to leap to his paws. A wave of frustration filled him, that even at his fullest, four-legged height, he barely reached the shoulder of the sitting Nobody.

"If you want to help your friend," Axel hissed, "then now's the best time to do it."

Sora nodded, albeit with a hint of reluctance to admit Axel's rationality. Ironic, that a man – Nobody, he had to remind himself – a Nobody who controlled fire could summon up the mental fortitude to cast the conflagration of fury aside, if only for now.

For now…

_"You really do remember me this time? I'm so FLATTERED!"_

He shook his head with a grimace and a wrinkle of his nose. These phantom memories couldn't get the best of him.

Not now. Not now that he was so close to finding Kairi and Riku and Char again.

Only the foe before them, who was drawing back one flame-engulfed foot again, stood in his way of answers.

With a snarl, he hefted the Decisive Pumpkin and dashed forward.

* * *

Sora instinctively leaped back when the beast controlling the Heartless lost its balance and tumbled onto the savannah. Its body crashing onto the ground sent a very tangible tremor through the three lions standing there; Simba stumbled at the impact, but Axel lent him a steadying paw. The king gave Axel an incredulous look, though doubt marred that skepticism at the Nobody's support.

Sora caught his grin before it could fully manifest. Part of him had a past with Axel, a fact that hung all too prominently in the forefront of his thoughts – in fact, the way it permeated his mind right now easily paralleled his desire to find his friends – but he knew he had yet to fully accept it. No matter how much it annoyed him that part of him could call a Nobody, his enemy, a friend.

Honestly, it kind of made him want to scream a bit.

Rather than succumb to his growing migraine and emotional conflict on the matter, he lifted his head and watched the Heartless disappear. The same darkness that had wrought its existence wreathed around his enemy's body, and he shifted on his sore paws as those shadows consumed the gargantuan feet last.

Triumph washed over him, despite the tingling ache in his wounds. The place where Axel had snagged his claws in his fur throbbed the hardest, and every blazing strike that the Heartless' mount had thrown in his direction resonated deep in Sora's fur. However, he tried not to focus on the distinctive oozing sensation along his back and flanks.

"Are you guys okay?" he asked, glancing at Axel and Simba.

It was an obligatory question, but not one with an obvious answer. Simba's fervor to take out the last manifestation of his demons was dying down on his face and exhausted eyes, but relief gleamed there as well. Blood shone in the weak sunlight all along his pelt, and Sora quickly lifted a paw to channel his remaining mana into healing Simba's lighter injuries. The king didn't rebuff Sora's help, only murmured his thanks as Cura's green light spread calming tendrils into his skin.

Very reluctantly, Sora faced Axel. The Nobody had endured more than a few blows from the Heartless' lethal feet; seeing Axel lose his sinuous grace had amused Sora far more than he'd like to admit. Not surprisingly, their foe's fiery attacks had glanced off Axel's pelt, merely creating a sizzling noise at the contact with his thick, red fur. Despite the Heartless employing its own flames against him, his own blazing claws had raked down its body and left trails of light and heat in their wake.

Seeing Axel's reaction as he'd set the copse-like set of trees on the Heartless' back aflame… Sora shivered at the memory of only minutes before. He'd been running on the ground, trying to distract the Heartless' path so Axel and Simba could focus on taking down the shaman mount on its back. However, he'd quickly stopped in his tracks when sadistic laughter had floated down to him from below.

The Heartless had roared in agony, had bucked furiously in a vain attempt to eradicate its twin burdens. Even far below, Axel's glee was unmistakable.

Fortunately, Sora's trance of horror hadn't affected Simba. An instant after Sora had caught the initial remnants of what Axel had done, the king must have finished it off, for the Heartless' writhing had suddenly frozen.

And that left them here now: all three of them standing there, with the dark, viscous fluid on Simba's back drying to an unappealing crust. Axel looking ruffled, but not bleeding in the slightest.

Seeing that, more than anything, brought Sora back to reality. _Of course he doesn't bleed. No heart, remember? _He'd picked up at least that much from the scant times he had been awake in biology class. For blood to exist, it had to be circulating. And for that, a heart was necessary.

He drew himself up just as Axel answered his question. "A little tired, but yeah, I'll get over it." The red lion glanced at Simba. "Not bad, Your Majesty. Safe to say they won't call you a do-nothing king now."

Simba's shoulders dropped. "If Scar doesn't come back now, that's all that matters."

Sora nodded. Something in his heart pushed his frustration aside and found it in itself to let happiness for Simba stir. Because he did feel relieved for his friend – relieved that at least one of them had resolved their phantoms. "I don't think he will," he said, feeling a smile spread across his face. "If he does, we'll be ready for him."

Axel turned his head just slightly so he could fully regard Sora. Feeling that acid gaze on him, Sora fought the suddenly-powerful urge to glare defiantly back at him. _I'm not Roxas,_ he wanted to say, _you're wasting your time,_ but kept that firmly locked in his throat's confines as well.

Besides, he suspected Axel knew that already.

Suddenly, he remembered Donald and Goofy.

"Oh, no!" He whirled around and raced toward the two forms still slumped against the underside of Pride Rock.

In his haste, he accidentally sloshed through the pool of blood on the ground; he winced at the discomfort of his friends' life staining his paws and the white fur on his chest, but tried desperately to ignore the dash of red now glaring up at him from the bottom of his vision.

A shade of red that reminded him of Char.

Before further despondency could take him, he veered to the side so he wouldn't be crouching in the blood on the ground. Quickly, with adrenaline from the battle taking on a different nature entirely as it thrummed in his chest, he scanned his fallen comrades. Goofy was on his back, limbs flung out as if to stop himself; with how he'd flown back into Donald, he probably had – had probably tried to shield Donald from the still-inevitable blow. As for Donald, he lay on the ground, completely still, with red seeping into his white feathers and staining them.

It was a sight Sora had seen before. Again, he had to remind himself that they had fought worse battles and had taken worse hits than a blow to the back of the head – the concrete-like, white floor and violet sea of the End of the World surrounded his memories – but that same fear wouldn't leave him.

_I won't lose any more friends. I can't._

He nearly lifted a paw to heal them before remembering he had spent all his magic helping Simba.

"Please be okay, please be okay…" someone whispered. It took him a moment to realize he had said it.

He was dimly aware of Simba and Axel stepping up on either side of him. The former's concern, he could understand; but Axel…

At that moment, a groan resounded from below. Sora leaped up so quickly that his battered body screaming in protest almost wound itself into audibility. Two things happened at once: something soft and furry pressed into his back to keep him from falling, and the white-and-red shape shifted.

"My head…" Donald groaned, lifting into a sitting position as best he could. He brought one wing to his head and rubbed, only to squawk and pull it back when he saw just how much he had bled. "Gonna have to wash that off," he grumbled.

"That's what you're worried about?" Simba asked incredulously. He shook his head with a laugh through his nose. "You'll be just fine."

"Did we win?" Goofy warbled, his limbs twitching. He paused, then groaned aloud, as if just realizing he had taken his dog-turtle form and was currently on his back.

"Oh, get up, you big palooka!" Donald pushed off the ground – or tried to, anyway. "Ow."

An uncontrollable grin, shaky and ridiculously face-splitting on his lion face as it was, pulled Sora's lips back. In the wake of the previous battle, the relief inside him felt euphoric.

"Sora, are you – wak!" Donald nearly fell onto his back again as Sora flung himself forward and wrapped his forelegs around them as best he could. The hug was far more clumsy than he would have liked, considering the trio's current appearance and the fact that Goofy did not stand upright.

"I'm so glad you guys are okay," was muffled, as Sora had buried his nose in his own fur. Another liquid entirely was beginning to soak his cheeks.

"Gawrsh, Sora, didn't I tell ya before?" Goofy said, though Sora could feel his smile against his elbow's equivalent. "I get bumped on the head all the time."

"Thank goodness you're all okay!"

Nala's voice made him look up. The lioness was descending to the foot of Pride Rock, with both the incline and concern for Simba hastening her stride. Close behind, a baboon loped along with a coconut-tipped cane for support.

_Oh yeah, that's Rafiki,_ Sora recalled the ape's name, along with how Rafiki had dismissed him as suitable royalty. He almost frowned at the memory, but somehow, couldn't bring himself to succumb to spite and let it knit his brow together.

Quickly, he drew back. He heard Axel utter a low chuckle behind him and had to fight the deluge of embarrassment that threatened to flatten his ears.

"So, the king _has_ returned!" Rafiki said, coming to a halt in front of them. Donald righted himself immediately, albeit with a visible tremor in his wings at the abrupt shift in gravity; however, he did not fall again, even though his head injury would have justified that lapse in dignity. He reached out with one wing and, after a moment's struggle, managed to pull Goofy upright.

Amid the murmured gratitude from the dog-turtle, Sora glanced to Simba. "Think you'll be all right now?"

Like his earlier question about Simba's status, this was an obligatory one; however, this time, grudging worry did not temper his true concern. After the Heartless had taken advantage of Simba's lingering doubts, Sora had to make sure his friend wouldn't yield to those fears again.

Besides, Heartless aside, fear could be a much more decisive finishing blow than any enemy's claws. Sora's encounters with Riku on his last journey – seeing how the darkness had twisted his best friend into little more than a bitter man whose taunts had gained some true fire – told him that much.

Simba hesitated, then smiled, gaze lifting up to the sky. The expression of rueful nostalgia on his face was familiar; it reminded Sora of when Mufasa's regal presence had pushed the clouds aside and added an extra shade of gold to the rising sun. He couldn't help wondering if Simba was seeing his father in the clouds now. "You know what, Sora?" he said at last. "I think I will."

Nala sighed and nuzzled him gratefully, as if recognizing that her love spoke the truth. That the Scar-shaped demon prowling around in his thoughts had disappeared.

"Yes, the Pride Lands will not forget King Simba's courage." Sora tilted his head to the side as Rafiki spoke. The baboon had followed Simba's gaze with just as much fervor, like the weight of his eyes could also coax forth the old king.

"Well," a rough voice suddenly said, "as touching as this all is, I've got somewhere to be."

Just with those brusque words, Sora remembered Axel, and the relief that had left him near-delirious and shaky on his paws evaporated.

Simba untangled himself from Nala's embrace to narrow his eyes at the Nobody. "I suppose I should thank you for your help." When Nala nudged him in his ribs, he winced, as if she had unintentionally jabbed one of his wounds. "I mean, um… thank you. Axel."

Axel had already turned around and begun to walk away. No, Sora realized suddenly; _walk_ was a grossly inappropriate term when it came to the Nobody. _Saunter_ and _stride_ seemed more fitting. Hearing Simba's grudging gratefulness, though, he stopped in his tracks. One paw lifted, pad up, and became an extension of red to his lithe form. "Don't mention it. Seriously, don't," he added. "Got a reputation to keep, y'know?"

_Reputation. _Sora thought of the cackling beast he had heard more than seen in the battle.

Without another word, Axel turned with a flick of his tail and strode past the animals still standing there. In spite of himself, Sora found his eyes trailing after the red lion as he passed. A forepaw aligned with Sora's sitting form before Axel's pupils slid toward him. Even in that sidelong glance, the Roxas inside him found a myriad of emotions in that acid vat's visible sliver. Nostalgia, annoyance, resignation…

Fear?

More than that, though, Sora himself picked up a subtle air of expectation.

But then that fire-tipped tail disappeared around Pride Rock's thorn structure.

After a couple of seconds, Sora became aware of another pair of eyes. He glanced over, only to blink in surprise. Rafiki was staring intensely at where Axel had gone.

_Does Rafiki know who… _what_ Axel is?_ It wouldn't have surprised Sora.

"We should get going too," Goofy pointed out. Whether his suggestion arose from Axel's departure or true haste, Sora didn't know.

"Do you think your journey will ever be over?" Nala asked. It was an honest question, and one that made sense, what with how many times Sora and his friends had merely passed through here; nonetheless, Sora's shoulders tensed.

Donald stared down at the ground under his beating wings. Goofy hesitated.

It was strange. For the briefest of moments, Sora found himself looking around, thinking _maybe Char will explain instead of me._

He looked up at Nala, forming the words slowly as he spoke them. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "I think… as long as I wield the Keyblade, I'll have to keep going."

"Your struggle never ends," Rafiki said.

"Never, ever?" Goofy's eyes widened.

But the baboon shook his head. "Your journey continues," he explained, raising his cane to the sky. The coconut atop it shook and created a peculiar background rhythm to his following words. "Even if you find what you are looking for, another journey begins as soon as your first one ends. It is all a part of the circle of life."

_An endless journey…_ Rafiki's words, while seemingly convoluted, held more than a little truth. After all, nearly the moment Sora's last journey had ended, he had found himself on this one.

Simba laughed and shook his head. "You told me the exact same thing when I was a cub," he said. His voice gained a rueful heaviness. "I laughed at you, then. But now… after my father's death and what Scar did, I understand."

"Ah! You see?" Rafiki turned to Sora, and his grin made the Keybearer blink. "Not just a crazy old baboon. Unless the king – he is crazy, too."

"I wouldn't put it past you," Donald muttered. The words barely rose above the sudden increase in the breeze, and Sora suddenly had to fight back a grin of his own.

Rafiki strode forward then and extended his cane in the trio's direction. His gesture would have seemed like an amiable farewell, almost a blessing, if he hadn't suddenly begun shaking it furiously at them. Donald barely dodged the coconut as it swung past his fast, and Goofy nearly ducked his head into his shell.

"Now go on, get out, go on, go on!" Rafiki shrieked, pressing them toward the back of Pride Rock.

"Rafiki!" Simba chided him. Nala simply narrowed her eyes disapprovingly.

"All right, we're going! Geez!" Sora backed up, away from the swinging cane.

"You want to give us another head injury?" Donald demanded, but even his stubbornness acknowledged his own head injury long enough to follow his leader.

The three of them turned tail and made a beeline toward the stretch of grass behind Pride Rock. Sora didn't stop in his flight until the thorn-shaped rock was at his back.

"What the heck was that about?" Donald spat. He rubbed his head, only to wince. Whether his pained expression came from true agony or the unappealing red crust that crumbled onto one wing, Sora wasn't sure.

"You guys, he had a point," Goofy said. "We do kinda need to go."

Sora sighed. "Well, yeah…"

"Go where?" Donald asked. His fury died down into uncertainty. "Remember the last time we came here? No other worlds came up on the map."

Sora's eyes widened. Only a paltry "oh" escaped him. He remembered now – the initial optimism as he had glanced at the Gummi ship's map, the raw dread and horror at no new places, the knowledge that Riku and Kairi could be anywhere the map wasn't showing to them…

And the suggestions of the two chipmunks who helped pilot the vessel.

"But Chip and Dale told us to go to Twilight Town." Goofy filled in the silence with Sora's unspoken thoughts. "I guess we could go back…"

"That's not a bad theory, turtle-boy."

They looked over and saw Axel standing in front of Pride Rock, watching them with a slowly waving tail. Somehow, the languid air with which he surveyed the trio reminded Sora of when he'd shown up in Hollow Bastion.

And suddenly, the hope that had lain all but dormant inside him when Axel had first shoved himself into their group was clawing at the inside of his chest, crying to be satisfied.

"What about Twilight Town?" he urged.

The Nobody narrowed his eyes. The red path of his tail stilled in its twitching.

Unbidden, Sora's imagination set on what must have happened when this Nobody had taken Kairi. Hayner and Pence throwing futile punches at him, Axel striding up and dragging her off, Kairi struggling defiantly but to no avail…

Sora couldn't imagine Kairi _not_ putting up a fight.

"Please, Axel!" he begged. "I need to know how to get to the Organization's world!"

Axel surveyed him a moment longer. The internal conflict on his countenance didn't arise from his loyalty to the Organization: he'd surrendered that the moment he had decided he wanted his best friend back. No, this struggle fractured his façade of brashness and playful apathy for a different reason entirely.

Even without Roxas, Sora knew why. He had experienced the same fear just after discovering Riku's alliance with the darkness. In Neverland, too, when Riku had stepped aside to reveal Kairi's comatose body lying on Captain Hook's deck.

It was the fear that, even if he and his two best friends united, time and endless battles and eternal war would leave a scar too great and disfiguring for things to be the same again.

That fear had only plagued Sora for a little while, though. Not long after he and Riku had closed the door to darkness – in fact, right before that infuriating year-long gap in his memory – seeing both Riku and Kairi again had put his fears to rest.

_Take care of her,_ Riku had said, and even though that sad smile spoke of giving everything up and cut Sora to the core, Sora had realized they had forgiven each other.

_I know you will!_ Kairi had said in response to Sora's promise to return, and even though Sora's heart ached at the thought of never seeing her again, he had taken comfort from the fact that she would be safe.

Axel's two best friends weren't safe, though. Gods only knew where Anxclof had gone after their encounter in the Underworld. And Roxas…

Suddenly that frustration inside him was fighting a losing battle with sympathy.

_Things were so much better,_ he thought in a final attempt to spur frustration's victory, _when they were black and white._

_ Things aren't black and white anymore, though,_ Char scoffed. _Then again, gray has never really been your color._

For a moment, green and blue eyes alike were locked, with each lion grappling with their own emotions. Donald beat his wings in the air for a moment longer before he descended to the ground, while Goofy glanced nervously from one lion to the other.

At long last, Axel sighed. He pushed one paw through the rambunctious spikes that served as his mane. So much resignation packed itself into that gesture.

The man who had roared with sadistic laughter at his foe's pain seemed a million years ago now.

"Just… go to Twilight Town," he said heavily. "You'll find your answers there.

"And," he added, "for what it's worth… I'm sorry about Kairi."

He opened a portal and trotted into the darkness.

* * *

The sky had grown almost unnervingly dark by the time Char and Riku trudged up the steps to Falcon's door. Although the sun hadn't quite dipped below the horizon yet, its vibrant golden disc had receded just enough to taint the few clouds and leave the sky dull.

Riku paused just before making the last step. Their surroundings were unnervingly quiet, to the point where he almost wished a few Heartless would pop up just so he and Char could have a distraction. As a result of the unsettling stillness, his foot landing on the top step created a _thud_ that ricocheted within the trees' perimeter.

Still, the echo was a hell of a lot better than Copperhead's tale bouncing around in Riku's mind.

"Well," Char said after a moment, rubbing her bare arms. He glanced over his shoulder at her. With the departure of the sun's heat, it felt like the Shadowed Desert's formerly-pleasant breeze swept forth with a new bite. That was one good thing about the Organization coat: it kept him warm in early evening weather. "I guess we _are_ going back inside…?" She trailed off in obvious uncertainty.

"Of course we are," Riku confirmed. "We need a place to stay until we find what we're looking for, remember?"

His explanation garnered about the reaction he'd expected: Char opened her mouth to speak, only to close it and gaze down at the ground. He couldn't see her eyes, but knew exactly what he would find if he could: bitterness, anger, longing. They were emotions he had come to anticipate when he mentioned their little mission.

_Mission._ Was that even the word for it anymore? _It's just the old man sending us out to do his dirty work. Not even trusting us beyond this. Hell, Char is basically his heir and he didn't even trust her._

Fast on the heels of those spiteful thoughts came a surge of defiant rage. The notion of disobeying Ansem, of sending Char back now and finishing this assignment – now that he'd thought of how much he abhorred the term, just thinking _mission_ made a foul taste permeate his mouth – flickered briefly in the back of his mind.

In the end, for some reason, he relented and stifled that urge. If anything, he needed all the help he could get. In about ten minutes, he might lose Falcon's help. It was unlikely, what with her feelings for him, but she might find condemnation in the fact that he and Char had failed to avenge her parents.

Gods, it still felt weird to think Copperhead had just as much blood on his hands as Riku himself did. The obnoxious, philandering scythe-swinger that Riku had first met had fairly fallen apart in his mind.

_It wasn't him, though. Just the front he tossed at the world._

He heard someone clear their throat and quickly found the source: Char had lifted her head and was staring expectantly at him. Impatience warred with nervousness on her face, and, following the flicker of movement to her tapping foot, he could've sworn her legs were trembling a bit.

Before he could stop himself, a breath of laughter had escaped his nostrils. Char immediately bristled. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," he answered. At that moment he remembered his hand still resting on the doorknob and let it drop back to his side. For some reason, just like that, the thick tension in the air dissipated just a bit. Even Char's shoulders fell slightly slack. "Just… you seem really nervous, considering how Falcon's treated you."

"You mean like an obstacle?" Char chuckled wryly. "You know what's weird, Riku?" She paused – no, _hesitated_ would fit the air around the break in speech better. Like the last word substitution, this one made Riku balk. Despite how Sora had changed her, he had counted on at least a show of unwavering confidence.

"I think we got a kind of truce going, this morning," she confessed. "I know she didn't like me very much. Because I was so close to you. At first I thought it was kind of stupid, but then I remembered… how much I resented Kairi for being so close to Sora."

Riku's breath caught. Char's unexpected explanation was beginning to sound so very familiar. Every word of that last part resonated in his mind, only with the two names reversed.

"So I understood her a little more than I would've liked," Char went on. Her tone grew less and less tentative as she spoke, as if she'd kept this hidden for the last few days. Riku got the distinct feeling that she had sounded – had _looked,_ even, with her gradually relaxed stance – like this when she had told Sora about her origins.

For how had she gone a month without spilling her truths to the boy she professed to love, when only a few days bottling up her growing sympathy for Falcon and Copperhead clearly weighed so much on her?

_Sora taught her honesty, too._

Despite this, Char's formerly secretive nature made one last stand, flitting across her face in the form of one last decision to keep going. "Anyway," she said, shrugging and putting her foot on the first step, "we're almost something like friends now. If not that, then grudging allies. And… I don't know, I don't want that newfound trust to die because her boyfriend's a murderous ass."

Riku let out a sharp bark of laughter, before remembering Falcon waited past the door's barrier and calming down. A grin twitched across the redhead's face.

It was a testament to how good the break in anxiety felt, that she didn't look the least bit uncomfortable at Xehanort's face showing amusement.

He turned back to the door and placed his hand back on the knob. "We're going in, then?"

Char angled her head sardonically to the side at him. "No, actually, we're gonna sleep outside and hope the machine falls out of a tree into our laps."

Riku smiled and shook his head. "The sarcasm is not appreciated."

"Noted."

With that, with that one last bantering comment ringing out, he opened the door and stepped inside.

Only when disappointment twisted the corner of his mouth did he realize that before he'd even opened the door, he had readied himself to spot Falcon right away. At least then, he reasoned to himself, he could gauge her reaction immediately and know that his friend hadn't…

Then he paused in his mental tracks, because he didn't really know what exactly he had anticipated her to do. From what Char had told him, Falcon's admission to Copperhead's little transgression had been wrought with tears and desperation.

However, Riku did know her well enough to understand the intensity of that desperation. She could only dam up so much latent frustration behind her self-imposed walls, the walls that her best friend's betrayal had served to build. A year and a half's worth of loneliness and horrified curiosity and hollow apathy would have to have left her full.

_And today, that all spilled over._

His eyes swept over the floor, and suddenly he found himself grinding his teeth together and repressing thoughts and theories of his own. Only the light of the lamp sitting next to the couch lit the room; should have cast the ridges of every waiting gauze roll and bathed the boxes of bandages in its yellow light. But the floor was clear.

Somehow, even the absence of the very little mess Falcon could accumulate cut Riku to the core.

He looked at Char. She was eyeing the living room with a furrowed brow and narrowed eyes, leaning back slightly on one leg. Despite the situation, he couldn't help noticing she almost seemed like she was trying to keep her weight off the other leg. The position looked familiar; after a moment's digging, he realized she had done much the same thing when they had left Falcon's house to find Copperhead a few days before.

She didn't look near as pained as she had before, though. So that eliminated the possibility of that Xemnas lookalike having hurt her leg.

Riku shook the newborn interest out of his mind – along with the migraine inherent in Copperhead knowing the real Xemnas – just as Char noticed his eyes on her and faced him. "You don't think…?" she began, only to decide she couldn't finish.

"I'm in here."

Very few things had startled Riku in a while, to the point where the last time he'd been surprised wavered hazily in his memory. Last time, though, Falcon had caused it. A few weeks or so after he had sent Char off, after he'd unwillingly set her emotional compass into the magnetic field known as Sora's influence, he had gotten bored with the virtual Twilight Town. With both Namine and Char gone, both because of him, he had no one to talk to.

He had stopped by the Shadowed Desert to see if Falcon had a new bounty. If he didn't flex his fighting muscles soon, he knew he would eventually collapse into a puddle of pure boredom. _It's possible!_ he remembered arguing with himself.

Just as he had arrived in the town square, he had collided with something much shorter. Because of its dark color, he had nearly summoned the Soul Eater, only to relax when he saw Falcon had just walked into him. Her snickering at the obvious indignation on his face had escalated into full-on laughter as she had realized what had happened.

Now, a week later, she caused the jolt in his spine and the near-whiplash of turning his head toward her presence again. Except this time, no laughter marked her; her voice sounded thin and exhausted, as if she hadn't used it in a while.

With a deep breath, Riku strode in the direction of her voice. He was aware of the pause before another set of footsteps sounded unevenly alongside his; in the half-darkness, he could almost delude himself into predicting Char's tread – _thump thump, _sounded his, and then the _thud thud_ of hers – but like before, her footsteps sounded arrhythmic even against the backdrop of his.

His feet were taking him in a direction he had never taken in Falcon's house before: the hallway leading to the stairs was familiar to him, but he had never gone into the room from which he traced Falcon's voice. On the very first night that he and Char had stayed here, right after Char had dragged her bitter, angry body upstairs, Falcon had told him quite firmly that this particular room was forbidden.

Back then, he had reluctantly accepted that stipulation. But now she was allowing them inside. Like the lack of medicinal supplies scattered about, this change unsettled Riku.

Nonetheless, his concern for his friend overrode any discomfort. So, without even turning around to ensure he wasn't alone in his anxiety, he pushed the already-ajar door open.

For something Falcon had emphasized as being so special, the room was not very large or extravagant. It contained a bed, a dresser against the opposite wall, and a lamp from which light emanated. None of these drew Riku's attention as much as the shape sitting on the bed, the girl whose form the lamplight outlined in a sickly, despondent yellow.

Falcon's back was to them, and she sat slightly hunched over. That ill yellow in the lamplight almost seeped into her; it created a haze about her that Riku almost feared he couldn't break.

_If it wasn't for Kairi,_ he thought, _maybe I could have liked you back. If you didn't have all your baggage –_

Almost without knowing, he lifted one hand, curled it into a fist, and knocked on the doorframe. Gently. Once, twice, three times, to tell Falcon of his presence.

Her shoulders twitched, then that same stillness settled its heavy shawl on her again. A moment's silence, then, "So he told you?"

The words should have sounded defiant. Angry. To Riku, though, the question sounded listless.

Char ended up answering, after looking over at him and realizing he wasn't going to make things easier. She took a deep breath and confirmed it. "Yeah. He did."

The silence that followed could have throttled a Behemoth.

So long did it take Falcon to respond that Riku almost thought he would have to reach forward and shake her. The lamplight sent dozens of tiny daggers into his eyes, which had grown used to the near-darkness setting outside, and her reticence gave his worry enough time to obtain a desperate edge. He wanted to tell her not to give up now, that they still had a job to do and a mission to carry out.

He risked a glance over at Char. To her credit, once she noticed someone else looking at her, she stopped tapping her finger against one folded arm, calming the show of impatience. That, more than anything, reminded him of how much she had changed: the Char he had first met would have increased the rhythm of her annoyed tapping just to spite both of them.

Finally, a ragged sigh floated up from Falcon's direction and she turned her head toward them. Even in the faint yellow light against her back, Riku could see the marks on her cheeks and the prominence of red veins in one dry eye.

"Well," she said, voice shaking a little. "Is he still going to help us?"

Riku tensed at how quickly she had cut to the true question. The first one Char had asked after Copperhead had finished his story. Blunt and awkwardly placed as it was, she had ended up speaking when Riku's semblance of tact had left him mute.

Copperhead had taken a couple of moments to respond. Recounting his story, reliving the sins of his past in every word, had added an emotional tiredness to his physical one, and it showed in his face.

_I need some time to think,_ he had admitted at last. _Give me till tomorrow. If I know Falcon… she'll _really_ never want to see me again after knowing that you guys know._

"He's not sure," Char said, tentatively. "He's supposed to tell us tomorrow morning if he'll still help out." Falcon's quiet calmness balanced on the tip of a needle; any time, that needle could overbalance and make her as frenzied as when Copperhead had dragged her out of the tunnels.

Apparently, Falcon had wanted to die. Char had told Riku that much on the walk back here. Neither he nor Char could imagine that kind of pure emptiness – giving up, throwing everything away and not fighting with every last drop of blood to keep it.

A multitude of emotions crossed Falcon's face then, just like it had when Riku had told her just who would be helping them find the machine. Fury, desperation, fervent hope that he would leave her alone for good: all warred and clashed and tripped over themselves in the set of her jaw before finally acceptance stepped out of the wreckage.

"All right," she murmured. "I… I think I can deal with that."

"Good." Char sounded relieved. After a moment's hesitation, she reached forward and awkwardly patted the older girl's shoulder. Falcon twitched under the touch at first, but then seemed to calm down; Riku thought he heard a tiny sigh come from her.

"Are you gonna sleep in here tonight?" The question escaped him before he could rein it back in. Admittedly, his decision to speak up surprised even him, but he managed to keep his face relatively neutral.

"Maybe." A glimmer of the old emotions that his presence unearthed from some buried part of her sent a final blade into his exhausted eyes. He fought back a sigh. _Sorry, Fal._

Before he could speak – to say what, he wondered suddenly, fiercely; give some paltry reassurance about how everything would be okay? – Falcon beat him to it. "This was my parents' room."

His amber eyes widened. That explained her refusal to allow anyone else in here, at least.

Now that she had mentioned it, he could see that this room's original owners had been obvious the whole time. A movement on the dresser drew his eye to dust tumbling on its surface, but he could still detect something about this room that was so distinctively that of a _grown-up. _The bed had been meticulously arranged, with only its distraught burden wrinkling the comforter; the floor was the ridiculous clean that only Riku's father had ever demanded from his son.

"I haven't been in here since…" Falcon stopped, then shook her head and continued fairly smoothly. "After today, though, I wanted to see if anything had changed."

_Of course it didn't,_ Riku thought. From the expression on Char's face, she was thinking the exact same thing.

"Anyway," Falcon suddenly said, "it's late. You guys should try and get some sleep." When her abrupt brusqueness made both dark boy and seventh apprentice appraise her bemusedly, she rolled her eyes. "The machine isn't gonna find itself tomorrow."

"Falcon," Char began.

"Are you going to be okay?" Riku asked.

She didn't respond – verbally, at least. She did gaze down at the ground, fingers knotting in the covers. If her mother had spent the morning of her final day fixing the covers, her daughter had destroyed her efforts.

Something tugged on his sleeve, fingers clumsily seizing around the leather. Riku looked down to see Char giving him an insistent stare. "Let's go," she mouthed.

He couldn't help glancing over his shoulder more than once.

* * *

Never before had a couch felt so uncomfortable.

Riku shifted uneasily on his makeshift bed. The soft surface rubbed against his cheek and bare arms; he had cast off the heavy Organization coat not an hour earlier, as he had every night before now. It wasn't so much because of the extra body heat it trapped, but the evenings since he had taken Xehanort's form contained many times when his longer limbs had tangled up in the hem. So it hung, innocuous as any other coat when empty of its burden, on the coat hanger atop the door.

Riku found himself glaring at the vague dark shape, which barely distinguished itself from the nighttime shadows. Not an hour before, he had turned off the lamp and settled in for the night, fully intending to let exhaustion overtake him and offer at least a temporary reprieve from the events of today. A good night's sleep almost never eradicated the problem – really, Copperhead's transgressions and Falcon's brokenness would feel more raw and jagged than they had today – but at least he wanted a break.

Which, of course, he couldn't even have.

He curled tighter in on himself, a sleeping position he loathed, but that his increased height forced him to adopt. The black, sleeveless top he wore beneath his coat lifted up as he did so, and he fought back a growl as he forced it back down. Ordinarily, when the hair spreading out over the bare part of his shoulder blades was tinted silver and the glare he sent at the wall again was more like the sea than fire, Riku would have spread his body out over the couch. Would have let his feet dangle over the edge.

He didn't think he had slept like that since the day he had first left Destiny Island.

Riku stifled a sigh. This was why he hated insomnia; the past crept up much more easily on him, dragged as light and taunting a talon down his face as Maleficent's nails ever had, in this darkness. Nonetheless, the worry and desperation and latent pain all came oozing back, as deadly in nature as any deep wound.

Sora could forgive him for what he'd done. That had always amazed Riku about his best friend – hell, about Kairi, too, if he was being honest: their capacity to forgive and accept others. He had always envied that in the both of them: that light and optimism from which his darkness and realism could only cower away and with which they could only hope to find tandem.

Sora and Kairi could forgive him. The question remained as to whether Riku could forgive himself.

He knew the current answer. It was why he had rescued Falcon, that first day he had opened up a dark portal with no damn clue where to go except just how bored he was without Char. That day he had stepped into the forest with the worlds and his friends heavy on his mind, with the knowledge of how he had sent not only Sora, but Char away.

_You never sent them away, though. They went willingly, remember? Sora took the Keyblade where your pride couldn't. Took up the burden your darkness wouldn't let you take up. And Char agreed to go with Sora._

Repelling his friends notwithstanding… Riku tucked himself a little tighter into the couch's confines. It made him feel a little like a can of sardines. The comparison almost coaxed a chuckle out of him, before he remembered Char and Falcon had gone to sleep a while ago.

"Psst."

Well… at least one of them had.

Riku twitched. All at once, every reason as to why sleep eluded either girl rushed into his mind: Falcon knew they knew her secret; Char was worried for Falcon; Falcon had spent all day being emotionally exhausted; Char was more physically exhausted than anything else.

And for a moment, he considered closing his eyes and pretending that the very repose he sought did, in fact, control his every move.

_Who the hell am I kidding?_

"Quit pretending to be asleep. I know you're not."

That cemented his companion's identity as Char's.

He sat up and barely avoided clipping the couch's armrests with his feet as he swung his legs down. She stood in front of him, outline visible only by virtue of a shadowy break in the murky darkness.

Memories of nights like this flashed through his mind: except in those days, he'd been staying with her, Ansem, and Namine in Twilight Town, and the surface beneath his splayed palms had felt softer in his smaller grasp.

Because of those mental images, he found himself rigid with uncertainty; and because of those mental images, his mind put a grudgingly fearful expression on her face even though he could barely see it. As many days had passed since she had come in search of comfort, he grappled between his desire to just sleep tonight and the need to shoulder this burden of worry with someone else.

In the end, the latter won out, but not because of him. It was because Char's hand gestured to the other side of the couch. "Do you mind if I sit?"

He guessed she was remembering those same nights in Twilight Town, from the meticulous wording and her words not trailing off. After all, her heart pointed her toward one boy – man – alone; she couldn't afford to throw any double meanings around with Riku.

Dutifully, he scooted over to the very edge of the couch. She could definitely see that drastic movement, because she trotted over and sat down. In the vague half-darkness, he saw her fingers tapping against her legs and the way she stared down at the ground, as if she had something to say.

"You couldn't sleep either, huh?" he asked, as much in an effort to draw out her pensiveness' source as to soothe his own.

One bare shoulder raised and lowered. She'd probably taken her jacket off for the same reason he had, yet when she finally raised her head to properly talk to him her voice sounded accusing. "You're not wearing the coat."

"What, a guy can't _not_ look like the biggest assholes in the worlds when he sleeps?" Riku asked, quirking a playful eyebrow before remembering she probably couldn't see it. He did, however, hear a muffled snicker from her direction and knew his joking hadn't gone totally lost on her. "It just gets hot when I sleep, is all. Anyway, you're avoiding the question."

Char shrugged again, head turning to look at the wall. He caught a muttered "and you don't?" and narrowed his eyes.

Then she spoke. "I was just worried about Falcon."

_Oh._ It was almost shameful, how quickly Riku relaxed when he heard that. As one of the firsthand witnesses to how horribly Char's nightmares could affect her, he had assumed the worst when she had come downstairs to talk to him.

Unfortunately, her confession rerouted the course of his concern, away from one of his closest friends and to the girl who had felt far too jagged and broken to ever truly touch. Char had been like that, too, though; the realization slammed into him, and for the first time he thought Char's similarity to Falcon had some truth to it.

_Sora fixed her, though. That much is obvious._

_ Fixed._ Such a simple word. If only things were ever that easy.

"Me, too," he said to Char, before he could start blaming himself for Falcon's current condition. "And…"

He hesitated, before wondering with a sudden fierceness why he was. After all, he had longed so much to remove the one obstacle between him and a good night's sleep; and admitting to his worries was the first step to that.

"I was thinking about the past." _Well,_ he assured himself, _you didn't _completely_ sound like you didn't want to say that._

Char's entire body straightened, before her shoulders shook in a bitter laugh. Riku blinked. "What?"

"Do we share a hive mind, or something?" she queried almost derisively. "Because I was, too. Not the _past _past," she added, "not like with the other apprentices and all. But… with Sora."

Her voice struggled over that final name, as it had multiple times in the last few days. Now, though, Riku found himself honestly examining the inflection in that struggle. It held multiple emotions, balanced precariously in the two syllables that symbolized the boy who held life and light in the exact same way: like a leaf filled with water, ready to spill at any minute. Fear and nostalgia and longing warred in Sora's name.

Really, they were much the same emotions that Riku's thoughts of his best friend contained.

"I know we're on a mission." Char misinterpreted his silence as a scornful one. "But I'm allowed to miss him, right? Gods help me," she chuckled in a self-deprecating way, "I even miss Donald and Goofy. Little stupid angry duck. And Goofy was always trying to psychoanalyze me. Which you wouldn't think, right, because he doesn't even know how to use the words 'is not' properly? But the goofball's got some intelligence in that silly head of his."

Once she had started about Sora's two allies, her voice sounded almost uncontrollable, as if the one fragment of resolve she had wedged between her rationale and the raw feeling of _missing_ someone had dislodged somehow. Riku let her talk, not interrupting. Embarrassingly, he thought of the first time since their initial separation that he had met up with Sora again.

In Traverse Town, he had watched Donald argue with Sora about how they couldn't take Riku with them to look for Kairi. Goofy hadn't even intervened, just watched uncertainly. His head had swung from one speaker to the next, almost like he was watching a tennis match. And a sudden, irrational tongue of fiery anger had swept across his heart.

_Who are they,_ he had thought furiously,_ to say whether I should have a hand in finding her again?_

Spurred by that anger, he had darted into the nearest alley instead of waiting to hear the argument's end. Maleficent had been waiting there and had readily agreed to take him back.

Now, a year and a half later, Riku thought of Donald and Goofy and what Char was saying about them. He'd known he was wrong for a while now, but her comments almost reinforced it.

"And Sora!" Her ensuing laugh stifled itself halfway through, as though she had just remembered Falcon slept one room over. At least, Riku wanted to think the dark-haired girl had found that reprieve from her grief and sorrow. _That, or she was too emotionally exhausted to stay awake._

Somehow, the second option seemed much worse.

"He didn't know where to draw the line," Char continued, voice growing into more and more of a fierce whisper. "Kept trying to get secrets out of me and be nice to me. _Nice!_ Even though I didn't deserve it! And I tried to stay unbiased, I tried to keep an eye on that light at the end of the tunnel, but he just kept worming his way past my defenses and I didn't even realize he was doing it until –"

At that point, she seemed to notice the very revealing direction her confession was taking and her jaw snapped shut.

"Until you realized you liked him?" Riku prompted. Surprisingly, the neutrality to his query was genuine. Hey – it hadn't taken very long for him to get used to Sora and Char liking each other. That was progress.

Char twitched visibly. "Yeah." Apparently _like_ wasn't the word she had used.

He must have unconsciously spoken the thought aloud, because the next moment she swung her head defiantly toward him. "So? When did you realize you loved Kairi?"

Riku raised one eyebrow. _That_ had come out of nowhere.

When his initial bemusement faded, embarrassment immediately replaced it. Because, like Char, the day he had first put a name to his feelings for Kairi, that name had also rhymed a lot with _dove._

He had had the stupid idea of making a bonfire on the play island beach. Sora and Kairi had agreed readily enough, the latter of which had made him warm and tingly and made the carbonation in his belly fizz even higher. And then Sora had inhaled too much smoke and Kairi had yelled at Riku for it. He had laughed at her rage in order to hide his discomfort at how accursedly _cute_ he had thought she was.

That was when, at the tender age of thirteen, he had thought _I think I love her._

Some amount of shame must have shown in his stance. Char folded her arms and sat back. "That's what I thought."

Her smugness made him angle his head down expectantly at her. "I told you my story. You owe me."

He found her entire body slumping as the smugness left her way too satisfying.

"No," she said, "I really don't."

"Come on," he sang, leaning toward her with his hands on his knees. "When did you realize you loved Sora?" Again, the statement of what exactly Sora meant to hear flowed forth a little too easily for the day or so since he had first heard it.

Char huffed, folding her arms in surrender. "We were in the Pride Lands. Donald's staff messed up – well, actually, his old one broke in Agrabah so he had to steal one off a Heartless. It was a miracle it even sent us down to the worlds in one piece. But, um…" She paused.

"If you're too embarrassed to say, just tell me," Riku said, prodding her side.

"It's not that!" she barked back, before covering her mouth. Recovering herself, she sighed and continued. "His staff ended up splitting Roxas from Sora."

Riku's eyes widened. Well… that put a spin on things. "So…?"

"So Sora knew about Roxas' existence. We just had an extra yellow lion following us in that world. And…" Char's head angled down to the ground again. "I may or may not have told him he had a Nobody."

"What?" was all Riku could manage. This conversation had taken a completely different turn.

"Hey, I was telling a story, remember?" Char hedged. Riku set his jaw, considered pursuing this topic further. Maybe the exhaustion was talking, but he ended up relenting.

Visibly relieved, Char went on. "Anyway, so Roxas was there. He kept poking at me… saying how I knew Sora felt the same way about me I did about him. Naturally, I denied it. And then it just sort of hit me."

Riku sat back, folded his arms. Thought on the things it had taken for the both of them, normally so emotionally taciturn but for their bursts of fire, to admit what they felt. A bonfire, a Nobody, endless poking and prodding from their friends.

"Geez," he muttered. "We're a pair, aren't we?"

Char laughed at the self-deprecation in his words, but her voice shook a bit. For that, Riku found his arm snaking around her shoulders and pulling her close, just like he had at the mayor's party last night.

And just like before, Char stiffened briefly before relaxing and resting her head against his bicep, the closest she could get to his shoulder.

They sat there in silence a few moments longer, sides flush together and gazing out into the shadows. Riku, who sat closest to the hallway leading to where Falcon slept, kept his eye on that hallway. Gods only knew with his luck, Falcon would come shuffling out into the living room to find the source of the noise.

He wasn't blind. He knew that bringing Char here had only driven a stake into his budding friendship with Falcon. With how she felt about him, and how long it had taken for him to overcome her lack of trust, Char's extra catalyst had only pulled Falcon's walls back up again.

At that moment, he felt the shaky breaths dragging themselves out against his chest gain a vibration. He swore he was imagining it, until it resounded again, this time with a distinct slant of pain to it.

"You okay?" he asked Char.

She tensed up. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just… my leg got hurt today."

Riku narrowed his eyes, easily detecting the lie. "And you hurt it two days ago, too?" When he earned no verbal response, he went on almost belligerently. "What happened?"

Her eyelashes lowered against his bare arm as she furrowed her brow. "Nothing. The first time I saved Sora's stupid ass coming back to bite mine, I guess."

_The first time?_

It was Riku's turn to look away. For some reason, the Organization jacket hanging on the door caught his eye. Char had fought at first for revenge against the Organization, and then, as time went on, Sora's motivation had become her own. They had twined so easily together even without a paopu fruit to aid them.

And he had torn her away from that because of the old man's orders.

Maybe it was one final surge of anger at Ansem's lack of foresight. Maybe it was one last need to redeem one of the many ways in which Riku had screwed up in the last year.

But he heard himself speak.

"I think… tomorrow, I'll take you back to Sora."

Char's response was instantaneous: her entire body perked up, and she leaned back in the confines of his one-armed hold. "What?" she whispered, disbelieving.

"I said, I'll take you back," Riku repeated, the burden in his chest suddenly much less heavy. "I shouldn't have dragged you off in the first place. Unless you want to stay and help me."

The last part came only partly out of his sense of duty: he knew more than anything how terrifying love could be, even if it was reciprocated. _Especially_ if it was reciprocated.

But Char shook her head. "No. Even without the whole 'love' thing," Riku's lips curved up in tandem with her own smile forming against his arm, "I made you a promise, remember? That I'd stick with Sora until the end."

Oh yeah, Riku remembered belatedly; she had said that.

Her tone reminded him so much of her old self, the one he had grown to care for over the year they had spent in Twilight Town waiting for his best friend to rise from the ashes of his sleep. Faced with that final kernel of what he knew as truth – that final kernel of _her,_ the core of her that could never disappear – he found himself clutching her closer.

It only took a few moments for both of them to succumb to fatigue and the relief of their hearts lightening.

* * *

I can just hear you all going "FINALLY!"

Funnily enough, when I wrote the line "But he heard himself speak," the song "Miracles Happen" from The Princess Diaries soundtrack came on my iPod. Fitting, right? XD


	77. Chapter LXXVII

Chapter 77, guys! The first thing you might notice is it's a LOT shorter than my other chapters. This is because of a few things. One, because I'm an evil sadistic bitch and felt like ending it where I did; and two, because I had to get this chapter done before Thursday. On Thursday I'm going on vacation and won't have internet while I'm there. And I start working full-time when I get back. Hence - the shorter update.

And besides... I had to at least get them back together in this chapter. ;)

Enjoy. As I know you will.

* * *

Sora dragged himself out of his room only because of the tantalizing smell of bacon teasing his senses. Not an hour before he'd woken up feeling distinctively like a Heartless had formed behind his eyes for the express purpose of trying to claw them out. Naturally, he had cast a healing spell on himself first, but the magic was still tangling with the Heartless in his skull and so had done little more than dull some of the pain from yesterday's wounds.

As it turned out, thinking about yesterday proved an immense mistake. Every step he took down the hall toward the Gummi ship's main room marked a renewal in his headache. In spite of that, he found himself mentally sweeping over everything that had happened: maybe-Riku's appearance; stopping Jafar; finding Axel; grappling with Roxas' presence about what to feel toward the pyro…

Above all, though, the memory of Axel telling them to go Twilight Town floated up and drove the dullest spike of all into his skull.

_Twilight Town,_ Sora told himself wearily, before he could wonder why exactly Axel had picked now to give them some sort of hint. Before he could wonder why, exactly, the light at the end of the tunnel remained fuzzy and dim when it should have almost blinded him with hope.

Because he knew why. It was because even if he found Riku and Kairi, one more friend would still remain lost to him.

And yet even though frustration gave his headache an extra pang, he couldn't curse Char for causing it. Partly because of his feelings for her, and partly because his migraine would get so much worse.

He felt a rueful smile twitch at his cheeks. Before meeting her, he would have narrowed his focus to the light at the end of the tunnel and thought only of what it would feel like to see Riku and Kairi again. Of the sensations of his island he could only just remember, like the sand under his toes or salt sticking to his skin.

One final step brought him to the main room. True to his senses, the scent of cooking bacon emanated strongly, but another smell became clear as well. A plate of biscuits lay on the table. Donald sat in the chair already, one feathered hand already reaching for a biscuit, while Goofy was stooped over the pan on the sizzling stove.

Watching the two of them, true to their respective impatience and domesticity, Sora felt his breath stutter on the way out of his lungs. He'd gotten so close to losing them yesterday that just the notion of acting like they hadn't almost died seemed strange.

His hunger chose that moment to intervene before he could get too sentimental. Reminded of why he had crawled out of bed in the first place, Sora moved to sit down next to Donald.

"Morning, Sora," Donald greeted him. "I guess you smelled the food cooking, huh?"

At Sora's nod, the duck went on with a wry smirk. "Goofy thought it would get you out of bed. Guess he was right after all."

The smile twitching at Sora's own lips fell away in favor of mild indignation. "Goofy!" he protested. In response, the lanky shape hunched over the stove tensed sheepishly.

Once Goofy had finished the second half of their breakfast, the trio gathered at the table and ate. Only when the hunger in his belly faded slightly did Sora surface from his food long enough to take in the empty chair, where Char would sit and comment on their bottomless stomachs. His chewing the bite of biscuit he had just taken grew slightly lax in its assault as he looked at the Char-shaped vacancy.

Over the last few days, he had never really registered her absence like this before, even though the lack of female commentary, the dry remarks that took up residence in his thoughts instead, had been palpable. What with Sora hastening his search for his friends, though, the group hadn't had much of a chance to calm down long enough for an actual meal.

He glanced over at the plate of food on the table. Goofy was reaching forward for another piece of bacon and didn't seem to notice his leader's turmoil, so caught up was he in his meal. Sora found himself a little glad for that; gods only knew how much he had worried the two of them right after Char had gone missing. Just remembering his limp resolve and half-hearted battles made him flinch inwardly.

"You didn't put as much food as usual," he remarked before he could stop himself.

Goofy swallowed his mouthful and spoke. Sora's comment had sounded almost accusatory, but the knight's response sounded calm. "Well, since Char ain't here, I just put enough for the three of us." He shrugged, though he didn't meet Sora's eyes as he did so.

For once, Donald was the one glancing from one ally to the other, eyes huge with uncertainty. "Sora," he began.

"Guys, you gotta see this!"

The voice, hoarse and eager, floated up from the Gummi ship's console. Startled, Donald almost jolted off his chair, but managed to grab the table's edge to keep from completing a humiliating journey to the floor. "What is it?" he demanded.

"Just come look," the same chipmunk – Dale, judging by his raspy timbre – urged.

"It's something you'll wanna see," Chip added, just as enthusiastically as his fellow copilot.

_Something you'll want to see… _For a moment, hope stirred anew in Sora's heart; the last time Chip and Dale had called the trio over, a faint signal had thrummed at the very edges of the ship's detection system, and he'd thought it was the Organization's world beginning to appear at last. It was a long shot, but maybe that signal had swum from the edges into full visibility.

Maybe they wouldn't need Axel's hint after all.

He stood, almost shoving his chair to the floor in his haste to reach the console and look at the map. A couple of strides brought him over to peer at the screen. Behind him, Donald and Goofy followed less eagerly; the duck leaped up onto the pilot's seat so his height wouldn't hinder him, while the dog looked in on Sora's other side.

As his gaze swept over the globe-like renditions of the worlds, he tapped his fingers uneasily against where the console sloped down into the screen. At first the map seemed just as frustratingly still as ever, from Port Royal's pirate ship to the austere towers in Beast's miniature castle. Nothing had changed much from the last time Sora had seen it, except the undulating, translucent green waves of the entity Chip and Dale had picked up. The maybe-Organization's world.

Then another flurry of movement caught Sora's eye, and he found its source at the castle packed within Hollow Bastion's globe.

"It's… sparking?" Donald spoke the Keybearer's confused thoughts.

"It's not covered in darkness like last time," Chip said, "but maybe it could be some kinda clue?"

Sora cocked his head to the side and leaned away from the console. "But Axel told us to go to Twilight Town."

"Axel?" Dale blinked. "Isn't that one of those Organization fellas?"

Before Sora could even begin to wonder why the chipmunks knew Axel's identity, an audible gulp was heard from next to him. "I told 'em what happened," Goofy explained, a little shamefully. "Right after you went to bed, Sora."

"Oh," was all he could say. They _had_ gotten back to the Gummi ship late last night; Sora couldn't remember the exact time, even though he had glanced at the clock after Donald's magic had rearranged his cells into something less feline. The clock's arrows had wavered blearily in his exhausted vision, and soreness had plagued his entire body, so he had opted to use his last bit of mental energy on dragging himself to bed. It had never occurred to him that Donald and Goofy hadn't done the same thing.

_Then again, after yesterday, I shouldn't have been able to sleep either._

"Anyway, why should you trust a guy like that?" Dale went on. He was clearly attempting to steer the conversation in a way that would renew Sora's determination, but he was much clumsier at that than steering a ship. His bright red nose wrinkled in distaste and he put his tiny paws on his hips. "He's one of those Nobodies!"

"He might just be luring you into a trap," Chip added, dark eyes were huge with concern.

Sora sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I thought about that a lot yesterday," he admitted. "But… I don't know why he would lie to us at this point."

On either side of him, Donald and Goofy exchanged glances. Their doubts connected and clashed over the console, but Sora thought he knew their source. He narrowed his eyes, fingers curling into a fist; it wasn't Roxas that made him… not so much _trust_ Axel, as believe in him.

Or want to.

"Either way, we can't just let Hollow Bastion sit like this." Donald gestured at the screen, which was bright with neon blue fireworks streaming into the green backdrop.

_Neon blue._ Why did that color make something inside him twitch?

He shook the feeling away, trying to ignore the distinct sensation crawling along his spine, and nodded. "We can at least ask Leon about what's been going on."

* * *

Char had never been so aware of how much she hated the word _goodbye_ until she was faced, alone, with the finality it held.

When she had traveled with Sora, some sort of emotional block had always lingered in the back of her mind. The knowledge that these people regarded Sora as more of a friend than her had diffused any sort of wistfulness she might have felt at leaving them behind. Now, though, she faced Falcon and Copperhead in front of the former's home.

Somewhere between talking with Riku about the past and waking up the next day, Riku had disentangled himself from her and pulled Copperhead out of bed to meet them here. It had proven a terrible decision in the end, as Falcon and Copperhead were trying even harder not to accidentally graze the other both physically and visually. After Copperhead's story, he was the last person Char wanted to offer a sense of closure to; not even the idiotic nickname and attempts to flirt incensed her as much as what he had done to Falcon.

When she had voiced her objections to Riku, though, he had patiently reminded her that Copperhead had yet to tell them whether he would still help find the machine. Even now, a few minutes after the fact, Char felt embarrassment ripple along her spine at having so easily forgotten one of the things that had held sleep teasingly out of reach.

Apparently, that same insomnia had applied to Copperhead as well. The confidence that bordered on arrogance had vanished, pulling his chin farther away from the sky than normal, and the scythe strapped to his back seemed to have a curving effect on his spine. Even the gaze he fixed on Char was bereft of curiosity: just a dull, near-nonexistent desire to hear what she had to say.

She angled her head to glance over at Riku, who stood just slightly behind her. Even with her head tilted back to properly appraise him, she could see he was watching the other member of their audience.

For once, Falcon wasn't watching him back.

Char drew herself up after a moment of waiting for someone to speak. It only made sense that she had to shatter the silence, since she was bidding farewell to everyone here. Still, she found herself resenting Riku's unwillingness to make this easier on her.

_Maybe he's just trying to piss me off one last time. _Rueful wryness accentuated the thought and pushed aside the petulant annoyance.

"So," she said in an attempt at brusqueness. "Riku and I were talking last night, and…" It occurred to her then, abruptly, that she hadn't the slightest clue how to phrase her return to Sora. _I'm leaving? Leaving the machine to him?_

_ He's taking me home?_

The last one seemed the most fitting, a fact that made the rational part of her cringe and writhe out of embarrassment for her emotional side.

Fortunately, Riku chose that moment to intervene. "She has somewhere else to be," he explained. A weight descended lightly on one shoulder, its physicality replacing the metaphorical one that Riku had just lifted. Char prayed that the fingertips grazing her collarbone couldn't feel her shoulders twitching in a muffled sigh of relief.

"What he said," she added, nodding in his direction.

"I thought she had to be here to help find the machine," Falcon said. Char blinked; out of the two world natives, she had expected Copperhead to be the one who spoke up. Admittedly, Falcon's unspoken query resonated with feigned, dutiful curiosity, with an undercurrent of muted defiance.

Riku sighed, his hand slipping off Char's shoulder. The redhead maintained steady eye contact with Falcon, even though she knew all too well that her emotions were justified. "I did too, at first. But we're in the exact same situation we would've been if I hadn't dragged her out here."

He trailed off then, and Char heard a frustrated breath puff out just over her head. Even after the month-long separation, stretching in a Sora-shaped chasm between what they thought they knew of each other, her memory placed earlier occurrences of that sound immediately. She had heard it on the days she found him standing in front of Sora's pod, watching his best friend sleep so dreamlessly and blissfully; she had heard it in the World That Never Was, right after Xehanort's Heartless had replaced the boy she knew; she had heard it when Ansem, wrapped in a disguise as well, had laughed and denounced Roxas' eventual disappearance as a Nobody's sole fate.

She heard it when the situation lay far beyond Riku's knowledge and composure, when he had no idea what to say or do next.

Because of that, when she took it upon herself to control the conversation again, much less reluctance marked the action than before.

"Let's just say I have someone who needs me," she said. "And who I need right back."

Falcon didn't look satisfied with that response, but to her credit she didn't pry into it. She just let her hand flutter down limply at her side and stared down at the ground, as though finding days when she had thought the same way in the grass beneath her feet.

As though the desire to speak had left Falcon and seeped into Copperhead, the latter sighed aloud, and Char almost jumped. Only when the initial surprise faded did she realize just how resigned that one raspy breath sounded.

It sounded like he knew duty should pull him forward, and selfishness shouldn't tug him back as it had when Xemnas had first offered to help bring Dyme – Demyx – back. She suppressed the small shiver at how Demyx's Other factored into all of this; somehow, she had found taking down the Organization much easier when she could see them as the mindless demons who had dragged her away from home.

_It was easier when things were as black and white as our revenge. When I could still think of what Master's doing as _our_ problem, instead of just his._

Copperhead folded his arms and looked at her and Riku. Surprisingly, he maintained eye contact rather well; despite the utter defeat lingering on his face, Char swore she saw a flicker of his old confidence there as well.

Consequently, she knew what he had decided to do.

"Well, since Blaze is leaving, I figure I might as well say this now," he said. Char narrowed her eyes sharply at his words; for some reason, she found herself bristling in anticipation of one last attempt from him to flirt.

However, he ignored her budding hostility and continued. "I'm gonna keep helping Riku and Falcon," he announced.

Char's eyes widened. _Why are you so surprised?_ she scolded herself. _You knew he would keep helping._

Nonetheless, she felt relief, warm and all-encompassing, spread through her body, a feeling that intensified at his next words. "I figure if I've dragged myself into this, I might as well stick with it to the end."

His explanation stirred something inside her, reached past the serenity of knowing someone could make up for her absence and dragged gentle fingers across a chord inside her heart. It took a few seconds to find the reason why, and when she did, she had to hold back a small, surprised sound.

Because what he said sounded disturbingly similar to what she had told Riku regarding Sora last night.

Beside Copperhead, Falcon had gone rigid. The set of her jaw suggested she was chewing viciously at the inside of her cheek. Char braced herself for an argument against Copperhead's decision, but surprisingly, the dark-haired girl remained silent.

She forced her gaze back to the man, who was eyeing her with a mixture of resolve and hesitation. Like a child waiting for his mother to confirm he could do something. The sight made contempt twitch inside her, before the Sora in her heart put it to rest.

In his own way, Copperhead was trying to give her a sense of closure.

For that, she stepped forward and extended her hand. "Thanks, Copperhead," she said with a smile. "Good to know someone will be taking up the slack while I'm gone."

She forced herself to ignore the twitching shape at the corner of her eye and instead focused on him. It was almost disgusting, how much concern she felt for these two people she had barely known for four days.

At this point, though, maybe only part of that was because of Sora. _You can't blame every burst of softness you have on him,_ she thought, realizing it for the first time.

Copperhead appraised the hand she had offered to him, one eyebrow slightly raised over a violet eye. Char rolled her eyes. "It's a handshake." She couldn't resist adding, "Did you expect a hug?"

"Well, since you're offering…" At her blank stare, his lips perked in a genuine grin. The mask had broken, and it looked like he wasn't going to don it again anytime soon. "I'm just kidding," he laughed, proffering a gloved hand and placing it in hers.

His laughter wasn't a bad sound, she thought to herself.

"Don't even try it, Copperhead," Riku sighed. Throughout the last few minutes, he'd just looked on silently, and so when he relinquished that quietness, Char had to look over at him. He looked like he was trying not to let a smile get the best of him: a sight that, on Xehanort's face, should have rattled her, since a grin from her former fellow apprentice normally set along the contours of a smirk. Now, though, after four days, her mind had finally strung Riku's appearance apart from the boy she had known.

Really, then, it almost hurt that she was leaving him until Sora found him again.

Almost.

_I thought you were done fooling yourself._

Shaking the dull ache away, she looked back to Copperhead and lowered her hand. "Just work hard, all right?"

He must have caught up on the briskness in her voice, because he drew himself up and pumped a fist. "Definitely! I am a machine-finding… um… machine!"

Char rolled her eyes at his clumsy enthusiasm. "I'll hold you to that. You know Riku will tell me if you don't pull your own weight."

"It's true," Riku piped up. He sounded teasing enough, but the look he tossed at her had slight dread in it. Gods only knew when they could meet up again.

Copperhead lowered his arm and quirked an eyebrow. "My dear Blaze, you wound me."

_You couldn't call me by my name just once?_ Char left the question unspoken, knowing its low priority.

Every bit of amusement, every remnant of enthusiasm that bantering brought, left her as she turned to Falcon. She could feel dual pairs of amber and violet eyes clashing against her back and felt a wave of defiance crash along with them; no matter how worried Riku and Copperhead were, their continuous staring would make an already-awkward departure even more stilted and formal.

Falcon had kept silent while Copperhead had spoken. Every iota of effort that Char suspected she had exerted to do so showed on her face, in the sharpened edge of her jaw and contours of her fists. Disbelief, fury, desperation all found their marks on her face as well, but Char forced herself to gather all those despondent emotions aside and find something else in the irises where bloodshot streams met. What that something was, she didn't know; sorrow, perhaps, or the tiniest hint that their truce had some genuine reconciliation behind it after all.

Char did know, though, that she had no idea what to say.

Before shame at her reasoning's lack of articulate expression could form, though, Falcon had effectively headed it off at the pass.

Char's vision became enveloped in a black-and-cyan blur just before the smaller shape effectively cannoned into her. The impact had little to no momentum behind it, considering Falcon had stood only a few feet away moments before, but still managed to almost topple Char over.

"It figures that this would happen," Falcon muttered into Char's ear, tightening her arms' grip around her shoulders. "I finally start to like you, and then you have to leave."

Char's eyes widened. She was dimly aware of Copperhead drawing in a sharp breath behind her, and of Riku eyeing them momentarily before turning his head away, almost out of respect.

Like he didn't want to tarnish such a rare display of emotion by staring.

After a few seconds of hesitation, she lifted her arms up and returned the hold.

* * *

Char stumbled out of the portal with another shadow close at her heels. Stray bits of ichor clung to her heels, making her shudder and kick out to eradicate the trailing bits of darkness.

She glanced around, only to blink and then laugh under her breath. "What?" Riku asked as he came to stand at her side. A sidelong glance revealed that he had folded his arms, position of his body indicating that he still faced forward. He, too, was looking at the grays and meticulous buildings of the town that widened out from the alley he had placed them in. "You never specified which world you wanted to wait for Sora in."

"So you picked Hollow Bastion?" Char tilted her head to give him a bemused stare. His decision baffled her; for all he knew, she was still wallowing in misery about every bittersweet memory this place held.

He didn't even know that anathema had transferred to Twilight Town. Gods, could she ever find a true home without coming to loathe it eventually?

For some reason, the notion of Destiny Islands flitted across her mind before her better judgment tamped out the budding fire of uncertainty it might have brought.

"Look, I'm sorry about everything that happened here." Even without looking at him properly, she could hear the latent vitriol sharpening every word. She could understand that; this was where he had fought Sora and almost killed him. Him and Kairi both.

"But Sora would have to come here anyway." That only increased Char's confusion, especially when his composure returned long enough to steady his voice into firm certainty. Surprised into actually looking at him, she cocked her head to the side.

"Because?" she prompted.

Riku turned his head to meet her gaze. "Because he needs to find a way into the Organization's world. I would go there myself and wait for him, but I need to find the machine first."

"So he's gonna have to talk to Merlin about the best way to go," Char assumed. She sat back on the balls of her feet and uttered a dry sigh, distressed fingers coming up to massage her temples. Her most vivid memory of the old wizard floated up, acrimonious in its tang and cringe-inducing in nature; he had offered his magic to the group, and she had laughed at him.

_Geez, I was bad back then._

Riku nodded, amber eyes dark as they rested on her. She met his eyes fairly evenly, only for her confusion to return at his next words. "Looks like you're gonna have to carry out the last part of your promise after all."

It took her mind a few shameful moments to attune itself to his meaning. Once it did, though, she could only mutter a paltry "oh yeah" and stare down at the ground. Even after a year away, even in this obscure alley between Merlin's home and the house next door, the gray concrete underfoot was so damnably familiar.

The last part of her promise had involved taking Sora to the World That Never Was and using him to enact the last part of her – Ansem's – revenge. While her intentions had completely changed, the end result was the same.

"Well," she said, hating how gruff her voice sounded, "I should get going."

And, she couldn't help thinking as she studied Riku – not Xehanort – the end result here had been the same, too. In the end, she had to say goodbye to someone she cared about.

_Goodbye. _She really hated that word.

Seeming to sense her thoughts, Riku opened his arms, just as he had on that day a month ago. When she had trod the line between knowing that powerful pull toward him existed, and having the emotional courage to string the word _love_ to it.

Before she had strung that four-letter symbol of salvation and damnation alike to someone else entirely.

She had to perch herself on her tiptoes in order to make the hug a proper one, but the embrace was still as warm and familiar as the days she had crept into his room in search of nightmares' relief.

"Don't break his heart," Riku whispered into her ear.

She let out a trembling chuckle. After all this, Sora's welfare was still what he worried for the most. "Don't worry," she murmured back.

He stepped back, arms returning to their safe place across his chest almost the instant they released her. "I'll see you later," he said.

Even after the dark portal disappeared, she found herself staring at where he had been for a few more seconds. It figured, she mused; the instant one burden had lifted from her heart, another one replaced it. The same thing had happened with her nostalgia. It had transferred from this place, its monochromatic gray and broken towers, to Twilight Town with its beige buildings and eternal skies.

In the vein she had come to know well, her concern for Sora had wound its way back around to Riku. Not just him – Falcon and Copperhead, too.

Honestly, it almost made her wonder if she would ever know happiness again.

Uncertain and dark as the future seemed, though, she knew her priority lay with Sora, undue emotions or not.

She took a deep breath and made as if to step out of the alley, only to jolt in her tracks as multiple globules of darkness materialized in front of her. Unlike the shadows she had just emerged from minutes before, every trailing tendril disappeared at once.

Immediately, her swords were in her grasp and she charged forward, flinging all her strength into one side and bringing that sword down on one sphere. The vaguest silhouette of a Heartless had just revealed itself when she made contact, and it bounced backward on two legs.

Then the Heartless' true forms made themselves clear. Shocked into lowering her sword, she could only stare in shock. "Heartless from the virtual world?" she whispered. _But Tron beat back the MCP!_

Yellow light suddenly throbbed at the center of her vision as one of them lunged. It thrust one sparking mitt toward her, swallowing her vision in electricity; she remembered a man declaring himself as a Heartless commander and Donald and Goofy howling in pain with every ounce of voltage pumped into them.

Narrowing her eyes, she ducked out of the way. The glowing fist swung harmlessly over her head, with little more than heat emanating from tiny yellow claws marking its path. Unfortunately, one of the Heartless' fellows chose that moment to move forward as well.

_The wall, get your back away from the wall or they'll overrun you,_ and she swung her entire body to dodge behind the Heartless, making sure to drive the tip of one blade into one of them as she swept past. It writhed at the impact before falling back and taking a droid at its back down as well.

Something lit the corners of her vision, and she whirled, swords at the ready. Pedestals of light were ascending and descending rapidly and making the gray concrete simmer; Char nearly coined it one of the MCP's tricks before her mind caught up to her paranoia and told her it was the defense mechanism. She allowed herself to relax a bit, even as she forced a Heartless back with both swords at once; maybe she could get some help now –

But wariness caught up and told her something was wrong. The pedestals flickered and glowed a fiery orange, and where the top circle should have been an orb sat, swirls of equally orange light dancing in its depths.

Moreover, instead of converging on the enemies, they were following _her._

"Watch out!" a feminine voice shouted from behind her. Footsteps tapped rapidly and, with little more warning than that, heralded a sudden push at the center of Char's spine. By little more than the grace of good balance she managed to avoid flying back into the wall, although she did knock her uninjured shoulder into it.

She barely held in a hissed curse and spun around, not knowing whether to glare at or thank her savior. What she saw instead made her eyes widen: a dark-clad, dark-haired shape, dancing expertly around the manipulated defense mechanism's every strike.

Dark outfit, dark hair – her mind immediately attached it to Falcon before the lack of translucent blue Keyblade decidedly proved her wrong. She watched while her savior vanished in a puff of smoke and reappeared just behind a Heartless. "Yuffie!" she shouted breathlessly.

The self-proclaimed ninja plunged one star-shaped weapon into a Heartless, pulling her head away from the myriad of sparks that freed themselves from its core. She tugged the weapon away and jumped off her target so she could turn her head. "Yeah, that's me –" Boastfulness died out at once when she saw just who had greeted her. "Char?" she cried. "What are you doing here? Where's Sora?"

_That's _my _line,_ Char thought dryly. She opened her mouth to say as much, but then one of the Heartless remembered its initial target and moved toward her, fists glimmering that sickly yellow again. Blocking the blow proved easy enough when she crossed her swords, but it didn't decrease the strength of that light in her retinas. She glared, forced to squint, and tried not to think of the last time she had seen light this color.

"I think talking can wait till later," she grunted.

"Yeah, guess you're right." Just like that, Yuffie was back to her normal, boisterous self. She grinned before turning to one droid. "Let's do this!"

With their combined efforts, the Heartless fell that much more quickly. Char delivered one last, fatal blow to her assailant before turning to Yuffie. "So," she began.

Just as she was forming her next words, though, the ninja's arm shot out and she was pulling Char out of the alley. The redhead barked out a surprised "Hey!" but of course that didn't deter Yuffie in the slightest.

In her haste, she nearly clocked Char's skull flinging the door to Merlin's house open. Between dodging the wooden harbinger of death and snarling her indignation, Char saw that nothing had changed since the last time she had been here: from the dinner table to the computer that took up the wall beyond it, and Merlin's desks where he studied magic. _Of course not, you were only gone for a few days,_ she chided herself. At the computer sat Cid, who turned at the sound of the door opening and rasped out a confused sound at both Yuffie's hurry and her burden.

Naturally, Yuffie didn't stop in her tracks until she had tossed Char down onto one of the chairs at the table. When she had recovered from the shockwaves reverberating through her now-bruised tailbone, Char glared up at the infernal grin on Yuffie's face. "I could've gone that way by myself!" she growled.

"Yeah," Yuffie said, "but if you stay in one spot too long, the beams of light all converge on you."

"Not like you didn't learn that the hard way or nothin', right?" Cid rolled his eyes, bracing one elbow on the computer desk as he twisted to face them. Though he addressed Yuffie, his gaze quickly slid to Char. "So. Glad you came back, Char. Thing is, I thought the kid would be with ya."

Char's annoyance at Yuffie – _you couldn't have told me _before_ you dragged me off and almost killed me with a door?_ – petered off instantly at Cid's unspoken question. "You and me both," she muttered, before raising her voice. "We got separated a little farther down the line." In an instant, she decided to keep Riku's location and role in that separation hidden; addictive as the truth could be, sometimes it caused more problems than any fabrication. "I found my way back here. I figured he would come here soon."

"Yeah, well, you saw what's going on outside." Yuffie sighed, falling melodramatically into the chair next to Char's. "The MCP hacked into the town's defense mechanism and he's sending Heartless everywhere again."

"Least that's what Leon thinks," Cid added.

Char sighed. "Not again…" She had figured as much when the Heartless had shown up and the defense mechanism had almost impaled her with fire.

_It figures that I get back just in time for something else to screw my home over._

But she wouldn't let that happen again.

* * *

"You've gotta be kidding me," Sora breathed. "I thought everything was supposed to be under control here!"

Donald lowered his staff and wiped the sweat off his forehead; the droplets were visible against the orange light of the defense mechanism's pedestals. "There weren't even Heartless like this before the Organization showed up!" he grumbled.

"Don't these look like Heartless from Tron's world?" Goofy asked, tentatively. Once he had finished his question, Sora understood why he sounded so reluctant to mention it. In his mind's eye he could see electricity flickering off bleak walls and a bright blue landscape burning into him.

Donald must have remembered that as well, for he twitched in lieu of agreeing with the knight.

Sora shook his head, trying to shake the feelings of anxiety that had arisen anew at just thinking of his friends in that much pain. "We just need to talk to Merlin," he said. "He'll know what to –"

Suddenly he jolted, a cry of pain and surprise escaping him. Orange light swirled together in his lower vision, lighting the air before searing into him again moments later. Donald shouted the Keybearer's name, only to squawk and barely dodge another pedestal of light and fire.

"What's going on?" Goofy gasped. One pedestal slid over to him as he spoke; the split second before it exploded, he managed to bring up his shield against it. The ensuing fiery blast engulfed his crouching shape in a blinding blaze and left his turtle shell-like weapon with little more than a scorch mark slashing across it.

"I don't know, but we can't hang out here forever –" The last part slanted up as Sora rolled away from a pedestal just in time.

"What the heck are Cid and Merlin doing with the defense mechanism?" Donald demanded.

"It's probably got something to do with those computer Heartless showing up," Sora tossed over his shoulder. He stuffed the Decisive Pumpkin's Keychain into his pocket, fingers shaking as he did so. "Come on, we've gotta go! You're gonna be a roasted duck if this keeps up!"

Never before had the winding path from Hollow Bastion's empty marketplace to the wizard's home seemed so long; then again, before now, only Heartless had dogged them every step of the way. Sora could deal with Heartless, heck, even Nobodies.

The very town's defenses turning against him, though – that, he hated to admit, was something beyond the Keyblade's power.

Reduced to flight, ducking beneath the sparking mitt of every droid Heartless that coalesced in their path, he found himself frequently glancing over his shoulder to check on his friends. The first time confused him, because he only saw a green shield following him; and then one Heartless bounced off it and he decided to turn back around so he wouldn't get electrocuted by a flying droid. It took a few more glances for him to realize Goofy had thrown up his weapon and herded Donald behind it with him.

Within moments, the tapering pathway widened out into what might have, in Hollow Bastion's distant past, served as a courtyard. Sora made a beeline for the familiar house tucked into the courtyard's edge, nearly crashed into it, straightened just in time, and fumbled with the doorknob. What would have been an easy task grew immensely difficult in his haste.

His shoulders hunched, eyebrows drawing over his eyes. _Stupid thing… open…!_

"Hurry up!" Donald roared behind Goofy's shield, as the pedestals roved about in search of prey.

As fate would have it, just when Sora moved closer to get more traction on the ground, the doorknob suddenly wriggled beneath his fingers. The door swung open.

And as it turned out, he had been leaning against the door more than he had thought.

So, with the absence of that surface to hold him up, he found his center of gravity tilting sharply downward, until he was getting a face full of Merlin's floor.

_"Sora?"_ a high-pitched voice shrilled above his head.

"Hi, Yuffie," he mumbled.

An instant later, something passed over his prone form. _Yeah, no, just walk over me; that's okay. _He winced when the agony lifted and glanced up at Yuffie. The ninja was staring down at him, dark eyes huge.

Why did it look like something besides bemusement at his unceremonious arrival lurked in her gaze?

Suddenly he realized she still held the door open and the Heartless were still outside. Quickly, he scrambled to his feet and darted the rest of the way inside.

"Good thing we're out of – _huh?"_ Donald's irritated remark cut off at once, and Sora turned to see what exactly had rendered his unfailing acrimony useless.

Every thought flew out of his head as well when he saw just _who_ was there.

Char was half-standing, had risen from her chair in response to his arrival but still gripped the table's edge. He took in her tense stance, the half-slackness of her jaw and the expression on her face.

Almost like something she had longed for finally yielding to satisfaction.

That was probably mirrored on his face as well.

"Hi," Char said, breathlessly.

Sora's brain quickly caught up to him, registered the others looking on: Cid at the computer, with no small amount of amusement twitching at his whiskered cheeks; Yuffie covertly shuffling closer to the edge of the room; Donald staring, with his beak dropped and working uselessly; and Goofy too surprised to speak.

Sora cleared his throat. "Hi."

_Just "hi?"_ he wanted to scream at himself. _That's all you have to say to the girl you got depressed over? The girl who pulled you away from Kairi and gave you something else to fight for?_

_ The girl who –_

His mental tirade never fully took off. Impulsiveness pushed that aside, just like it had so many times before, and just like so many times before, he found himself moving toward her.

As his arms came around her, hers immediately rose up to meet his embrace and return it.

It was strange. He could have sworn he felt something wet dripping against his collarbone from where their cheeks pressed together.

He gave himself a second to register she was, in fact, crying before his brain shut down and his eyelids followed it in a descent that blocked out everything. The only thing he could concentrate on was _feeling,_ was familiarity and warmth and the sensation of tears of his own threatening to slip free from their self-imposed prisons.

She still smelled like cinnamon.

_Finally,_ made it past his brief wall between himself and her and reality. _Finally._

* * *

Wow, do a lot of people hug in this chapter. Hug Char, specifically. (I mean, she kind of needs it, but still.)

I really hope this was enough to tide you guys over until I get back. The next chapter will have more action in it, I promise.


	78. Chapter LXXVIII

Hey all! Sorry this update took so long; work's been ridiculously hectic, and writer's block hasn't helped in the slightest. Also, holy design overhaul FFN, what the fuck are you doing. I have to relearn how to navigate you now. What is this.**  
**

Anyway, excuses aside, I hope I'm handling how everyone feels after Char's return well. Bah, whatever. I'll just let y'all read.

Enjoy!

* * *

"Ahem."

Sora jolted. Just like that, just with that already-hoarse attempt to clear the speaker's throat, the reality of the present made a jarring return: Merlin's house, the warmth of Char's frame pressed to his…

And dread of the others' response to Char's newfound presence began to trickle icily into him as well. Combined with the multiple gazes searing into his back, two of which belonged to Cid and Yuffie, fire and ice mingled uncomfortably inside him. More than likely, though, judging by Cid's muffled snicker and Yuffie furtively edging away, they would express no anger toward Char's return. Honestly, at this point, Sora was a bit more worried about Yuffie teasing them for the sudden closeness. After all, the last time they had visited here, secrets – Char's in particular – had formed a vast rift between the members of the group.

Their amusement made sense, though. They hadn't spent the last few days eyeing their unspoken leader worriedly. Exchanging glances when he expressed wistfulness, the likes of which had never before taken audible form, and bitterness at needing to find his friends.

Very reluctantly, he pulled back from Char. Only when her eyes opened to see why he had moved away did he notice she had squeezed them tightly shut.

He didn't realize how much he'd missed that shade of ice blue until now.

Yet at the same time he found himself resenting the eye contact, because the expression he could now properly see unleashed every question that had hounded him since her disappearance. _Did you miss me as much? Where were you?_

_ Was Riku the one who –_

Her focus shifted, heralding a shift from confusion to mild annoyance. Sora turned, bracing one hand against the table's edge for support; unconsciously, he found his fingers dancing along the wooden surface, seeking a softer place to find purchase.

True to form, Donald had his arms crossed and was tapping one webbed foot. Char had become the object of his glare, and Sora fought back a grin at how she was matching Donald's anger just as easily as she used to.

"What's up, duck boy?" she asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I might as well have!" Donald exploded. Beside him, Goofy cringed back a little at his friend's outburst. "Where have you _been?"_

The question sliced much more sharply than it had in Sora's thoughts. Suddenly, he was fighting the desire to add to the multiple stares now directed in Char's direction.

In the end, though, he just looked at her with what he prayed was gentle curiosity. His fingers stilled in the journey he only now realized would have finished against hers.

_Ask about Riku,_ his sore heart and the memory of Xemnas' taunting urged. He tried to push them back beneath the surface, which proved a frustratingly futile effort; his mind had taken it upon itself to gather every bit of latent bitterness toward Char's secret-keeping habits and shove it to the forefront of his thoughts.

Especially at the condemning hesitation he saw in her darting eyes and nervous fingers.

For a couple of seconds he wondered exactly what excuse she was formulating, and then it hit him that he couldn't even get an idea of what she was thinking about. She had spent three days just being _gone, _taken by someone whose identity still eluded him.

Sora abruptly found himself understanding Donald's frustration. She had left a Char-shaped void in the group, and while it wasn't near as bad as knowing an entire year lay blank to his memory, the feeling had much the same bitterness.

As he took in Char's expression, though, every lingering question of last year resided into the part of his mind reserved for uncertainties – a part that, until minutes ago, her location had occupied as well. He watched her panic grow and, unable to watch her in this much turmoil any longer, opened his mouth to speak.

_Beep, beep, beep._

Sora jolted, bumped his hip into the edge of the table in the process. A pained hiss slithered to the tip of his tongue, but he managed to push it back down his throat before it could manifest. Wincing at the newfound ache in his side, he leaned away from the table to glimpse whatever made him start.

Cid swung back around in his chair. "See that?" He trailed his finger across the computer screen, where multiple lines of code had begun to stretch luminous white trails.

Sora frowned. They might as well have been hieroglyphics to him. "I guess…?" He tried not to let too much of a questioning edge into his voice, yet it erred on the wrong side of snide anyway.

Cid rolled his eyes and lowered his hand, where it joined its counterpart on the keyboard. His fingers tapped away at the keys as he spoke. "It means we're a step closer to gettin' the dang MCP out of this town."

"So it _was_ the MCP?" Goofy asked from the other side of the room. Already, he was shuffling closer to the computer, presumably to get a better look.

Yuffie nodded, following him to where Cid sat. "At least, Leon and Aerith thought so. They went to the postern to try and hold him off while Cid here made the eradication program."

Donald broke his annoyed silence to speak up. "Eradication… program…?" he repeated, eyes narrowed in bemusement as he trotted up to Cid.

"We were planning on putting it on a disc and sticking it into Ansem's computer…" Although Yuffie explained confidently enough, she cast a mildly uncertain glance at Cid, whose broad shoulders were hunched in a solid white shield between chair and computer. Sora assumed she was just repeating what Cid had told her, which she confirmed by adding, "Or something."

Cid straightened then, just as the hieroglyphics burning white silhouettes into Sora's vision halted in their tracks. "You four," he addressed the group, who all perked to attention in turn. Just before directing his focus to Cid, Sora couldn't help one final glance at Char.

Relief's remnants had begun to vanish, their signs in her relaxing shoulders and stilled fingers.

"I need you to take the disc to Leon," Cid continued. No sooner had the Gunblade wielder's name escaped his lips did the computer screen suddenly turn dark. Panic flashed briefly inside Sora and he readied himself to draw his Keyblade in case the MCP showed his ugly face; but Cid only reached out and pulled out a small disc from beneath the monitor.

He offered it to Sora, who forced the adrenaline simmering in his veins to calm. Taking the disc, he eyed its green surface, ribbed with its own pale blue veins not unlike the color of the virtual world, with undisguised skepticism. _This is supposed to stop the MCP?_

"When you find Leon," Cid said, "get yourselves into the computer world and find Tron. We need a guy from the other side to help, and he's the only one who's willing."

"You can count on us!" Donald placed one fist over his chest.

"We know," Yuffie laughed, leaning down to ruffle the feathers atop his head. Sora glanced up and fought a grin when the duck squawked and swung the same fist at Yuffie. She only danced back in her patented style, grinning impishly all the time.

Beside him, Char breathed out a chuckle. Startled into looking over at her – she had maintained her silence so well until now, after all – Sora watched her shake her head. "Better not, Yuffie. You'll be coming away with a nub for a hand."

"Aw, come on! It'd be so worth it!" Yuffie argued playfully.

Cid growled and thumped his fist on the keyboard, sending a series of characters skittering across the screen. The abruptness of the movement startled Goofy, who still stood beside his chair, into stumbling back and almost into the wall. "That ain't the point."

"Sorry, Cid," Goofy said, speaking for at least Sora and Char. "We'll get that disc to Leon right away."

"Good," the blonde man huffed.

Donald pushed the mussed feathers on his head back into place, glaring at the still-grinning Yuffie all the while. His anger's target had changed from Char to the ninja, it seemed.

Knowing Cid had a point, Sora pushed his concern and wariness at Char's reappearance to the back of his mind as best he could. Considering how much of his thoughts she had taken up in the last few days, though, it was a little like trying to stuff his messy room's contents into his closet back at home.

_She's back,_ he protested against his lurking suspicions, _that's all that matters._

That was probably the moment he realized his fingers' pressure on the disc would probably snap it in half if he didn't let up.

He hastily pocketed the disc, almost dropping it in his desire to tuck it safely away from his frustrations. Once he did, though, with Donald and Goofy's stares on him, he started toward the door. "We won't let you guys down," he called over his shoulder.

"Just let Leon handle all the complicated stuff," Cid grunted, fixing a sardonic eye on him. "Wouldn't want things to go bad before they even started getting better."

Feigned as his causticity was, it still made Sora cringe and remember the last time he'd stood in front of Ansem's computer. He guessed that Leon had told the blonde man about what Sora had done in a fit of rage.

And Cid's pointed, albeit tacit, reminder had a point: nearly smashing up the keyboard out of sheer fury again wouldn't be good for their cause. But did he have to bring it up? The sound of Donald and Goofy's distinctive guffaws wrapped an embarrassed heat across his spine.

Glancing over his shoulder, he grinned sheepishly and rubbed one finger under his nose. "I'm not gonna break the keyboard. Trust me."

He turned back around and strode toward the door. Too late, just as his fingers grazed the knob, they recalled the weight of Merlin's floor pressing the Decisive Pumpkin's hilt into them and the flight from Hollow Bastion's twisted defense mechanism. As a result, the door swung open, and Sora was bracing himself for another line of light pedestals crashing down onto his head.

When he saw nothing, though, he found himself relaxing a little. _Of course it's not gonna blast you, you haven't even stepped outside yet._

_ Or maybe the MCP knows we're coming after him, and he's scared. Yeah. That sounds pretty good._

As he stepped outside, multiple sets of footsteps followed him, footsteps whose tread he knew as well as his own after traveling with their echo constantly in his ears. When he listened more properly, though, he felt his forehead crease in a frown; he recognized Donald's lighter, slightly uneven stride and Goofy's lumber, but the third set of steps – the set he had longed to hear, despite what its occasional choppiness reminded him of – remained silent still.

Turning around fully, he finally saw why. Char still stood near the table, head angled down and gaze lingering on the ground. Only the sound of Cid typing away at the computer, doings gods knew what since he had finished the eradication program, permeated the silence – at least until Yuffie called from the other side of the room and eclipsed the _tick-a-tack-tick_ of the keys.

"Char! Are you going with them?"

Donald and Goofy exchanged glances as Char jolted, one hand jerking up from where it had wrapped around the table's edge. Once she noticed just who had knocked her out of her contemplation, she hastened to stand up. Sora hated to call her expression _guilty,_ even though the word trod closest to what it resembled. "Y-yeah. Sorry."

She almost ended up stuttering out the apology as well, even though her shoulders squaring from their pensive position as she spoke suggested an attempt to quell it.

Much as he loathed condemning her, he knew he hated the sight of her fear and vulnerability even more.

"Come on, Char," he tried to joke. "You just got back and now you're not following us? I thought you said you would."

He meant to cheer her up. Teasing her had managed to draw out that once-elusive smile from her in the past, once he had broken through her shell enough to find it. Now that he'd spoken up, though, he abruptly wished he had just kept silent and waited for her to stalk after them like always.

Annoyance flashed briefly across her face in the brief union of her eyebrows over narrowing eyes; then immense surprise and relief ushered out the dread in Sora's heart when one side of her mouth twisted upward.

"Yeah," she acknowledged, "I guess I did."

The trio watched her stride past, crossing the threshold where her uncertainty had halted them, with differing expressions. Donald glared after her and tightened the grip of his hands on either side of his ribcage. Goofy had one hand raised, fingers curled inward against his chin, before lowering it and tilting his head to the side in acceptance.

As for Sora, he observed the confidence in her tread, unimpeded by the blow she had taken for him in the Underworld, and felt warm at how at least something hadn't changed about her.

Of course, she only reinforced that realization when she glanced over her shoulder and saw him staring at her. A single eyebrow vanished into her bangs, and Sora abruptly jogged after her, warmth suddenly stemming from a different source entirely. Only after the initial attempts to douse the fire swirling in his cheeks failed did he realize he had left the door to Merlin's house wide open; then a solid _thump_ proved his fears unjustified.

_Yuffie must be laughing so hard right now._ The thought flitted across his mind before he could stop it.

The footsteps he had heard earlier signified Donald and Goofy moving up to stand beside him. He could almost feel their gazes boring into him.

"Good job," Donald muttered, elbow poking hard into the meat of Sora's bare calf.

"I know you missed her, Sora, but…" Goofy trailed off, then shook his head.

"I wasn't looking at anything!" the Keybearer protested.

Behind them, Char listened with no small amount of amusement, fighting the strings tugging her lips upward in a pleased grin. Gods, she hadn't realized how good it would feel to hear this particular group squabbling again.

Especially knowing they meant none of the acerbity they teased each other with, and that no tension permeated the air and impeded Char's ability to breathe.

_It's good to be back._

* * *

Pink and white had become Kairi's world in the last few days. The former marked her prison's floor and the walls surroundings her, while just beyond the jail cell's bars a view of off-white tantalized her: so close, yet frustratingly out of reach.

Honestly, she might have succumbed to fear and pain right after Axel had emerged from the darkness inside the cell, deposited her and the yellow dog on the floor, and promptly walked back through the portal. Purpose had marked his stride, the brisk tread of someone accomplishing one errand and setting right off to another, as he had left her staring despondently after him.

Her chest began to ache, the feeling just as raw as it had been then, at how many of her tears had soaked into the yellow dog's fur.

Yet somewhere deep inside her trembling heart, a flame of hope flickered: faith that Sora and Riku would arrive here and save her. _I didn't just remember Sora – someone who means so much to me – for nothing. I have to have faith._

Time wore on, though, and eroded the wick holding that flame until only the good grace of her loyalty to her friends kept it burning – her loyalty, and, ironically, the man who had spirited her away from home in the first place. Not long after he had abandoned her in the cell, he'd reappeared just outside the cell, taken the brunt of her fury as gracefully as he could, and then introduced himself and his purpose.

She remembered verbatim what he had said. _Name's Axel. I'm part of the Organization. They don't want Sora here. I do._

At first she had bristled at her unwilling role as bait, but then her indignation had melted away in favor of hope. If Sora showed up, maybe Riku would be with him, and they could all go home together. Desperation rode that thought, yet she clung to it with all her strength. The last time she had seen Sora, he had promised to return to her.

_Besides, he still needs to bring my lucky charm back to me. I'll be really mad if that doesn't happen._

Even in her thoughts, the playfulness she would normally have used for Sora felt strained. It had felt strained back then, too, that day in the tunnels when her voice had echoed and she'd nearly winced at how hollow the teasing sounded. She had already lost one friend to the darkness of the unknown; not knowing whether she would see the other again had shadowed the light she would have tried to cast on the situation.

Before the sad smile could even touch her cheeks, something cold and wet nudged under her palm, the one resting on her crossed legs. She glanced down and let the smile manifest at the dog resting his head on her lap, staring up at her with pleading eyes.

"I'm okay, really," she said, rubbing one of the velvety, dark ears between her fingers. In response, the dog grunted and darted his tongue out against her wrist, as if he didn't quite believe her.

That made two of them, honestly.

She watched him for a few more seconds, his black, thin wire of a tail twitching idly against the pink floor. When he shifted to get more comfortable, the half-light caught something, making her glance down at his collar.

Reaching forward with her free hand, she angled the charm attached to it to get a better look. _Pluto, _it read simply, and she realized she hadn't thought to check for its name.

_That should've been the first thing I did, when it ran up to me on the beach. Check to see if it had a home and a family that missed it. Geez, I was out of it._ Just went to show how much the resurgence of another best friend had thrown her – and, moreover, a best friend that meant so much to her.

Suddenly Pluto's ears pricked. His head shot up from its makeshift pillow and he stared intensely at the white wall across from them. Although he remained silent, the hackles rising in a furry line along his back betrayed his agitation.

Before Kairi could speak, the white wall trembled with a surge of its polar opposite. Her eyes widened as a lanky, dark-clad shape freed itself from the undulating portal that had just appeared. The vibrant red hair gave its identity away in an instant.

"You," she hissed.

Axel lifted a hand to the portal behind him without breaking his stride; it vanished in response to his unspoken command as he came to a halt in front of her cell. "Can we not go through this now?" he sighed, leaning his elbow against one of the bars and rubbing his forehead with the palm of that hand. "Yesterday was kind of rough."

Pluto's tense body relaxed, though he still kept a steady gaze on Axel. Kairi narrowed her eyes. "Well, excuse me if I don't feel very sorry for you."

Axel grinned; the gesture startled her, but if he saw as much he said nothing. His teeth glinted, expression almost feral. She recovered just long enough for her annoyance to twitch anew at his blithe manner. Nothing caught this guy off guard, ever. "Didn't expect you to. It's a nice thought, though."

As quickly as the amusement had manifested in his smirk, though, it slipped off the edge of his returning frown and crashed silently to the floor. He withdrew from the cell and took a couple of steps back, coat sweeping over the whiteness in an inversion of light casting shadow.

A few moments passed, during which Kairi felt Pluto move his head from her thigh and her toes twitch in her shoes' confines. Her fingertips tangled together on her lap, only noticeable to her when she felt them clashing together. Quickly, even though Axel's back was turned and he could hardly tease her, she calmed her fidgeting and focused firmly on her hands so she couldn't start again.

Then he spoke, without looking at her.

"I'm just gonna get to the point. I met up with Sora yesterday."

Kairi's mind went blank and then filled up in the span of about three seconds. "You what?" she managed at last, shocked at how she stayed calm and didn't shout over the questions clambering over each other inside her skull.

Glancing up revealed that Axel still had his back to her, though the way his elbows jutted out on either side of him suggested he had folded his arms. As she watched, eyes wide, he raised one hand and gestured vaguely at the air. "Yeah, he's probably on his way here right now. I can't blame him if he doesn't trust me, but he knows at least that he has to come here and stop us. So odds are he'll be making a pit stop here."

_I'll come back to you! I promise! _Sora had screamed across the void to her, the last time she had seen him. Donald and Goofy had stood in the background, anxiously twitching every time a piece of land around them fell away.

Blood had marred the white glove on his hand clutching hers, and multiple wounds and bruises had mottled his body. In particular, a nasty cut on his forehead had set off the earnest eyes he had fixed on hers.

Sora would trust Axel, if he wanted to keep his promise to her.

Then Axel's words caught up to her. In the rush of emotions brought on by his news, anything beyond Sora's impending rescue had been drowned out. As a result, she found herself breaking the hope-infused bonds of her silence not to express that hope, but to address the bitter afterthought Axel had spoken about himself.

"Stop you?" she repeated. "If he's going to do that, then why bring him here at all?"

He didn't respond immediately. Instead, his shoulders gave a minute twitch, the tiniest shift, enough to show her query did have some visible effect on him. Beside her, a flash of yellow announced Pluto sitting up, as if he wanted to hear Axel's reasoning as well.

Although the sigh that ultimately resounded added little more to the silence than a quiet puff, in the quiet that enveloped the cell so thickly, Axel might as well have screamed. He brought up one fist to rest, gently, against the wall.

"Because I'm getting a little sick of living like this," he said.

Kairi looked at Pluto and heard the dog whine softly.

* * *

"I have to say," Char remarked, "I didn't think I'd be coming back here so soon."

Sora looked over at her. She still held her swords close to her sides, even though Donald's thunder spells had taken out the last, motorcycle-like Heartless not minutes before. However, contrary to what her tense stance implied, she was not craning her neck over her shoulder and regarding every corner of the postern's corridors as a potential hiding spot for Heartless. She was facing the white door that led to her former master's study.

"Why's that?" Goofy sidled up to stand next to her and cocked his head to the side.

Char shrugged. "Multiple reasons. The last time we were here, I kind of…" She paused, hesitated really, and stared at where she gripped the hilt of one blade.

"Spilled everything?" Donald quipped dryly.

The redhead turned her head just slightly enough so the duck could glimpse her own wry expression. "Wow, you're actually _talking_ to me now? Didn't think you'd cave so soon."

At her words, the duck's transgression became obvious to him, and he quickly jerked his head away to glare at the ground. "Well, you did," he grumbled. "Anyway, don't we have to give Leon the disc?"

Sora nodded, at the same time fighting a smile. While he knew Donald had a point, at the same time, he couldn't quite duplicate that suspicion. Wariness of her sudden reappearance still itched at the back of his mind and buzzed, mosquito-like, within his heart. Yet he couldn't help the warmth he felt at those two bickering like normal.

It still felt surreal to have her back with him, but this made it feel a little less like a dream to him.

"You're right, Donald," he said. The mage puffed out his chest triumphantly, at which Char rolled her eyes. Goofy just stifled a chuckle, which proved a futile attempt.

Taking a deep breath, Sora pushed the door open before the memories of what Donald referred to could crowd in on him and bring doubt on its poisonous wings.

Only a few days had passed since the Heartless invasion had summoned the group here, to the haven of the true past. For Sora, though, the last few days had seemed to contain a year within its grasp, and as a result he found himself briefly startled at how little had changed within Ansem's study. The same papers were still scattered on the floor; the same painting of Xehanort still hung on the wall; the chair on which he had sat while Char explained how her origins were entwined with the Organization's was still pulled out slightly. Seeing that, Sora had a sudden, Char-like urge to push it back to the table again.

He almost laughed. Even absent, her influence remained engraved inside him, as deeply in his heart as Riku's sardonic moments or Kairi's playful remarks.

Thinking of Char, he glanced over at her, trying to gauge her reaction to returning to her master's former sanctuary. When his gaze landed on only the papers on the ground, he blinked in confusion, but then movement nearby drew his eyes toward her. She was carefully skirting a pile of books, which had begun to fall askew in its stack, and picking her way across the mess toward the door to Ansem's computer room.

"Don't we have a town to save?" she asked them over her shoulder, though she did halt right where the beige beneath her feet darkened into cerulean. One foot tapped right at the threshold, the only evidence as to how impatient she truly felt.

Whether that impatience arose from wanting to leave the nucleus of so much nostalgia, or from wanting to help Hollow Bastion, Sora wasn't sure.

Donald had been glaring fiercely at the picture of Xehanort, as though hoping the fires he controlled could amass into his eyes and incinerate the source of their troubles. When Char spoke, though, he shook himself out of his angry trance. "Yeah, you're right." His voice practically dripped with grudging agreement.

"Leon's probably in there, and we can give him the disc," Goofy added, with considerably less venom in his voice. Gratefulness for the knight's ability to push any wariness beneath the surface washed over Sora. At the very least, he wasn't alone in how uncomfortable the memory of mistrusting Char made him.

Taking his place at the front of the group, he rounded the corner into where the hall widened out.

He got all of about a two-second glimpse of the bright screen stretching out against the wall. All at once, silver flashed into his vision and blotted out everything else.

Surprised into crying out, he summoned the Decisive Pumpkin to his grasp in an instant. Its red-and-white blade intercepted his assailant before it could cleave him in half.

"Leon?" he grunted out, arms trembling beneath holding the Gunblade wielder's attack at bay.

Leon blinked. Just blinked. However, Sora knew him well enough to detect the true extent of surprise behind that simple action. He lowered the Gunblade, and Sora nearly fell forward with the lack of support beneath his formerly-straining arms. "Sorry about that."

"Sorry?" Donald demanded behind him. Sparks emitted from the bristles atop his staff, calming only at the mage's unspoken command. "Cut the Heartless, not us!"

"Seriously, Leon, calm down," Char said. "Are things really that bad?"

Leon stared down at the ground, before looking back up again. "I'm assuming you're here about the eradication program?"

"Don't answer us or anything," the redhead muttered under her breath. Sora saw the older man's eyebrows jump up on his forehead.

"Y-yeah, that's why we're here," he hastily cut in. He dug around in his pocket for a few moments; any alarm that crept up on him at possibly losing the disc in the hectic battles faded when his fingertips caught a round, smooth surface.

Withdrawing the disc from his pocket, he extended it to Leon. "Here."

"Gawrsh, Sora, for a second I thought you'd lost it," Goofy remarked.

"I don't think that would have happened," came a soft, feminine voice from behind Leon. Moving his head to see around the Gunblade wielder's solid form, Sora spotted Aerith walking toward them. Behind her, a dark blue door was sliding closed with a _whoosh._

He heard Char draw in a sharp breath behind him and would have whirled around to ask about it, had Aerith not spoken up. "I checked the Heartless manufactory room," she said to Leon.

Leon folded his arms. "And?"

If his terse question annoyed her, Aerith said nothing of it. Her expression of defeat, however, stemmed from what she said next. "Everything's still lit up. The MCP is still using everything in there."

"Still using my master's research to terrorize the town," Char muttered. Sora's eyes widened.

"Your master's research?" Goofy echoed. "D'you mean it ain't just responsible for the Organization?"

Char cringed. Clearly, she hadn't meant for her thoughts to cross the barrier between her mind's darkness and reality's light. If she'd had her way, Sora thought, they wouldn't even know as much about her and the Organization's past as they did now.

The notion should have angered him, a feeling that her unexplained absence and possible association with Riku would have amplified. Now, though, he just felt a drained sense of exhaustion.

"In a manner of speaking," was all she said in the end.

"Is that really the point here?" Leon asked.

Sora had never felt so immensely grateful toward Leon in the last month or so as he had now.

Something tugged at his still-outstretched hand, and he looked away from Donald's renewed rage, Goofy's innocent curiosity, and Char's desperate discomfort to see Leon appraising the disc.

"So that'll stop the MCP?" the Keybearer asked, grasping at a change of subject.

"It'll at least weaken him so you and Tron can fight back," Aerith explained. Although she kept her tone brisk enough, her emerald-surrounded pupils lingered on Char with unquestionable concern before returning to Sora. He remembered they had become friends when Char had been recovering from Hades' fireball attack.

And now that he was thinking about it, he realized she had been leaning on her good leg this entire time.

"But we need Tron's help from the other side," Leon said. "You all need to find him and head to the nearest terminal. That's where we'll upload the eradication program."

Sora nodded. "All right. Got it." As long as all they needed to do was head into the virtual world and meet Tron, he could manage well enough. Even though the worry for Char lingered in the back of his mind, he knew that helping Hollow Bastion took precedence.

Aerith turned to Leon. "Say, Leon, why don't you go help Yuffie and Cid? I've got things under control here."

Leon raised an eyebrow. "All by yourself? What if the MCP figures out how to get Heartless in here?"

His voice trailed off when she fixed a determined stare on him. Sora fought back a shiver at just how much fierceness the normally-calm healer could muster. _Note to self: Aerith can be _scary_ when she wants to be. _Donald and Goofy voiced their mild discomfort as well.

Sora felt even more unsettled when Leon immediately handed her the disc. "Er, sorry. It's all yours."

Aerith's beatific smile slid back into place with a little too much ease. "Do what you can in town, all right?"

"Yeah," Leon muttered, still abashed by her swing from ferocity to serenity. He recovered some of his composure when he looked at Sora. "Just remember: as soon as you get to a terminal, have Tron send a signal pulse out to us. Aerith will take care of the rest."

"Signal pulse. Got it!" Goofy gave a nod of understanding.

The Gunblade wielder strode past them, stopping beside Sora. "By the way," he said, "I found this in some rubble in the bailey the other day. You can make more use of it than I can." He reached into a pocket of his fur-lined jacket and slapped something into Sora's hand before resuming his departure. As he left the room, Sora opened his palm and saw a charm in the shape of a lion's head, mane sweeping back behind its head as it roared.

_A Keychain. Thanks, Leon._

He turned back around just in time to see Char walking toward Aerith. The original trio watched in rising bewilderment as the redhead stopped right in front of the healer.

"Nicely done," she said, raising one hand. Aerith smiled a bit wider and tapped her own hand against Char's.

"It's really not that difficult," she chuckled. "Leon can be a big softie when he wants to."

Sora shuddered. "You guys are scary…"

"I'm gonna take that as a compliment." Char turned back around, a smirk still tugging at her lips. Seeing the amusement playing across the lines of her face, spiteful though it looked, the Keybearer suddenly needed to hold back a smile of his own.

At that moment, the dream-like nature of her return – the surreal feeling of standing outside his body every time she had made a dry remark or sliced a Heartless to pieces – twisted and stabilized into something more like reality.

"You all right, Sora?" Donald was suddenly standing next to Sora and poking his leg to get his attention. He squinted up at his leader, who realized he had failed in keeping his expression neutral when he had to force his mouth back into a straight line.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm just really glad she's back." And honesty resonated in every word.

Goofy nodded and leaned closer so they could keep the conversation relatively private. Sora risked a glance over his shoulder, suddenly panicking at the thought of Char possibly overhearing, but she was still laughing with Aerith. "Me too, Sora," the knight said.

Donald snorted, folding his arms. "That makes two of us, I guess."

"You're not happy she's back?" Goofy asked, without a trace of acrimony in his voice. Despite the innocent nature of the question, Donald seemed to pick up some kind of accusation in it, for he immediately brought his hands up and shook his head.

"W-well, I missed the extra fighting power…" he stuttered.

Sora grinned freely, putting his arms behind his head. "Sure, Donald. Sure."

He slid an absent-minded glance over at Char again, only to jolt and drop his arms with enough force to audibly slap against his pants. She was looking straight at him, as was Aerith. The latter's knowing expression almost crumbled Sora's dignity entirely.

Char just smiled, though, making him relax slightly. In the end, she said nothing of whether she had caught earshot of the trio's words. Sora liked to think he'd perfected his stage whisper, but Donald was a different story entirely, so she'd probably at least caught the duck speaking.

"I'll go ahead and get ready to put you four in the computer," Aerith said, a bit of laughter still embedded in her voice. She strode gracefully across the room and swept her fingers across the keyboard. An answering beep ensued, followed by the computer screen lighting up into life. "Go ahead and stand in front of the wall over there."

As one, the group followed where she was pointing with their eyes. The crimson, eye-like portal on the wall caught Sora's eye, and he remembered the MCP forcing them into the virtual world.

He also remembered how weird it had felt, having lasers dissemble him into data and then deposit him into a computer. Probably what getting eaten alive by ants felt like.

Stifling his discomfort, he steeled himself and nodded to the others. They followed him as he stepped in front of the portal, though not without casting an apprehensive look over his shoulder at it. The red sphere had multiple veins surrounding it, the main one of which was white and curved around its yellow and orange counterparts. Really, it resembled an inverted version of an eye.

Of course, his mind chose that moment to wonder exactly whose eye was watching them right now. _The MCP?_

_ No time to think about that. We just have to find Tron as soon as possible. _Dread simmered deep in Sora's belly; if the MCP had found his way back into the system, then Tron, as the only accessible accomplice in hindering that, had to have taken the brunt of his rage.

The next thing he knew, he was squeezing his eyes shut against a sudden influx of light, and any form of fear for his friend ebbed momentarily. Whiteness bathed the insides of his eyelids for a few overly-long moments; he tried to focus on its color instead of the itchy trails it was marking across his body. It occurred to him to strain for his friends' responses, to know he wasn't alone in just how _weird_ this was, but the light had stretched thick silence across his ears and rendered him unable to hear anything.

At long last, though, the curtain wrapped around his body dimmed and let him hear again. The first sound the virtual world let him hear was a distinctly female humming noise. Tentatively, he opened his eyes.

Dark blue. Of course. They were definitely back in the virtual world.

He glanced around, wincing at the effect his surroundings' palette change had on his eyes. Through the glaring spots still lingering in his vision, he saw a window looking out to the bleak, red-rimmed sky; just next to the window, a yellow computer monitor leaned against the wall.

Three very familiar shapes stood in front of it, nearly obscuring the screen. Donald had somehow managed to balance himself on the very tip of his webbed feet and had his bill poking up above the keyboard, being careful not to jar anything. Goofy had more luck seeing the terminal's screen and was simply craning his neck to see better.

Sora's eyes found the tallest of the three, who was leaned over and still making contemplative noises under her breath. He got to his feet – when had he fallen, he wondered – and walked over to stand next to Goofy. "Any luck?" he asked.

Char's shoulders jerked and she whirled to glare at him, fists clenching at her sides. "Don't _do_ that!" she shouted.

Sora lifted his palms in a placating gesture. "Sorry! I was just wondering…"

Her glare softened slightly at the look on his face. She sighed, bringing one hand up to massage the part of her temple not covered by her helmet. Sora lowered his hands at her gesture of defeat, at the same time remembering he wore a helmet as well. He resisted the urge to tug at the spikes now angled differently on his head.

"Whatever," she said. "To answer you, no, I haven't found anything useful."

"This is the pit cell, right? That Sark jerk threw us in here when we tried to fight back," Donald said. At first, Sora didn't understand why Donald was explaining what he already knew.

"This was where we first met Tron," Goofy cut in, looking at Char as he spoke. _Oh yeah,_ Sora remembered, _she wasn't with us when we got thrown in here. _She had torn herself free of the Heartless holding her, jumped onto one of the glowing white discs that served as this world's teleportation device, and escaped the self-named Heartless commander's arrest.

Char nodded in understanding. That understanding quickly morphed back into thoughtfulness, which frustration tinged in the furrowing of her eyebrows, when she turned back to the terminal. "I know messing with these things is a bad idea," she muttered, "but I don't know how else to find Tron…"

"Well, we can probably figure it out, right?" Sora said. "If the MCP found Tron, then what would he do with him?"

He folded his arms and stared at the ground, while Donald and Goofy did the same. Not three seconds had passed before Char suddenly gasped.

"Do you know where he is?" Donald growled. Sora resisted the urge to remind him how Char hadn't even known about this world until a few days ago. Even though her master's computer housed this place, even Ansem had his secrets that he had kept from his only remaining apprentice. Just thinking about everything he had hidden from Char made anger flare within Sora's heart.

Char braced her palms just beneath the keyboard and looked over at them, with not so much fear as exasperation on her face. "I think I have an idea. And we're not going."

Sora's jaw dropped. "But we need Tron!" he cried.

"He's in the game grid, Sora!" Char barked. Donald and Goofy exchanged glances, and the former opened his mouth to speak, but she barreled on. "You know, the place the MCP sent me? I would've _died_ in there if a Heartless hadn't blown a hole in the wall for me to get out!"

"The game grid…?" Goofy repeated, one hand against his chin. "Didn't Tron say somethin' about a game grid?"

Again, Sora felt like he was slogging through a year's worth of memory to find what Goofy spoke of, rather than the comparatively smaller bog of just a few days. Eventually, though, he pinned down the recollection of Tron's explanation about the game grid.

_The place they send errant programs who stray from the MCP's system. There, the programs are forced to fight until…_

And now Sora remembered vividly the thought he had attached to Tron's distressed words trailing off. _Until they die._

"If he's going to die in there, though, we should try even harder to save him!" he protested, swinging his head toward Char.

"I'm sorry," she said, enough sarcasm in her voice to indicate she wasn't sorry at all, "do you not remember what happened the _last_ time one of us got stuck in there? I had to learn to drive a motorcycle. Do you know how damn hard that is?"

"Motor…?" Sora blinked, then shook his head, anger rising and replacing his brief bemusement. "Just because you had to learn to do something, it doesn't mean we can just let one of our friends die!"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he understood that arguing was only prolonging things, and that every moment they spent debating this was one in which a Heartless could be cutting Tron down. Not only would they lose their last hope to save Hollow Bastion from the MCP's machinations, but they would lose a friend.

Sora had lost enough friends already.

For half a second – just half a second – Char's own rage flickered. Something he had said must have sent a powerful gust of wind across the fire he could see reflecting from her heart into her eyes. In that instant, a different kind of reluctance entirely had replaced her refusal to head back into the game grid. Honestly, he was experiencing that reluctance as well.

_The last thing I wanted was for us to be fighting when you came back, too._

"Besides, isn't it your problem anyway?" Donald's hoarse voice cut through the tension, making both teens whip their heads to look at him. Sora's mouth fell open in an unconscious attempt to breathe harder through his fervent desperation. The duck's glare slid across to Char, every bit of latent anger toward her channeling itself into his next words and making them rough. "Your master made this place. He made the MCP, too."

"I don't live to correct his mistakes, all right?" Char spat, temper flaring up again at once.

"We should help, though," Goofy pointed out. His mildness sounded almost obscene in comparison to his comrades' fury. "Your name was in the password Tron made, too, Char. Remember? He put all of his new friends' name into that."

Char's eyes widened beneath her still-furrowed brows. Through the heartbeat roaring in his ears, Sora detected her own ragged breathing. Hearing that, hearing the effect this argument wreaked on her, he felt his own anger falter as well.

"You… you're right," she said. Her shoulders slumped. "Looks like I'm outvoted." Stepping away from the terminal, she laced her fingers together behind her back. "But I'm not gonna be the one responsible if something goes wrong. Someone else hit the button."

Sora nearly rolled his eyes, but stepped forward and crooked his wrists over the keyboard. Multiple smooth, square-shaped surfaces caressed the pads of his fingers as they settled against the keys – almost too mechanical, too unfamiliar to the touch. All of a sudden, nostalgia's ache toward his island's simplicity was throbbing as steadily as his heartbeat in his chest.

It also hit him that he had no idea what he was doing.

"I think you put where you wanna go with this," Goofy said. His cyan-clad arm, starkly visible against the yellow terminal, appeared in front of him and extended toward the keyboard.

"Well. I did not think you foolish Users would return so soon."

Donald squawked in surprise and Goofy all but fell against the terminal with how badly startled he was. Sora's hands dropped from the keyboard at once as he jolted. To his relief, he recovered from nearly stumbling backward fairly quickly.

He narrowed his eyes; he remembered that deep voice all too well. "Show yourself, MCP!" he demanded, glaring around the room. Only when a chuckle rumbled out from somewhere overhead did he realize the MCP wasn't nearby.

"And why would I show myself to ignorant life forms such as you?" the MCP asked, lazy amusement oozing from the rhetorical question.

"Give Tron back!" Donald stomped one webbed foot to emphasize his words.

The computer program paused at first, as if honestly contemplating Donald's order. Sora couldn't resist a small growl that emitted through clenched teeth at that bit of mockery. "Tron?" the MCP purred. Donald jumped, bravado immediately tarnished in the face of his fraying nerves. "Oh yes, that program who assisted in holding me off the DTD. I'm afraid he's in the middle of a game right now and cannot assist you."

"A game?" Char repeated, incredulity warring with rage in her tone. Her next words trembled with the weight of suppressed anger straining at its self-imposed bonds. "I'm sorry, I didn't know fighting for your life was considered a _game."_

Another pause. Sora could almost imagine the MCP gazing down at them, had Ansem designated him a human form like Tron and Sark and the other programs he held at his whim. _Ansem created this place,_ he thought, _and he created the MCP too. So why…?_

His thoughts halted in their path when the MCP spoke again. Rather than long for freedom like Char's fury, his ire sounded more contained, only creating the smallest ripples in the otherwise-calm flow of his voice. "Ah, you again. Sark has yet to repair the game grid where you damaged it."

"Damaged it?" Goofy glanced at her, mild alarm in the arch of his wide eyes.

Char just shook her head, even though Sora got the feeling the story behind this involved her mentioning a motorcycle earlier. For some reason, his mind chose that moment to plant an image of her cackling and blazing a cyan trail through a high wall, and he had to fight back a grin.

However, the redhead herself smirked at the invisible presence. "Oh, really? There's still a big hole in the wall? Looks like I left my mark here after all."

Suddenly her eyes widened and the smugness sluiced off her face in an instant. The Keybearer caught a murmur of "hole in the wall" from her – and little more warning than that – before she whirled on her heel toward the terminal. "Goofy!" she shouted. The knight shot to attention, staring at her in unabashed confusion; Donald squawked again and staggered back against Sora's leg. "Hit the button!"

"Huh?" Almost the moment the word escaped Goofy's lips, an expression of realization lit his face, and he promptly obeyed, smashing a couple of buttons on the terminal keyboard.

Light flared up around the four of them, pushing the pit cell's mixed blue surroundings behind an endless curtain of white. The MCP's furious snarl evaporated as well and left little more than an echo rattling around their ears as the terminal's light consumed them.

* * *

_Confined_ was the only way Sora could describe how the game grid made him feel. All around, high walls loomed up into the virtual world's dark skies, swallowing even the red glow emanating from the horizon. Even though that red reminded him of the dying stars that Sora's science classes always depicted, at least it also spoke of _some_ connection to the outside world. The game grid didn't even allow that much.

Maybe that was where its sense of doom came from.

He looked around, desperate to find something else to think about besides his sudden, budding claustrophobia. Ironically, the shade of blue he found to focus on instead soothed him: Goofy kneeling down, extending one hand to Donald even though the duck stubbornly refused any help getting to his feet. As he rose, he swayed a little, and Sora's leg twitched in preparation to move toward him, but Donald steadied himself in time.

"Where are we?" Goofy asked, looking around nervously.

"I guess the game grid," Sora said. A guilty rush of gratefulness washed over him that he wasn't the only one uncomfortable with this place.

Char confirmed as much with a nod. "This is the place," she said. "Now if we could find –"

Light flashed in Sora's periphery then, and he turned just in time for that whiteness to bathe his entire vision. He barely rolled away from the deadly energy in time, using the momentum from dodging to spring back up to his feet again.

"What was that?" Donald cried.

Then another disturbingly familiar voice echoed from above. If ice could have an audible form, the man whose words made Sora remember luminescent red and electric light illuminating a wall would be spitting shards of it at them.

"You again," Sark hissed.

Although Sora didn't know if he referred to all four of them or just Char, the girl herself responded. "Yeah, me again. Guess I just love your little games that much."

Goofy suddenly shifted in response to some invisible stimulus, one that became clearer as he pointed ahead. Sora followed his gaze and spotted a swarm of dark red and purple growing closer. "Uh, guys? We got company," the knight said urgently.

Donald cast an expectant look at Char. "Well? You brought us here," he pointed out scathingly. "What's your plan?"

"Well," Char said tensely, "I was _going_ to find Tron and use that hole in the wall from before to get out of here. But…" She shook her head in lieu of continuing and simply summoned her blades in dual flashes of light. It took that, and seeing Donald and Goofy brandishing their own weapons, for Sora to bring Leon's gift to its true form in his grasp as well.

_You didn't anticipate this._ Any emotion that might have accompanied his silently finishing her plan - dread, fear, annoyance – halted in its proverbial tracks. _Tron._

He scanned the flat, blue expanse, heart beginning to pound in his chest. Just as panic began to escalate inside him, he spotted what he was looking for beneath the heaving form of a purple, quadruped Heartless. Tron was lying on the ground, bruises speckled darkly across his body; the Heartless rose up, clicking its pincers in satisfaction, and scuttled off its prey to join the others.

Sora almost dropped the Keyblade. _Oh, no._

"Sora? Sora!" He realized the violent trembling of his vision originated from one hand seizing his shoulder, and he recovered in time to see Char staring at him.

Seeing the desperation on her face, the Keybearer quickly shook his head to clear the panicked haze permeating it. "I'm fine," he said, "but… Tron…"

"He's alive," she said, "but he won't be for long if we don't hurry up. Let's grab him and go."

Mild impatience edged the concern in her voice and cut through the final strings holding his fear in place. He gave a single, fierce nod, stepping away from her grip. Belatedly, he realized her fingers had left tingling imprints that radiated into his skin from the outfit this world gave him.

_Focus._

"You're right," he told her aloud. "Let's go help Donald and Goofy."

Just beyond, the two Disney residents were keeping the swarm at bay as best they could. One dark red, motorcycle-like Heartless lunged forward, single wheel first, intending to crush Goofy's ribcage beneath it; the turtle shell shield flew up to intercept it, but as the wheel began to spin faster against the surface, it began to yield to the pressure. Donald was casting frantically on one of the purple quadrupeds not far away, oblivious to a droid rolling forward with sparking mitts.

With a nod to each other, the two teens darted off in opposite directions. Seeing Char make a beeline for Goofy, Sora couldn't help but utter a sigh of mock resignation. "Leaving the hard one to me? Thanks a lot," he joked.

He looked back in front of him and, using his speed as leverage, leaped high into the air, Keyblade out. The Heartless jerked, light sputtering and then sparking into nothingness between its pincers, when the jagged silver edge collided with its shell. Before gravity tugged Sora back down to the ground again, he managed to carve a spiral into the purple foe's side. "Behind you, Donald!" he shouted.

The duck whirled around, instinctively casting with his staff again. At point-blank range, his electricity mingled with the droid Heartless' own voltage and threw dancing light against the walls. A pink heart floated up from the droid to the monochromatic sky, making Sora wonder briefly if Kingdom Hearts existed even here.

Before he could descend further into that unwelcome notion, though, he heard Char's voice from far off. "Well," she called back, "I've gotta give you _something_ to do." A grunt of exertion, and then the sound of steel crashing into metal, told him she had just finished off the Heartless attacking Goofy. The pink heart twining with the droid's own confirmed that.

Sora felt a grin tug at his face. The full weight of the crippling worry caused by her capture seemed to release, then: left his step feeling stronger and his heart almost deliriously lighter. He had missed this – the bantering and her eternal dryness that not even friendship could dampen.

Spinning back around, he dashed toward the purple Heartless, which was just recovering from his Keyblade having battered its body. He destroyed any attempt the enemy might have made at attacking him when he jumped up and delivered a flurry of blows to its side. Within moments, it yielded to the assault and dissipated under his Keyblade.

As the surface beneath his body vanished and left him little choice but to hit the ground again, Sora reflected on how this Keyblade easily conveyed its ferocity beyond the lion-head shape of its charm. _Like a lion, when you wake it up._

However, he could do little more than christen Leon's gift the Sleeping Lion in his head before he hit the ground. The impact jarred him much harder than he had expected, making him wince as pain zigzagged through his ribs. Jafar's pillars had sliced more deeply into his side than he had thought; not even applying healing spells to the wounds could halt the sharp aches before they reached him.

"You all right, Sora?" Donald's question was punctuated by a startled grunt as he swung away from a motorcycle Heartless' wheel. It still bounced off his side, though, eliciting a snarl as it jarred his side.

"Yeah," the Keybearer called back. At the same time, something bright heaved in the corner of his eye, and he narrowly avoided two droid Heartless' glowing fists. They left conspicuous spots dancing across his vision in their wake, which impeded his vision only slightly. Those spots eventually vanished, clearing the view of their golden forms writhing beneath the Sleeping Lion's counterattack. "Just the injuries from fighting Jafar acting up, is all."

"Wait a minute." Somehow, in the midst of the chaos, Char had wound her way through the masses of Heartless to them. Goofy followed close behind, oddly bereft of his shield; for a moment, Sora wondered whether the wheel had destroyed it.

Then one of the droids gave a heaving convulsion, vanishing and revealing the source of its demise. Goofy's shield whirled through the air, sought out the droids' companions approaching and tore through them before returning to his grasp.

"You guys fought Jafar. And you did it without me?" Char went on. "What the hell else happened while I was gone?"

At first, he regarded her with confusion; the extra bit of red right above her raised eyebrow had certainly not been there before. Then that red spot caught the light and he realized a Heartless must have cut her there. Combined with the line he could now see stretching across the opposite cheek – an injury whose source he didn't know – her skepticism created much more austerity than she felt.

Whether Sora's response would have contained a sheepish confession as to how Jafar had injured him, or a playful promise to fill in the gaps later, he never knew for sure. A shadow suddenly stretched across in front of him, dulling the bright blue lines radiating from the game grid's floor.

Even before their unspoken leader turned to see the shadow's source, Donald, Goofy, and Char gasped aloud and set into attacking the Heartless: the mage with flame coalescing at his weapon's bristles, the knight with his shield spinning back into the air, and the latter with her blades preceding her in her charge.

The quadruped Heartless lifted up its legs, which were beginning to spark with electrical energy. Before it could attack, though, Sora intercepted it in midair with the Sleeping Lion, which miraculously remained unscathed even at point-blank range of that electricity. In the same moment, Char sliced across the other leg with her swords and landed with her weapons unharmed as well.

"Nice hair," she tossed over her shoulder at him. It took him a couple of seconds for logic to catch up to her words – anything that would have induced the jab was already apparent in his messy hair – and then he realized the electricity must have seeped into the spikes poking out from his helmet. Sure enough, when he reached up to confirm as much, his hair felt rougher under his fingers.

He grinned and smoothed the unruly locks down as best he could. "It's the best way to do it."

Her answering smirk vanished almost instantaneously when Goofy's voice rang out. "There's too many Heartless!" he cried.

Glancing around, Sora realized his companion was right. The focus necessary for the battles at hand had kept him distracted from his surroundings and muted any worry at whatever Heartless might be approaching. Now, though, bereft of that filter, he saw crimson mingling with gleaming gold: motorcycle and droid Heartless alike wheeled toward the group at a steady speed. Far above, the quadrupeds moved just as quickly, pincers creating a _click-click-click_ sound that somehow dug under Sora's skin and pulled an impulse to shudder free from beneath his resolve.

_There's no end to them,_ he thought, _Sark just keeps them coming, _and his determination recoiled tangibly at the knowledge that they had to retreat. Even though they had defeated higher numbers than this – Hollow Bastion's cliffs flashed across his memory – at least that gray sea had had an eventual end to it. Somehow, he couldn't see Sark ceasing in his relentless stream of enemies until the group got too exhausted to fight back.

"Let's go!" he called to the others.

"What about Tron?" Donald hissed the question out while staring tensely ahead.

In the desperate knowledge that flight meant surviving, Sora had all but forgotten the reason they had come to this gods-forsaken place at all. He hesitated, scanned ahead for a break in the heaving sea of red, yellow, and purple; couldn't find it at first and had to force himself to seek out bruise-patented blue-black against pale skin as well –

Then Goofy shouted "Look!" and pointed ahead, finger marking a straight line toward a gap in the ocean. Sora traced the invisible thread with his eyes, past the advancing wave of Heartless and to the horribly still form prone on the ground.

He gripped the Sleeping Lion tighter and turned to the others. "All right, I'll distract the Heartless, and –"

"Relax, we've got this," Char interrupted, but her deceptively blithe dismissal of the plan that formulated as he spoke sounded taut with concern. "Goofy and I will grab Tron. You and Donald just steer us toward that gap in the wall." She bobbed her head to the side, drawing the others' attention to the wall in that direction. Sure enough, a yawning, jagged hole greeted Sora's eyes – where, apparently, Char had made her escape before.

He found himself clinging to that fact: that if she had fought her way through by herself, impeded by her questionable vehicle propensities as she was, then the four of them working together could do it while saving Tron.

Instead of arguing with his role as Heartless patrol, Donald narrowed his eyes and shook his staff. "Piece of cake."

Sora watched Char and Goofy nod at each other before darting behind them. That telltale crimson ponytail had just finished marking a fiery trail in Sora's periphery when he faced the foes in front of them. _We can do this._

* * *

Dear action-writing skills, where tf have you gone? Love, Saf. Ugh.


	79. Chapter LXXIX

Hi. I'm not dead, I promise. c: Put simply, a number of factors conspired to make this chapter overdue. Above all, though, are these: I've been working almost every single day this summer (shock of shocks), and while money's good, it doesn't leave a lot of mental energy to write.

I've also had a killer wall of writer's block. Those of you who follow me on Twitter have seen the product of THAT frustration lol

Anyway, you're not interested in my excuses. I just hope the way I finish this arc doesn't seem half-assed or contrived. /cringe

Enjoy!

* * *

The Sleeping Lion's silvery blur and a continuous stream of magic became the tides that formed their path in the Heartless ocean. Before long, light bore the group and their unconscious burden out of the game grid's battleground.

The light faded, allowing Sora to blink away the spots it left in its wake. He glanced around to see if Char's plan to run through the gap had worked; she had succeeded before, but the MCP could have tricked them by _not_ fixing the blemish in the game grid's otherwise smooth walls and closing off its former destination.

Discomfort still crawled along Sora's spine at having to run into total darkness, and his eyes were still smarting after said darkness' abrupt shift to white light, but he could glimpse his surroundings nonetheless. At first, the lack of windows in the room confused him and sent a bolt of alarm tapering into his chest – but then he took in the pink tendril of light floating down from the ceiling onto a platform and the way the floor sloped up into the walls.

_Guess it spat us out into the I/O Tower. _Char had ended up here after her own misadventure in the game grid, Sora reflected, and the MCP hadn't gotten around to tampering with that escape route.

Suddenly, he remembered the others – and, most importantly, Tron.

He spun around and found Char and Goofy gently lowering the battered man to the ground. Donald lingered close by, as much worry as Sora had ever seen expressed in his anxious eyes and half-open beak. Goofy, who was supporting Tron's legs, yelped as one of those legs slid off the raised part of the ground and threatened to pull him over entirely; but Char quickly reached over and straightened his body.

Sora knelt down next to Goofy and rested his hand on their friend's chest, a bright green glow emanating from his fingers onto Tron. He tried not to wince as he brushed over purple-black gaping out through a slit in the suit. "Heal," he whispered desperately.

As his mana seeped into Tron's bruises, erasing every trace of ugly discoloration as they wove throughout, the man suddenly lurched up with a wheeze. "Tron?" Donald gasped, dashing over to confirm his status.

Relief washed over Sora in a thick delirium when Tron groaned and shook his head. "I… didn't get de-rezzed?"

"Yup," Goofy said with a grin. "Looks like we got you outta there in time."

Hearing the knight's voice, Tron glanced up. A thin, uneven red line stretching across his brow accentuated the bewilderment etched across his features. "What are you all doing here?" he asked weakly.

_We need your help,_ sprang to the tip of Sora's tongue. The phantom vibrations of Leon's Gunblade as it had landed against his Keyblade swept through the boy's arms, along with the unspoken paranoia in that action.

Just when he opened his mouth to speak, though, Char rolled her eyes at Tron. "You're welcome for saving your life."

_"Char,"_ Sora chided her before he could stop himself. Surprisingly, she silenced herself at once, though not without a brief glare in his direction.

He turned back to Tron, who rose steadily to his feet. The Cura spell had done its job well; not even a trace of dizziness marred the man's actions, and he fixed a relatively clear dark eye on Sora. "We came because we need your help," the Keybearer explained. "The MCP's been using this Heartless factory to terrorize Hollow Bastion."

Tron clenched his fists. "That doesn't surprise me," he muttered, a growl embedded in his voice. "He's ready to wage all-out war against the Users."

"And that meant you too," Donald assumed.

His hypothesis was confirmed with a nod. "Not long after you left, the MCP found me again," Tron said. As he went on, fear that a virtual being shouldn't have had the capacity for tightened his words. "I've been fighting in the game grid ever since."

"For _three days?"_ Sora asked incredulously. No wonder Tron had succumbed to pain and fallen unconscious before the group's arrival. While Sora had been frantically scouring the worlds for a shortcut to the Organization's stronghold and the girl who had suggested that course of action, Tron had been fighting for his life. Computer program or not, a basic instinct to survive had kept him going until they had arrived.

He looked at Donald and Goofy, whose eyes had both grown wide in shock and sympathy. "Gawrsh, Tron, I'm really glad we saved you then," Goofy said sincerely.

Char breathed out a sympathetic murmur. "Three days," she repeated, one hand pressing gingerly against her side. Mild pain ghosted over her face as she grazed the wound she had sustained in the game grid. "I can't even imagine…"

Donald shook his head. "Tron, I know you're tired, but we need you. Everybody from the User world needs you."

The man's eyebrows lifted. "The Users… need me?"

Sora thought about chastising Donald for disregarding their friend's safety, but in the end relented and just nodded at Tron. While the news about just what they had saved their friend from strengthened his gladness for having pulled him out, Sora knew their friends from outside needed their help as well.

Tron glanced at Goofy, who nodded and smiled, then at Char, who gave a single confirming nod. Then he met Sora's eyes with fresh determination furrowing his brow. "Tell me what I need to do."

"All right!" Sora cheered. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Char rolling her eyes and the slightest upward quirk of her lips. In spite of Tron's encouragement, he hesitated; he had yet to figure out how to explain what Cid had wanted Tron to do.

Some amount of contemplation must have shown on his face, because Goofy took it upon himself to explain. "Our friend Cid made this program that's supposed to take out the MCP," he said. "But he said we needed somebody to help accept it from a terminal in this world."

Tron looked like he was trying not to smile – Sora imagined he was thinking on how he'd missed these Users and their naïve ignorance of this place – but seriousness overtook that at Goofy's explanation. "I understand," he said. "They just need me to send a signal pulse to the outside."

_Have Tron send a signal pulse out to us,_ Leon's deep voice rumbled in Sora's head._ Aerith will take care of the rest._

"Yeah, a signal pulse!" he confirmed, bobbing his head up and down.

Donald sighed. "Sora, do you even really know what that is?"

"I know we need to do it! Isn't that all that matters?" The Keybearer frowned in mild indignation.

"Well," Char cut in, "no time like the present, right?" She folded her arms and hiked one thumb in the yellow monitor's direction. "This _is_ the closest terminal." When her impatient undertone met with Donald's hostile glare and Goofy's confused expression, she huffed and waved the same hand. "Excuse me if I want to help save the town I grew up in."

Tron tilted his head to the side at her. "Hometowns… are very important to you Users, aren't they?"

His words calmed the two Disney residents immediately. Donald's shoulders dropped, along with his gaze, and Goofy scratched his chin in an almost guilty manner. Sora thought about his island – the sand oozing up between his toes, the paopu tree's smooth surface beneath his back, the sunset scrawling familiar lines of red and purple and gold across the sky – and felt himself nod. Char sighed, muttered something that sounded like "guess so."

Wordlessly, Tron turned to the terminal and tapped a few choice keys on it. "I'm letting the Users outside know to install the eradication program," he tossed over his shoulder to the others.

A few moments passed, during which Sora found his gaze glued unwaveringly to the terminal's screen. Fluctuating blue bars undulated across the dark surface, and he chafed at not knowing what those meant. "Come on, Aerith," he whined under his breath.

Suddenly the screen flashed, startling the non-virtual beings in the room. Tron simply peered closer at it, then gave a nod of understanding and started toward the center of the room, where the pink light cascaded down. He halted directly beneath it and reached around behind his back to withdraw a disc with glowing blue veins.

"What's that?" Donald asked.

"My identity disc," Tron answered. He lifted it to the ceiling, and it began to float up, pulled by invisible fingers. "It should take in the eradication program, and then we can go stop the MCP."

When the familiar deep voice reverberated throughout the room, the group's fraying nerves jolted them into starts once again. Even Tron jumped and nearly stumbled off the platform; the pink light bathed his confusion and cast shadows along it. "What are you doing?" the MCP demanded. "Do not – insignificant Users, cease in your –"

_"Bon appetit,"_ Aerith's breathy voice sang, lighter timbre easily overcoming the MCP's wobbling one. "Don't talk with your mouth full, now." Sora barely restrained his laughter at the healer's flippant words.

He glanced up when the disc floated back down into Tron's waiting grasp. As Tron caught the disc and examined it, the Keybearer asked, "So are we ready to go –"

His question never finished.

It started out as a tremor, something that rippled briefly beneath their feet almost as a warning. Then the MCP let out a roar, something throaty and primordial that clawed up from an untapped fury deep within, and the quakes intensified. Sora's hands flew to his ears, pushed down as hard as they could, but not even that could keep the ongoing scream from penetrating into his skull. Somewhere in the depths of his heart, triumph stirred that this world's tyrant could experience pain such as this – and then the quakes seized his chest and shook even that much out of him.

He freed one hand to cling to the terminal for support, heard his friends' cries of confusion and pain and felt concern for them twitch inside him. Before he could do much more than wonder what was going on, though, light flashed bright enough to force his eyes closed.

And the images that darted across his eyelids answered that question for him.

_ A gray-haired man clad in a lab coat whose tails swung as he walked with purpose in his stride. The top of his head vanishing as he descended down an invisible staircase, with turrets lining the walls nearby._

_ The man rounding the corner at the bottom of the stairs and following the corridor. The corridor widening out to reveal a room with high walls and a single monitor. Five coffin-like shapes fanning out behind the monitor. Five other humans turning to greet the newcomer. _

_ The youngest eyeing the newcomer with uncertain gray-blue eyes that peeked out from behind like-colored bangs._

_ The gray-haired man standing alone in front of the monitor. The light catching off the man's teeth as he smirked._

_ The man walking up the stairs to the postern. Darkness coating the postern, dotted with vicious gold of the Heartless' eyes._

Vertigo pulled Sora down to his hands and knees as the onslaught ebbed, leaving him dizzy and panting. He looked around at the others, trying to speak and gulp in air at the same time. "Did… did anybody else… see that…?"

Donald nodded and squeezed his eyes shut. "Yeah. Yeah," he repeated, the second time a little steadier. "I wonder what that was all about."

Tron groaned and rubbed one palm over his head. "I think the MCP went out of control and sent us those images of the User world."

Goofy pointed one finger at the ceiling. "That makes sense," he agreed. The initial nausea had subsided from all of them, making his voice less reedy than Sora would have suspected.

He glanced at Char to see her reaction… only for every ounce of curiosity to go into overdrive.

"Char?" he demanded, falling back to his knees in front of her, his hands flying to her shoulders in the process. "Char!"

She lifted her head in perfunctory response to his worry. He nearly fell back at the pure panic he found on her face, but didn't dare turn away. Her mouth had fallen open, brows drawn over her eyes, frozen in horror.

"That was them," she whispered. "Xehanort, and Ienzo, and the other apprentices."

Suddenly his fingers were falling away from her as she leaped to her feet, far too quickly for someone who had just recovered. Sora's hands had just begun to lift in an instinctive response to her stumbling when she promptly steadied herself. "Sora," she said urgently, "we need to leave now."

"But we haven't stopped the MCP yet!" Donald argued. "Why do you think we came back at all?"

Char ignored him, eliciting a muffled snarl from the duck, and didn't take her eyes off Sora. "I always wondered how they got all those Heartless to come after them," she breathed out, sounding as though every word clawed its way past demons in her throat. "Master must've had the MCP set up even then. He saw the whole thing."

"And that's why he went out of control?" Tron asked desperately.

"Most likely." Char nodded. "That was the old lab we used to use for experiments on Heartless and darkness. That's how the MCP is churning them out so fast."

Sora blinked and scratched his head. "Char, I really don't get why –"

The redhead growled loudly and shook her head. "We're responsible for the Heartless in Hollow Bastion!" she shouted. It took him a moment to realize _we_ referred to her and the other apprentices. "I don't know why I need to spell this out for you; it's bad enough _knowing_ our research basically screwed our home over, and that the MCP's using it to hurt everyone." She stopped, groped for words, found none, and simply stared hard at him, as if willing for him to just understand.

Now that Sora thought about it, Char _had_ mentioned something about the MCP using Ansem's research to hurt Hollow Bastion. However, he hadn't spent that long wondering about it; the situation's urgency had tugged him to the task at hand. Ironically, this new situation's direness shoved her offhand remark back into his mind.

Only now did he realize he should have pried the answer out of her, the same way he had slowly, albeit unintentionally, coaxed her into revealing her past with the Organization.

But her raw terror told him the MCP's flashbacks had forced that part of her past into the open already. They provided the final piece that had remained unknown even to her: how the other apprentices had become Nobodies.

The fact that they had done so willingly sent incredulity skittering across his thoughts. _Why would you just sacrifice your heart like that?_

_ You did it, too. Remember what you had to do to get Kairi's heart back?_

Char's chest rose and fell in a deep breath, as much to calm herself down as to recover the air vertigo had snatched from her. Her eyes softened slightly and she took another breath. "Now let's go," she urged. "Tron, you can handle things here, right?"

The man gave a firm nod. "I think so. At the very least, I can hold off the MCP until you figure out how to destroy that laboratory."

Although bewilderment at Char's usurping Sora's decision-making position should have crossed his voice, Tron sounded resolute in his promise. Not a trace of doubt in what the others were about to do marred that resolve.

Donald huffed and threw his hands up. "You're not even the tiniest bit confused about this?" he demanded.

Tron hesitated, then spoke slowly, his true nature as a scientific being ringing through. "When I needed your help, you didn't hesitate, even though remaining in this world to assist me was illogical," he recalled with a smile. "There's no reason why I shouldn't return the favor to you now."

"Gawrsh, Tron, thanks a lot!" Goofy grinned back.

"You're becoming more like a User every day, aren't you?" Sora surfaced from his thoughts long enough to tease him.

Tron shrugged. "I suppose I am," he said, without a trace of bitterness in his voice. "Now go on. We need to end this."

Char narrowed her eyes in his direction, before she seemed to come to a decision and gave a single nod. "Care to do the honors, Tron?" she queried. Her tone resembled nothing even close to gratitude – in fact, her brusqueness made Donald and Goofy exchange mildly bemused glances – yet the way in which Char regarded Tron held only the smallest chill.

In a way, Ansem the Wise had created both of them.

Within moments, the terminal's light engulfed the group.

* * *

Predictably, once they had made it back to Ansem's computer room, Char gave them all of about four seconds to get their senses back. During those four seconds, Sora noticed three things in succession: the light dripped away from his vision; the Heartless factory's blazing pink turrets pulsating in a way that created a muted glow behind the computer screen, the same way as earlier; and Leon and Aerith were gone.

Then soft fingers were wrapping around his wrist and pulling with every ounce of effort they could muster. The fierce grip forced him into a sprint to accommodate its pulling him along, lest he stumble and taste the floor. He gritted his teeth at the pressure on his wrist, almost tugged it free until he looked up and saw the back of a crimson head bobbing with the rhythm of footsteps.

"Where are Leon and Aerith?" Goofy called from behind them, keeping up easily with his long-legged gait. Donald was struggling to keep up until the knight plucked him off the ground, not slowing in the slightest, much to the duck's dismay.

"Put me down!" he squawked, and was ignored.

"I guess things are that bad in town," Char answered tightly. She sounded even more agitated now than she had in the virtual world, mostly due to the fact that it had to force its way past a wall of clenched teeth. Her constant sprint didn't help her voice's steadiness, either.

From his position behind her, Sora could see the doorway Aerith had walked through to speak with them earlier. Fortunately for both Char's fears and his rapidly diminishing ability to match her pace without tripping, the door already hung open.

As Sora passed by it with Goofy and Donald hot on his heels, he couldn't help noticing what looked like scratch marks clawing their way up the door's hinges. Right next to the unmistakable furrow of a blade's talon scored across the surface.

It almost looked like Leon had come back… and then Heartless had forced him and Aerith out into the corridors.

Just how bad had things gotten while he was gone?

If Char noticed her extension's sudden ability to keep up with her, or how she no longer had to drag him behind her, she said nothing of it. Even the back of her head emanated determination, offsetting her back's ramrod straightness.

Past the doorway lay the Heartless manufactory room: a single platform nestled into the corner of a vast expanse. Turrets lined walls that sloped sharply upward and extended out into that endless canyon. On normal days, pink would not rim those turrets' forms; they wouldn't glow a shade that reminded Sora of the day the Beast had lost his senses and turned on him.

Then again, those walls had held no demonic light when Xehanort and the other apprentices had sacrificed their hearts.

Char must have been thinking the same thing, because she began to crush the bones of his wrist even more tightly together in her grip.

But then she let out a sound of satisfaction as the ground dropped away nearby. "Good," she sighed, "the stairs are still here."

"The stairs?" Donald echoed. His feet still dangled down from where Goofy held him up, but he seemed to have forsaken his indignation for now.

Sora glanced over his shoulder and saw Goofy nod. "It must lead to the lab the MCP showed us."

A pause, during which Sora realized he was waiting for Char to make a sarcastic remark on Goofy's obviousness.

Trying not to think about how much her silence unnerved him, he craned his neck to see around her and spotted the stairs. The same ones Xehanort had descended when he had gone to meet his fate.

_Xemnas, not Xehanort,_ he had to remind himself. Somehow, thinking about the man who led the Organization as an enemy proved immensely easier when he could refer to him by his Nobody's name. _He started all of this._

And then his brief streak of seriousness died when they began to descend the stairs and the ground beneath him grew uneven. Suddenly, not tripping over his feet proved immensely difficult.

Fortunately, Char noticed she was still pulling him along behind her. She halted briefly in order to release his wrist. Goofy stopped as well, hastily enough that Donald screeched in protest as he swung precariously forward.

"Sorry," she muttered, while Sora fought the mighty urge to check for bruising. It definitely felt like her fingers had broken enough blood vessels there.

When he heard her apology, half-hearted though it sounded, he hastened in a placating response. "Ah, no, it's okay," he said, raising both hands.

That earned him a roll of her eyes from her before she turned back around and resumed her dash as quickly as she had stopped it.

"C'mon, we gotta go help!" Goofy called from behind him.

Sora turned around to give a nod of agreement, only to stifle the movement before he had even completed it. Donald had his eyes narrowed, but Goofy's expression implied a concerned undercurrent powering his resolve. Although the knight refused to explain why that particular power source existed, Sora could figure the reason out for himself.

Char hadn't acted this truly _terrified_ since they had first heard Ansem's name in a different context than the Heartless from before.

The trio followed that particular streak of red to the bottom of the stairs and found the same hallway from the MCP's flashback stretching out in front of them. On the wall across from them, a black-and-red heart etched itself, starkly visible to them even in the half-light: the emblem of the Heartless. Sora shivered as the flickering panels above his head sent skittering pulses of light across the room.

Donald's anger faltered, and he shuddered as well, recoiling back from the room's eerie aura. Goofy said nothing, but he did lower Donald back to the ground with knuckles bulging in their grip on the back of his blue shirt.

Sora began to say "this place is creepy," only for that remark to strangle itself in his throat. At first he thought the shadow twitched as a byproduct to the flickering light source overhead, but then it heaved sharply and he whipped his head toward it.

Normal shadows definitely didn't move like _that._

"Oh, _crap,"_ Char hissed, diving toward the darkness' source. She swerved in her tracks and dashed into the room just beyond.

In spite of his and the others' fear, Sora didn't need to tell Donald and Goofy to follow after him.

To his relief, the erratic flickers of light only extended to the room's threshold. Illumination garbed the lab itself more brightly, and Sora spent a few rudimentary seconds blinking against the sudden assault on his retinas. Once he grew accustomed to those darting tracks of light and shadow's disappearance, his eyes widened.

True to the MCP's information, unwillingly given though it was, a machine with a monitor stationed in front of it lay before him, along with five pods spreading out behind the machine.

At least, he would have anticipated seeing those pods had darkness not coated the machine – and the extensions that reminded him so eerily of coffins – completely.

"Why did you have to be right?" Donald hissed out behind Sora. If Sora didn't know any better, he might have thought the dread saturating Donald's belligerence turned that remark into a _whimper._

Char's shoulders tensed.

As the four of them watched, frozen in place, the shadowy entity curled around the machine before them twisted free and split off into multiple tendrils. Those tendrils then wove together into the pink-and-black globe he had come to associate with Heartless' appearance.

Sora summoned the Sleeping Lion to his grip and fell into his battle stance, glaring down the globes as they swirled together. "If we just have to take out these Heartless," he called to the others, "this should be easy enough."

"How're we supposed to beat the MCP like this?" Goofy prompted.

Sora hesitated, unwound from his tense crouch just a bit. The question was a perfectly valid one, but it called their original objective back into his mind a bit too well. Again, he saw the door to the Heartless manufactory, imagined its aggressors in the form of Leon's Gunblade and Heartless claws, and felt concern twitch violently in his heart.

Just as quickly as he had wavered, though, he clenched that silver hilt tighter to gather his resolve again. No matter what form it took, the Keyblade grounded him and kept him focused on who he truly was and what he was fighting for. "Tron said he'd take out the MCP from the other side while we destroyed his Heartless source," he reminded them, then lifted his head to gaze at Char. The back of her head, at least. "Right?"

He meant only to confirm the reason they had come here in the first place, yet toxic doubt dripped through the cracks in his determination. So much latent fear lay compressed into that one-word question that it worried him.

_I know what I have to do… but we didn't think this through very well._

Char_ didn't think this through._

That was who that fear really belonged to, though – that acid corroding his spirit's foundation. It wrapped around the foundations of Donald and Goofy's courage as well: anger tempered Donald's anxiety, and Goofy still had that desperate desire to trust marring his. But they were eyeing Char with the same worry and dread that he felt.

From the despondent arch along her spine, she understood her mistake as well.

They didn't get more time to dwell on it, though, because the spheres coalesced into all-too-familiar beasts.

For the tiniest fraction of a second, Sora's grip on the Keyblade slackened. The glare he had aimed toward those beings in their nascent form gained a tinge of fear. From the gasps of Donald and Goofy behind him, they recognized the Heartless as well.

Long bodies, demonic horns, pale broadswords…

In that instant, the lab's pale walls and sterile floor vanished in favor of violet caverns and almost-snow that should have crunched underfoot.

Then one of the demons swung its blade toward them. Instinctively, Sora brought up the Sleeping Lion to parry the blow; the sword landed against his Keyblade with an ear-piercing _clang_, resulting shockwaves trembling along his arms. However, it took only a moment for the Heartless to recover from its equivalent of surprise at not cleaving its prey in half. It yanked its broadsword back and flew in for another strike.

Almost as if that were some sort of signal, the other demon Heartless swept over the room, each picking its own target. One in particular dove forward toward Char, who was still eyeing the monitor with tangible panic. Even though her back was still turned, that emotion was obvious.

No sooner had the thought to go help her flitted across Sora's mind did something crash into him. Pain exploded in his side, but he didn't dare waste a moment finding a healing item in his pocket.

He whirled toward the source. Blazing purple undulated in front of him and wove across his vision; this time, he managed to leap away from the dark energy before it could crack his ribs. The demon Heartless lowered its hand, where that energy dripped from its claws onto the floor. It drew itself up, eyeing him in a way that made Sora narrow his eyes.

It reminded him of how that Sark guy had looked at them just before setting the Heartless on Donald and Goofy. Sharp, cold, calculating.

Thinking of the MCP's lapdog, Sora spun around and glared at the monitor. His injury destroyed some of the fire wound about every word and turned his belligerent query into a series of pants. "Alright… MCP! Where… are you?"

"Is this really the time to antagonize that guy?" Donald shrieked from the other side of the room. He snapped his staff up into the air, and sparks rained down onto the demon's head; it recoiled only momentarily before continuing to advance on him. Sora glanced around and saw Goofy running toward a Heartless, shield first; he turned back and charged toward the one attacking Donald.

As it turned out, he barreled into it on the side that had just been hurt. Sora gritted his teeth and swerved around the broadsword flung in his direction, leaping up to carve a spiral into the demon's head. When he landed, one hand fell to the area just under his ribs.

"You all right?" Donald asked, not wasting time with gratitude. A moment's concentration, and then a green glow snaked past Sora's field of vision. He sighed in relief as the agony dulled.

"Thanks –" he began, only to jolt as white flashed in his periphery. Without thinking, he turned toward it… and ended up with a weight slamming into his forehead as a result.

He heard Donald scream his name – heard, but couldn't see the fear that undoubtedly twisted the duck's face. Terror wove into his heart when he blinked furiously and the darkness coating his vision failed to scatter. _It's just the blood, it's just the blood,_ he repeated frantically to himself in his mind. _It's just the –_

Then the blood cleared from his eyes. He jumped back to his feet, ignoring the dizziness that pounded him as he did so, and charged toward the nearest demon.

When the Sleeping Lion flashed out in front of it, the Heartless had no time to react; its body cringed under the blows rained down on it from behind, then yielded to Sora's continuous assault. The boy landed with his target having disintegrated behind him.

_One down, three to go…_

_ Oh no._

He was pretty sure only four had initially appeared. One to fight each of them.

But two more demons were advancing on them from either side of the coffin-bearing machine.

And as he looked on, Char struck one down with a triumphant snarl. She bared her teeth at the vanishing body, only for movement over by the machine to catch her eye. Sure enough, two more demons had materialized just behind their companions.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Sora breathed.

His words drew Char's gaze, which certainly mirrored his own panic.

Then darkness passed between them and the battle continued.

Again, one of the demons halted his urge to help any of his companions with its blade. He rolled away from the deadly broadsword and felt the aftershocks from its landing ripple beneath his feet. Blood loss from the still-wet wound on his forehead robbed him of his ability to bolt back upright for a counterattack; it replaced that dexterity with faint nausea instead, just strong enough in his belly to work up into his vision and send dizziness throughout his body. He stumbled mid-roll, sending his shoulder on a one-way journey to the floor, and the Heartless took its opportunity to swoop in.

"Oh no you don't!" a female voice barked from behind it. A pause, then the Heartless froze, blade half-lifted in a terminated attempt to impale Sora's skull. It writhed in a series of spasms that signified an assault from behind before disintegrating into dark mist.

Char straightened, shaking a stray, black wisp from one sword. The cuts on her forehead and cheek had reopened, and bright red glistened along her arms, but she had no pain on her face as she looked at him. Only concern. "There's no end to these bastards," she grunted.

Sora gave a nod. He heard a rustle from behind him; he shot to his feet and whirled around, slammed his Keyblade down.

Both for his dignity and for his life, he prayed he wouldn't stumble again. Why he was concerned about what Char thought of him now, he didn't know; but he did know that one more fall could end everything. And he couldn't afford to die at this point. _For Riku and Kairi, I need to stay standing._

Even Char let out a gasp when Sora's Keyblade clashed with the nearest surface, the startled noise elicited by her fraying nerves. Sora blinked – which ended up serving as much to clear a few stray drops of blood as to convey his surprise – when he met not golden Heartless eyes, but Goofy's dark ones. Those eyes gazed at the two teens from above flaring golden spikes lining his shield.

"Sorry, Goofy," Sora gasped. All of a sudden, exhaustion had returned, as if knowing it had driven him to attack his comrade had strengthened its resolve. "I just… they're everywhere, and I thought you were –"

Goofy shook his head in silent acceptance of the apology. "I know whatcha mean," he said. "But we ain't got time for this." He whipped his head to the side and charged forward, succeeding in barreling into two demons; one of them twisted in a vain attempt to dodge, but only ended up impaling the Heartless behind it as Goofy knocked them back. The twofold attacks proved too much for them and they dissolved.

However, their triumph at that proved short-lived when nearby, four more dark globes appeared and shaped themselves into their demonic forms.

"You're right," Char agreed grudgingly. "There's too many of –"

"Look out!" Donald screamed nearby. Char's eyes widened and she turned toward his voice, only to gasp and leap back at the sweeping, deadly arc of a broadsword cleared not two inches clear of her body. The demon pulled its blade back and thrust it forward again, but Sora quickly darted in and sliced his own weapon deeply into its flank.

As it drew back, cringing under the force of the blow, a feral snarl rent the air. Donald ran under the Heartless' legs and came to stand by Sora's side, glaring fiercely at the Heartless before them. He lifted his staff with another growl. Firelight bathed the room in flickering orange as the flames shot forth, somehow failing to singe their source. The flames died down at contact with their target, but still lit Donald's glower for a brief moment, staining his white feathers in shadow-tinted fire.

"You're welcome," he snorted at Char.

Char rolled her eyes. "When you deserve it, I'll give it."

Sora glanced over at her. Blood stained the ground behind her, marking her battle path in a shade like that of her hair; the orange glow on Donald's face had exposed multiple red lines running down his neck and stiffening his feathers, and Goofy's grip on his shield was tight enough to coat the yellow handle with blood.

If they had to fight much longer…

"When is Tron gonna tell us he took out the MCP already?" he whined.

"He only said he would hold him off," Goofy pointed out mildly. The seemingly innocent remark lilted upward in octave at the end, giving away the true extent of his dread.

"But then how else are we supposed to –?"

Suddenly bright light flashed in the machine's direction, lining the Heartless' forms in white. The ones closest to that part of the room floated away from it, vaguest tinges of disgust in the eerily synchronized movement. "What was that?" Donald demanded, holding his weapon closer.

Sora was about to voice his uncertainty when a familiar voice resounded, making even the Heartless halt in their advance on the group. Even though endless shadow greeted his eyes wherever he looked, the Keybearer could envision the face of the man – program – speaking, and the thumbs-up he was likely giving.

"I managed to subdue the MCP," Tron called. "Now it's up to you to destroy the Heartless source."

"But how are we supposed to do that?" Sora shouted. It occurred to him that while Tron's voice had somehow crossed the border between worlds, the boy's own voice might not extend that far. Nonetheless, he kept going. _Everything else's been possible with that place. _"They just keep on coming!"

"Sora, wait," Char said suddenly. "If Tron took out the MCP, then there shouldn't be any more Heartless showing up."

Donald's eyes widened as he realized her theory. "Then they won't reappear faster than we can take them out!"

"But there's so many of them!" Goofy said. He hefted his shield up closer to his body – _dragged _it, really. He said nothing of it, but exhaustion marked the movement, and more blood dripped from his shoulder down his arm.

_Goofy's right. We need to end this fast, before they kill us._

Then his eyes caught sight of the machine, and the monitor resting in front of it. Looking at it, he found himself remembering the images the MCP had sent to all of them in his spasm of pain. Xehanort had walked up to that monitor… typed something in…

And then the Heartless had shown up.

Char followed his gaze and came to a decision before he did. "The monitor," she whispered, then whirled to Donald and Goofy. "We need to clear a path from Sora to that machine."

It was a testament to how tired the Disney residents had grown, that not even Donald offered any obligatory refusal at Char's order. They simply threw themselves into the mass of darkness and scraped together every ounce of strength they had left.

Sora scanned the shadows frantically, seeking a gap in the heaving sea. Then Goofy flung aside one demon and left a path open for him.

He dashed toward the monitor, focused only on the tiny, lit square of light in front of him. Somehow, the Sleeping Lion had found its way in front of him, extending out so it would be the first thing that monitor felt when he reached it.

His eyes narrowed fiercely. _You started all of this. The Organization, Destiny Islands' destruction, Riku and Kairi. All of it._

_ And I'm going to help finish it._

Something white flashed in front of him – something with a black beast attached to it – and he skidded in his tracks. The demon rose up in front of him, but another blur slammed into it from the side and knocked it away.

As it turned out, that blur was a shade of red he had come to know so well.

With his goal just ahead, he leaped, pointed the Keyblade down toward the monitor. Lightning exploded forth from the Sleeping Lion's shaft, shooting down…

…right into that square of light.

Sparks erupted from the screen, danced together in midair and threatened to skate along Sora's skin as he landed just next to the machine. All around him, the demons were disintegrating. They left little more than ashes in their wake before Kingdom Hearts' call swept that, too, away.

He looked around at the others. Donald was simply gaping, while Goofy lowered his shield and sighed in relief. As the two of them exchanged triumphant glances and pumped their fists, the Keybearer felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Hey, um, so…" Char began, then seemed to decide words didn't suffice and surged forward. He nearly jolted back when her hands landed on his biceps, but then her mouth was on his and it didn't matter.

Just like before, just like the last time they had kissed, every coherent thought flew out of his mind, replaced by a haze whose name matched Char's. Unlike last time, though, only the smallest hint of gentleness lingered in her fingers brushing over him; they hooked fiercely over the crooks of his elbows, traces of adrenaline in her tight grip.

This had followed up a physical fight, not a verbal one.

His eyes had just begun to flicker closed when he heard Donald growl in disgust. "Get a room, you two!"

Sora blinked. For the second time that day, reality came surging back clad in Donald's hoarse voice, and he realized what had just happened. He tried not to flinch at the very audible smack of their lips parting as he drew back from Char to face the others. Sometime in the two seconds it took him to pull away, her fingers had slid free of his arms, leaving a decidedly tangible void in their wake.

"Uh," he began, then shook his head and started over. Donald proffered one expectant hand, while Goofy covered his rapidly growing smile with a knuckle crooked over his mouth. "We…"

And then he had to stop there, because at that moment he recalled that their relationship had no real name. _Relationship_ didn't even fit; that implied something public, something that an untimely kidnapping and three days' mulling over had never interrupted. Something that he hoped would tailor itself around his and Char's emotions when he returned home with his friends.

Thinking about Kairi and Riku only opened the gates for another headache, though – he'd been trying to elude their hypothetical reactions for so long, after all – so he redirected his train of thought to now. Now, with his two longtime companions staring at him and Char with undisguised confusion.

_Well,_ he reflected, _you knew this couldn't stay secret from Donald and Goofy for very long. You moped around a little too much when she disappeared, so…_

Relief cascaded over him when Char spoke up, casting him an impatient eyebrow-raise as she took up the task he couldn't. She misinterpreted his silence as worry for Donald and Goofy's opinions, though, judging by the mild concern embedded in her glance at Sora.

"He likes me," she announced. "The feeling's mutual." A pause, then a rather awkward "Obviously" tacked on to the end of it.

Sora thought of their kisses, of her warmth and the phantom grip of her fingers on his arms and collarbone, and fought the urge to touch his lips. The smile that came to him, though, proved harder to vanquish.

Goofy lowered his hand and shrugged his shoulders, making the redhead blink. She sought out a conduit for her rising bemusement and found it in Sora's eyes again. He just nodded encouragingly at her. "We figured somethin' like that was going on," Goofy admitted.

"You did?" Char blinked again.

Donald snorted. "Yeah, we did," he answered tersely, as if seeing no reason to justify his friend's claim any more than that. When Goofy nudged him in the side, though, the duck planted his feet more firmly and elaborated. "It was hard not to tell. Sora always makes that face at girls he likes."

Sora gave a start. "What face?" he demanded, slapping at his cheeks. They felt a little warm, but not contorted in any particular way. "I don't have a face!" he protested to Char. "Do I?"

One ice-blue eye narrowed. "Hmm… if you mean goofier than usual, then yeah, I can sort of see it." While she kept her tone relatively brusque, the grin on her face deadened that impact. "Then again, considering what happened two minutes ago…"

Sora dropped his hands back to his sides and appraised her through playfully slitted eyes. "Oh, ha, ha," he joked, before looking back to Donald and Goofy. He heard Char exhale behind him and nearly turned to figure out why it sounded so loud; then he remembered the worry on her face when she'd looked at him.

Somehow, in her own strange way, Char had regarded Donald and Goofy's reactions with the same uncertainty that Sora did for Riku and Kairi's.

_That's weird. Why would she care what they think?_

_ Maybe because they're her friends too._

The Keybearer almost laughed. Even now that he had her physical form back with him, her sardonic tendencies could still stir inside him.

"So," he said, putting his arms behind his head, "is that – _ow." _He winced at the sudden throb that lashed out violently in the front of his skull.

"That forehead wound looks really bad," Goofy remarked obviously, craning his head to get a better look at it.

"And I probably didn't help it at all," Char muttered under her breath. Something like contrition resonated in her lowered voice, which Sora found strange, since she had miraculously avoided bashing their foreheads together in her advance.

Then again, had she not directed them down here – into this lab that housed the past and all those demon Heartless whose fury had only plagued the crags and violet sea of the End of the World – he wouldn't have suffered that blow at all.

Yet he couldn't find it in himself to blame her. Partly because the MCP had played more of a role in the endless Heartless waves than she did… and partly because his head throbbed too much for any real bitterness to manifest.

Donald rolled up invisible sleeves, withdrew his staff, and allowed it to work its healing magic on Sora's injury. As the pain transitioned from migraine level to minor twinging, Sora sighed and allowed his body to slump from where it had tensed up in agony. "That's better."

"Tron?" Goofy called, glancing around the room. "We stopped the Heartless! Are ya there?"

Through his skull's ebbing tide of pain, Sora realized he detected nothing but silence. He blinked, ignoring how the collision of his lashes sent a final, white-hot dagger jackknifing into his brain, and followed Goofy's gaze. Other than the machine, the pods – _not coffins that's not the right word even though five people Char knew _died_ in there_ – the crimson pinpricks where their blood had fallen during the fight, and the still-flickering light from the hallway beyond, nothing greeted his eyes.

And then his eyes fell on the crushed monitor, its fragmented glass littering the floor, and he remembered the lightning bolt that had cascaded from his Keyblade into it.

His heart protested against the fear beginning to surface in it, ordering him not to assume the worst; but in light of what had just happened, he found it difficult to keep the terror at bay.

"You don't think…" he began, then stopped. Breathed deep, then started again. "You don't think he was _in_ the monitor, and that I…"

"Oh, come on," Char snorted, "that's not how computers work and you know it, Sora."

Although her derisive sharpness disguised a tremble's edge, Sora found himself only hearing the overbearing abrasiveness. "Well, then tell me why he's not answering!" he snapped back.

"Yeah," Donald added, folding his arms and glaring at Char with relish. "Why else wouldn't he tell us what's…"

His fury died off then, and he stopped, glowering down at the ground as if it could assuage the dread likely rising up and placing a chokehold on his rage.

Goofy looked anxiously from boy to girl to duck and lingered on the very latter. "We shouldn't think the worst happened," he pointed out. "Why, I'm sure Tron's just waitin' to surprise us!"

His optimism sounded too strained, though.

_Geez,_ Sora thought with self-deprecation gnawing in his mind, _it's like the day we thought we lost him all over again._

Maybe that was why the knight could at least don a positive mask for his friends, though: because he had played the victim and not the mourners and therefore held no past memory of the terror and grief and disbelieving rage that losing a friend brought.

Next to him, Donald uttered a defeated whimper, and Sora knew he was thinking the same thing.

"Sora? Are you down here?"

Yuffie's voice floated down to them from the top of the staircase, somehow managing to sound airy even with concern sharpening its normally carefree pitch. Rapid footsteps punctuated her question, and even as she finished speaking a familiar dark-clad shape popped up in the doorway. Aerith stood close behind, hands clasped in front of her.

Yuffie spent a grand total of three seconds on her scan of the group before darting forward. Aerith followed at a much calmer pace, though her eyes grew round in worry as she took in Sora and his companions' crestfallen faces.

"Things are calming down outside!" the ninja chirped. "The only Heartless left are of the local variety. And it looks like there are fewer than before." She clapped Sora heartily on the back, making him lurch forward and almost add another head wound on top of the recently healed one. "Good job, guys!" she chirped.

Aerith tilted her head to the side as she looked from one fighter to the next. "You don't look very happy," she observed. Her gaze lingered on Sora without a trace of accusation: just gentle curiosity, and the unspoken promise to help if she needed to. Seeing the latter on her face, Sora found himself grappling with sudden desperation.

Because she _couldn't_ help, if Tron had really…

With the healer's remark, Yuffie finally seemed to notice that the group's happiness failed to match hers. She pulled back from Sora and eyed him with one eyebrow quirked up. "Yeah, why the long faces?" she pressed, shoving one finger close enough to him that it duplicated in his vision.

Sora drew back so his personal bubble remained intact again; his weak amusement at her attempt to cheer them up faded within seconds, leaving him despondent and searching for a way to explain once again.

"We're fine, but…" he trailed off. Goofy drew himself up, ready to interject, but ended up drooping down again and sighing in resignation. Somehow, the fact that he had given up even that small bit of hope stung Sora even more.

"Tron disappeared," Donald explained with a sigh embedded in his words.

Char winced in Sora's periphery, a reaction that he understood all too well. Spoken aloud like that, Tron's fate scraped more harshly at his chest and left a much more raw pain in its wake. It sounded more _real._

_ I told myself I wouldn't lose any more friends,_ he thought, but the frustration accompanying that reminder felt hollow.

Suddenly alarms began screeching overhead, startling everyone in the room. Goofy's hands flew over his ears immediately, fingers closing over his long ears to tug them down and try to block out the sound. Donald jolted, and Char's shoulders jerked in surprise.

Yuffie looked at Aerith and bit her lip nervously. "You don't think…?"

But Aerith only shook her head before turning on her heel and making a beeline for the staircase again.

Even amid his grief over Tron, Sora immediately traced the blaring's familiarity. The system had wailed like this when Donald had first awoken the MCP, however unintentionally. Goofy had covered his ears the exact same way that day, too.

_But Tron stopped the MCP; how could he still be here?_

Tugged forward by a sudden sense of urgency, Sora sprinted after Aerith with the others hot on his heels. He swerved around the corner; the staircase's bottom step forced a startled hiss out of him as he stumbled over it; righted himself just in time and raced after the bobbing tail of Aerith's braid as she reached the top.

The Heartless factory's pink glow had disappeared, he noted vaguely when they passed it by.

Aerith slowed her pace in time to come to a graceful, albeit massively restrained, halt in front of Ansem's computer. She narrowed her eyes, and as the others skidded to a much less serene stop close to her – Yuffie barely avoided bowling Aerith over with her own haste – she appraised the screen.

Sora peeked over her shoulder, grasping the keyboard's edge to keep steady and heaving in gulps of air. Char and Yuffie crowded in on his other side, while Goofy and Donald stood next to Sora, the latter balancing himself on his tiptoes to see properly.

All the while, the alarm blared around them.

"Can't you figure out how to make that stop?" Char begged Aerith, more desperate than irritated.

"Your master made this," Donald pointed out. Every bit of annoyance that Char managed to not channel had condensed into his own snide words. "Don't _you_ know?"

Char bristled at the pointed reference to her. "I wasn't the one who messed with this thing!" she growled at the duck. "I didn't know anything about the virtual world, remember?"

Sora groaned and rubbed his neck. "Guys, can you not fight for ten seconds?" he complained. "It's making my headache even worse." And it was true; the combined influences of his head injury and Char and Donald's unfailing vitriol toward each other resurrected his migraines into tangible forms of the demon Heartless inside his skull.

"Sora's right," Goofy managed, tugging his ears down in visible discomfort, "we gotta figure out what's –"

At that moment, the room fell silent. In the wake of the alarm's absence, Sora could hear the computer's low hum. As much as the hum had unnerved him before, he found himself preferring the evidence of the device's exertion over the howling alarms.

Then a familiar tone echoed – one that would have passed as mechanical, had subtle hints of emotion not marred the façade – and summoned delighted gasps from everyone in the room.

"Greetings, friends." Tron's voice carried a warbling, almost digital quality to it now, but it was unmistakably _his,_ and Sora felt a grin spread across his face. "System is up, and ready for User input."

"Tron, you're okay!" Goofy cheered, pumping his fist with a toothy smile of his own.

Donald slumped down onto his webbed feet in undisguised relief, only to jolt and puff himself back up. "Don't _do_ that!" he snarled at Tron. "We were worried sick about you!"

Sora glanced at Aerith, who nodded and stepped back so he could look at the screen. He peered at its illuminated depths, squinting against the influx of artificial light, and cocked his head to the side. Other than a few squares scattered across the screen – what were those shapes called, _windows?_ Technology still made no sense to him – it looked innocent enough. "What happened?" he asked.

A pause, during which he imagined the program shrugging, and then Tron spoke. "I'm not really sure," he confessed. "Some sort of energy came over me when I defeated the MCP, and then the next thing I knew, I was at his control panel."

Sora blinked. "Control… panel…?"

Tron chuckled, the sound vibrating throughout the room. "Well, at any rate, it seems like I'm the new MCP now."

"No way," Yuffie gasped, leaning closer.

"So what about Sark?" Char piped up from Sora's other side. He twitched in surprise; throughout all the commotion and her elected silence, he had forgotten she still stood next to him. She was surveying the screen as though Tron stood in front of them in its place, gaze leveled intensely toward the topmost window. Sora couldn't identify her emotions – or, moreover, trace the cycle they had taken in her few minutes' silence – but genuine curiosity wrinkled her brow.

"Sark?" Aerith echoed, glancing questioningly at Sora. Yuffie tossed a rudimentary look over her shoulder at them before returning to her fascination with the computer screen. She folded her arms a moment later, as if having adjusted to Tron's new position of power over Hollow Bastion, and turned to the others.

Noticing Donald and Goofy give a simultaneous twitch, Sora answered the healer's question. At the same time, he couldn't help but experience a sympathetic pang toward the others; they had suffered the worst of Sark's wrath, after all. "The MCP's second-in-command," he told Aerith. "Just a really bad guy."

Char snorted. "Understatement of life. Which is why I'm asking, Tron… You took him out, right?" She quirked one eyebrow at the screen. Sora almost pointed out that gesture's pointlessness – it wasn't like Tron could see it – and then he remembered the MCP had sustained enough power to watch Donald step across the keyboard. If Tron had truly usurped the tyrant, unintentionally or not, he should have received those powers as well.

Static rippled across the sigh that curled out of the monitor. "That was the hard part," Tron admitted. "The program your User friends made only weakened the MCP. It never inhibited Sark's functions."

"So the real fight was with Sark," Goofy guessed, propping one elbow against the keyboard's edge.

"Precisely." Sora imagined Tron nodding in confirmation.

Yuffie blew out a sympathetic sound that stirred stray pieces of hair on her face. "Must've been hard."

Again came a pause, during which Char narrowed her eyes and Aerith tilted her head at the screen. Tron's reticence implied something else beneath his triumph's surface, something that had taken the suitable pleasure at victory and shredded its majority to ribbons; that something's name eluded Sora, but clearly Char and Aerith understood its identity.

From the uncertain glance Goofy threw Sora's way, he did as well.

Sora didn't want to admit it, but… that something seemed kind of like regret.

"Well, at least you won!" the Keybearer told Tron. He almost winced at how falsely happy he sounded; the clumsy attempt to change the subject thudded in every word's unceremonious impact against the silence. Even Yuffie cast an uncomfortable look in his direction.

Donald nodded enthusiastically and balanced himself on his tiptoes to better reach the computer. "And now that that jerk MCP's gone, the alarms won't go off!" As he spoke that cheerful remark, he brushed a rudimentary hand over the keys on the keyboard.

True to his prediction, the alarms failed to announce Donald's transgression. The sound that followed, though, wrought even more of a startling effect than its predecessor: Tron chuckling, the sound light with surprise, as though the duck's simple move had… tickled him.

"Tron… did that…?" Sora trailed off, blinking.

"Tron is ticklish?" Goofy filled in. He reached out and poked the long bar stretching at the bottom of the keyboard, which eked out a quiet _tap_ in response to the pressure. As Tron's laugh rang out again, this time tinged with more than a bit of panic, Sora felt a smirk rise up and curl his lips.

Judging by Donald's dark snicker and his rubbing his hands together, the same devious thoughts were running through his mind.

"Wait – no – stop!" Tron begged, but neither duck nor boy complied. _Tap, tap, tap, _went the keys beneath Sora and Donald's fingers; the new MCP's laughter almost drowned out the sound.

Char shook her head and sighed. "You guys are evil…"

"Look who's talking!" Sora retorted playfully, grinning over his shoulder at her. At her ensuing glare, he barely reined in his body's visceral reaction of recoiling, the restraint expressed only in his fingers' twitch. His fingertips brushed over the top of the keyboard, making Tron's tickled laughter escalate; but he didn't take his gaze off Char's.

Finally she relented and allowed him a smile of her own. "Fine then, Sora," she conceded. "You got me there."

For a moment, he could only gape at her, startled at a snarky remark's failure to escape her. What didn't waver, though, lay in the willing surrender quirking her lips upward and softening her icy eyes into something he remembered.

Suddenly, he had to fight the urge to brush his fingers over his lips and respond to her phantom warmth's return.

He heard a teasing chuckle nearby – too high-pitched and mischievous to have come from Tron – and turned just in time to see Yuffie smirking at him. Flustered, he fell back, managing to catch himself at the edge of Ansem's computer. While Char didn't share that drastic reaction, her arms dropped from their folded position and faint red dust spread across her cheeks.

Sora braced himself for a teasing remark, a preparation accompanied by heat's dance along his spine. Much to his surprise, though, she said nothing of the emotions occupying both teenagers' faces. "I think Tron's been hanging around those guys too much," the ninja commented to Aerith.

"I don't know… Maybe that was why the old MCP got so angry when Donald stepped on the keyboard," Aerith suggested, completely straight-faced.

"You think that bastard was ticklish, too?" Char sighed. "Give me a break."

Sora thought of the MCP snarling at them and writhing under every unwelcome sensation Donald's webbed feet streamed through the keys. And for some reason, thinking of that tyrant in such a vulnerable position made him laugh.

It didn't take long for Yuffie's raucous cackles to join in, strong enough for her to have to fold her arms about her abdomen just to restrain her amusement. Aerith allowed a tiny smile of her own to cross her face.

At last, Donald lowered his hands from the board, apparently having sated his desire to torture Tron. A few leftover sniggers still escaped him in erratic spurts, though. Goofy looked as if he were struggling between amusement and sympathy; in the end, the former won out, and he turned away with conspicuous giggles.

Incidentally, Tron's laughter faded out and he spoke like he _hadn't_ just almost gotten tickled into the same oblivion where he'd banished the former MCP and Sark. "I found something when I took over for the MCP," he announced, drawing all six pairs of eyes to the screen. Goofy pivoted back around, while Aerith blinked curiously and Yuffie's expression faded into something like normal eagerness.

"Found something?" Goofy echoed, tilting his head to the side.

"Yes." Cue a nod from the man they couldn't see. "I think I'll be able to show it to you, like the MCP accidentally did earlier."

"What is it?" Donald asked.

"The town, back when it was first built," Tron explained.

That drew the Hollow Bastion natives' attention: ninja, healer, and dual wielder alike. Yuffie's smile, diminished from before as it had grown, fell from her face immediately; Aerith's eyes widened; and Char leaned forward just slightly, fingers tightening in their grips on her arms and showing her interest's true extent.

While the room remained gripped in silence – silence that felt even more hollow and conspicuous than it should have, considering laughter and conversation had filled that hollow to the brim moments before – its occupants' response to Tron's proposal was obvious nonetheless. And the new MCP took their desires to heart and obliged them.

Unlike before, when the images had pounded into their skulls and replaced any coordination with dizziness and nausea, every depiction of the past arrived on a gentle current. That current wound almost tenderly about Sora's mind and seemed to transcend the barrier between mentality and physicality. It soothed even the occasional throb in his forehead, as though reflecting its bearer's intent.

And this bit of reminiscence carried much less bitterness and pain than before.

_Gushing waterfalls, pouring forth in cascades of mingling blue and purple. Mossy walls rising up, unbroken, around the falls and their small conduit below._

_ Trees scattered about a garden, with long grass that swayed gently to an intangible breeze._

_ A massive gate adorned with golden symbols, set into the wall of an impressive castle. Two burly guards, both clad in the same dark blue suit, stationed in front of it; one with dreadlocks and the other with shorter, wiry hair. A single pipe running along the adjacent wall, one that had yet to acquire more exposed companions._

_ Buildings surrounded with people, who had gathered around to purchase goods and hold conversation with one another. A duck with the smallest hint of whiskers smiling amiably as he extended his feathered, white hand to the possible customers milling about._

_ Grassy platforms sloping down into a courtyard emblazoned with a symbol in the middle. Smaller waterfalls trickling down the walls lining the courtyard_

_ A woman with blue hair walking through the courtyard, a notably desperate look in her sapphire eyes, as though seeking out something with everything in her heart._

Around him, the others were emerging from the deluge of the past back to the present: Donald shook his head, dazed expression offset by a light of recognition; Goofy blinked, one hand already placed on his chin in thought; Yuffie groaned aloud and glanced around, as though confirming she was in fact still in Ansem's study.

For Sora, though, leaving that warmth behind proved more difficult. That last flashback – the one with the woman – jammed itself at his eyelids' forefront and refused to leave. Her sense of purpose, that confident stride, struck a chord in his heart: one of familiarity and nostalgia, but one whose resounding timbre in his chest oddly resembled that of _pain._ He brushed fingers over his chest, as much to assuage that pain as to consult the other part of his heart – but no, Roxas was giving a faint aura of distinct refusal inside him.

Before he could dwell on it further, though, Aerith spoke, so quiet he had to strain to hear. "You know, this town used to have another name."

"You mean way back when?" Sora twitched, having not realized another strange woman had entered the room. Funny, considering the talons summoned by the blue-haired woman's image were just now loosing their squeezing grip about his heart. Then he spotted Char's mouth moving again and felt his jaw strain to drop.

It didn't sound like Char. Her voice sounded too… nostalgic. Distant. Like some vestige, some last remaining shard of the girl who had stared so longingly at this castle's image on Hollow Bastion's horizon and denounced him as nothing but a key-wielding dork had made her appearance.

Then again, Sora reflected, the past could do that kind of thing to someone.

Aerith nodded. "Yes." She paused and closed her eyes, as though inhaling one last phantom remainder of air not polluted by construction or the afterglow of the defense mechanism's orange light; as though savoring that final image of what the town used to be, and drawing strength from what it could again become.

Then her eyes opened and she spoke the town's old name.

"Radiant Garden."

* * *

THERE. THEY KISSED AGAIN. Now to wait 20 more chapters for even that much. /shot

And yes, I did feel the need to include that Aqua cameo. This fic isn't COMPLETELY AU in regards to Birth by Sleep, guys.

Let me know how this was!


	80. Chapter LXXX

Hey guys! I told myself I'd get this updated before I headed back to school on Thursday. And here it is. c:

...that's the good news. The bad news is that, well, I head back to college on Thursday. Not a lot of time for fanfic writing while I'm there. Worst case scenario, though, I just take forever to update. And y'all are used to that lol

This chapter is... seriously, SERIOUSLY filler-esque. Blah. The cutesy ending should make up for it, though.

Enjoy!

* * *

Char had thought she had eradicated every bit of bitter nostalgia and leftover hatred toward Hollow Bastion – Radiant Garden – over the last month. At the very least, the overly specific regard of every back alley in Twilight Town's beige-cobbled streets told her that those feelings had transferred to her second home.

Yet here she sat in her room in Merlin's house, memorizing the patterns stitched into the quilt beneath her and absently lifting one bare foot to push a toe into the carpeted floor, unable to rouse herself and head outside.

_You're being ridiculous,_ she chided herself. A sigh muffled itself against the back of her throat in correlation with that thought.

Her fingers twitched against her thighs when voices from the hallway seeped past the closed door's barrier and into her earshot. Although she failed to make out any exact words, judging by the deep, rumbling timbre and the softer, lighter tone that followed it up, Leon and Aerith were talking just outside.

Almost against her will, her gaze found its way past the wall clock, which read _3:24_, to the round window. In light of her choosing to eschew the late afternoon bustle of Radiant Garden, the way the sunlight dappled the gray brick view outside, uninhibited by any clouds, almost taunted her.

Sora and the others had probably left to enjoy the clear skies and gentle breeze. Since she had yet to hear either a boyish, half-deep voice outside; or even a hoarse, belligerent squawk mingling with a deceptively ignorant drawl.

Char just hoped they didn't go out and spend all their hard-earned munny on the shopping center's various goods. They needed all the healing items they could afford, if tomorrow really went as planned.

Recalling the events after Tron's images of the past, she felt the wry smile gradually release its hold on her cheeks. Sora had explained that he thought he had found a way to the Organization's world, and that the particular path led through Twilight Town's winding alleys. As he had told her that much, though, he had tripped over his words, as though omitting something he wasn't quite telling her. Donald and Goofy had seemed guilty as well: ironic, considering the two of them had tiptoed around her and regarded her own secrets with wariness. Even now, Char couldn't help rolling her eyes at his source's dubiousness; if the Organization really was so obvious as to put a corridor in Twilight Town, she would have found it and gone after them long ago.

Still, she had taken Sora's proffered information with only the tiniest amount of suspicion tingeing her acceptance. The sooner they could head off and finish what Xemnas had begun, the better, as far as she was concerned. Emotional conflict and unintentional dive into her revenge's gray morality aside, she knew she had promised Riku – and Ansem – to keep helping Sora till the very end.

For her part, at least, she had readied herself for the final ride in the Gummi ship to Twilight Town and everything that would come after.

However, Donald's sudden inability to remain steady on his feet, along with Goofy's admittance that his head wound from yesterday still bothered him, had halted any upcoming proposal for an immediate assault. Aerith had suggested staying the night here in Radiant Garden, which Yuffie had followed up with gusto. Naturally, Sora had struggled with some underlying sense of politeness before agreeing.

And so that left Char here now: sitting in her room, spending the last night before the reckoning she had once longed for thinking on everything she had missed.

Goofy's head wound, for example. Only the day before Riku had kidnapped her, the force with which that flying rock had clobbered Goofy had given him the illusion of death – and yet not two hours later he had been fighting beside them, smashing robot Heartless to the ground like nothing had happened. _I get bumped on the head all the time,_ he had laughed.

Whatever had happened yesterday, though, had sufficed to unlock whatever pain he had repressed from the last time he'd gotten _bumped on the head._

Apparently, though, the Pride Lands had had something to do with it.

_Damn, what else do I have to catch up on? They even took out Jafar without me._

Char was ashamed to find hot envy percolating inside her belly.

As fate would have it, that was the moment she also noticed the voices outside had gone quiet.

Suddenly, there came a knock at the door, and she jolted up from where she had half-leaned across the bed. It occurred to her, fleetingly, that her haste in that action almost felt guilty; then her eyes widened in a semblance of that guilt as the object of her thoughts called from beyond. "Hey, Char? You in there?"

_Of course I'm in here, you goof,_ she thought irritably, _where else would I be,_ but she answered nonetheless. "Yeah, I'm here," and after a pause, added an awkward, "Come in."

The door hinges squeaked in mild protest as its burden eased ajar, and Goofy poked his head into the room. His eyes widened from their carefully neutral size into a bemused expression as he fully took her in; Char blinked in confusion before remembering her reflection on both tomorrow's necessities and the notion of what all she had missed with the group. Guilt, the very same emotion she had dismissed as illusory moments before, stretched its sharp claws inside her chest, for a reason she didn't quite understand.

_Because you made one of your friends worry about you, that's why._

With no small amount of effort, she snatched up the calmness that had just evacuated from Goofy's face and stretched that mask over her own. "What's up?" she asked, at the same time wincing at how horribly false her own voice sounded. One would think she would be sick of masks by now, after suffocating on the smog Falcon and Copperhead's shared past produced.

Of course, that train of thought deposited her at an irrelevant station entirely, where worry as to the pervert and female Keybearer's progress waited to roll its poisonous hold against her thoughts. And Riku. Gods only knew how he was shouldering the newfound increase in heavy silence on his own.

Goofy was eyeing her strangely again, head tilted in an almost expectant manner. Panic sparked inside her heart, sending it skittering into overtime, though she managed to stave it off by telling herself none of the others could possibly have picked up Riku's name in her ruminations.

Not even the most perceptive of all three of them.

"Sora and Donald are gettin' ready to head out to town," Goofy began, not taking his eyes off her face. Apparently he had decided to forego the chance he had given her to reveal her turmoil's source and just explain why he, of all people, had come knocking on her door. Char scoffed inwardly. He should have known better than to just expect her to pour everything out at this point.

Besides, if everything progressed as she thought it would – and she didn't dare factor in the knowledge that any equation plus Sora never quite worked out how she planned – they would find Riku. Regardless of her succumbing to any pressure and spilling her past, albeit a more distant one, like she had last time they had visited Radiant Garden.

"And we were wondering if you might wanna come with us," Goofy finished, rubbing his finger sheepishly under his nose as he spoke.

Char raised one eyebrow. "We? As in all three of you? I wasn't aware duck boy wanted me around," she drawled. "And besides, won't there be Heartless everywhere?"

Her instinctive rebuttal rang with genuine reluctance that Char, hindered by her desire to stay inside, only now realized had logic backing it. Cid and Merlin had successfully gotten the defense mechanism back under their control, and so Leon and the others had less of a job to do; however, Char highly doubted that they would risk the mechanism's instability just so their four heroes could have one measly, Heartless-free afternoon outing.

They'd turned the pedestals' frequency and strength up when Char had injured her leg, yes, but that had been a special case. She had had no weapons and could barely even walk without healing spells' steady application.

And she had only asked Aerith to turn up the defense mechanism so she could properly apologize to Sora for screaming at him.

Thinking of Sora proved a mistake. Fast on the heel of that thought came a cluster of sensations: his skin under her fingertips, the heat on his cheeks spreading up into hers from where their mouths connected –

"Aw, Donald doesn't mean anything he says!" Goofy assured her. He sounded considerably more cheerful now, as though he hadn't picked up on the most obvious of those tangible sensations reddening her cheeks. Thinking of that, Char had to fight the sudden urge to imitate what Sora had done earlier and pat her face down for evidence.

"And besides," the knight went on, "Sora told Cid to turn up the defense mechanism so we could walk around! Though, uh, he didn't really wanna do it after what just happened."

Char sighed inwardly. _Of course._

"So you should come with us." Goofy shuffled his feet and wound his arms behind his back, tearing his eyes away from hers for the first time to stare awkwardly at the ground. Following his gaze, Char spotted a small stain marring the carpet just next to his feet and allowed herself a second to wonder where it had come from. Considering Merlin never seemed to use the hallway he had sealed away from mundane view with his magic…

Then she realized she was only using curiosity about something irrelevant to distract from making a real decision. She loathed that feeling in her chest, that uncertainty permeating her judgment and clouding it in darkness, and even more so the fact that she had yet to pinpoint its source.

Goofy looked back up at her, drawn by her lack of response, and opened his mouth to speak. Whatever backpedaling she had expected from him – a hasty assurance that she didn't have to leave if she didn't want to – failed to complete its journey into audibility; instead, he spoke with seriousness that the Char of a month ago would never have thought him capable of mustering.

"We only got one more day till we beat the Organization," he pointed out. "And we gotta spend it relaxing before we go. 'Cause we don't know what'll happen after."

His words echoed thoughts she had experienced before, albeit in completely different terms: how she would react at Sora finding Riku and Kairi again, and what would become of Char herself afterward. But the end result was the same: where the four of them would go once this – and suddenly she was drawing in sharper breaths, because the journey and the friendships and her winding path of vengeance had somehow condensed themselves into that one little word – was over.

She closed her eyes. Goofy was right, and she knew it. _If this is really the last day before we end it, I have to make the most of it. Anger toward this town be damned. _

When she opened her eyes, she saw Goofy's cheeks bunch up under the force of his grin. He couldn't just smile a little, he had to put his entire heart into it, and Char wondered fleetingly how else Sora's disposition had rubbed off on his traveling companions.

"There ya go," the knight said. "Sora and Donald're waiting outside Merlin's house."

As she followed him into the hall, she cast only the smallest look over her shoulder at her room. Only when she felt a continued upward quirk of her lips did it hit her that she was giving a tiny smile of her own.

* * *

Every time Char had walked through Merlin's house, even just the room that served as Radiant Garden's home base of sorts had swarmed with activity. Whether that activity took the form of Yuffie's loud whirlwind, or Cid's querulous rumble, or even Leon's taciturn wryness, Char had yet to recall a day when the small dwelling had been totally empty.

Today, though, as Goofy led her out of the hallway and the hallway widened out into the house's main area, Char couldn't help noticing no one even sat at the computer. She knew it shouldn't have unnerved her as much as it did – the tiny gap in sound between when Leon and Aerith's leaving and Goofy's appearance had revealed the house was empty – but the silence unsettled her anyway. The computer's hum failed to completely encompass the room in the same feeling that the restoration committee's presence did.

Goofy glanced over his shoulder and noticed her apprehension. "Leon and everybody else are out fixing what the MCP did," he explained.

"Fixing it?" Char raised an eyebrow, grateful at his perception. She had done her best to keep her discomfort well below the surface, but the knight had somehow picked up that much just from a rudimentary look at her. It should have pissed her off that someone besides Sora knew her so well, yet for some reason it didn't.

Goofy bobbed his head up and down in confirmation. "Yup. Repairing stuff that got knocked down – y'know, that sorta thing." He opened the door and swept out his hand in an invitation for her to go first.

Char rolled her eyes, though a grin tugged at her lips as she did so. "What a gentleman," she joked, and strode over the threshold to the borough beyond.

What lay just outside Merlin's house – broken gray brick and winding corridor connecting to Radiant Garden's marketplace – was by no means unfamiliar to her. Nonetheless, she felt herself balk at the sight, brought up short by the past's strings. Radiant Garden as it had appeared before, with its waterfalls and bountiful grass and _wholeness,_ lurked in the back of her mind as a vague memory.

The town had fallen into disrepair only a few years after Ansem had found her wandering outside the postern, and she hadn't left those self-imposed perimeters much anyway. Tron's discovery had tugged this world's old self to the forefront of her mind, though, and as a result the lack of water cascading down to feed its leafy predator's body sent jarring disorientation throughout her.

Then she caught sight of something much more stabilizing, something that grounded her back in the present just as easily as it always had. Something whose familiarity brought happiness, and not bitterness at what had been.

Sora was chatting with Donald as Char and Goofy approached. As they halted in front of the two of them, Donald noted the sudden influx of red and black in his periphery and turned to them. "About time!" he growled with a stomp of his foot. "I'm hungry, and we had to wait for you to get here. What took you so long?"

He shot that final bit of hostility at Char. She rolled her eyes again and folded her arms across her chest; at the same time, though, Goofy's words about the lack of bite behind Donald's bark floated across her mind. Not surprising, though considering how much venom he spat at her half the time she might've thought it genuine. "Somehow, Goofy over here convinced me to get off my ass and come with you guys." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder as she spoke, to a modest chuckle from the dog in question.

A puff of quiet laughter drew her gaze toward Sora. When he saw her looking at him, he quickly cleared his throat to stagnate his amusement, despite the fact that she was eyeing him only with mildly belligerent interest. "I figured he would," the Keybearer said, unable to keep the tiniest chuckle out of his voice.

"Because…?" Char prompted, rotating her wrist in an imploring gesture.

Sora shrugged. "He knows how to talk to people. Donald would've just bitten your head off," he added. Donald squawked angrily and swatted away the playful elbow jab Sora sent in his direction, despite the fact that their difference in height made it all but useless.

Char blinked, then allowed herself a closed-mouthed chuckle that longed to escape her throat's confines. Much as it annoyed her to admit, Sora kind of had a point. "We've got an entire day to ourselves, right?" she asked. "Where to first?"

"Let's go find something to eat," Donald spoke up immediately. No sooner had the final word escaped his lips did he swing around on his heel and begin waddling toward the marketplace.

"I thought he was tired," Char accused, though a tiny smirk tempered any acid in the indictment.

"Well, he _is_ hungry," Goofy defended his friend.

Sora shrugged. "He has a point. I haven't eaten anything since breakfast."

"Me neither," Char sighed. Much as yesterday had shaken all of them, and despite her nearly breaking apart, Falcon had scraped together the pieces of her grip on life and thrown them into making breakfast for her, Char, and Riku. The bacon and blueberry pancakes' memory teased her senses, phantom taste wreathing about inside her mouth. Suddenly she had to fight dual beasts of gnawing, bubbly hunger in her belly and the threat of saliva rising in the back of her mouth.

Sora had been about to turn and follow after Donald, who had already become a white streak darting along the gray stairwell. At Char's eager expression, though, he stopped in his tracks and gazed at her, something more than amusement softening his eyes: intense yet gentle in nature. Contradictions aside, its warmth was undeniable, and she suddenly had to still her twitching fingers at her side.

"Don't we have a duck to catch?" she quickly asked.

* * *

Not surprisingly, when the three of them found Donald, he met them with no small amount of annoyance. "About time you guys got over here!" he grumbled. One webbed foot tapped in a staccato rhythm against the ground. "Lucky for you the line was so long."

Char glanced around and saw he was right. While the group had witnessed Radiant Garden's true self, the populace had recognized danger's disappearance and swarmed out into the marketplace. Somewhere nearby the restoration committee was probably restocking their supplies, but beyond the immense throng of people Char couldn't even spot the slightest hint of pink on Aerith's dress.

Fortunately for her annoyance toward crowds, Donald had chosen a particular shop at the marketplace's perimeter, right at the top of the stairs. In the time Char had wasted rhapsodizing over food, most of the people swarming around the shop had vanished.

"Sorry about that, Donald," Goofy said. "We weren't gonna leave ya."

Donald rolled his eyes. "I know that!" he shot back.

Whatever further argument – or at least indignant squawking from Donald and oblivious rebuttal from Goofy – might have ensued died down at that moment. The two in front of them, a mother with a child hanging off the end of one hand, moved out of the way and allowed Char to see what exactly they were waiting to buy.

Of course, the brief flash of bright blue dribbling down the child's round cheek tipped her off.

She couldn't say _no_ fast enough.

"But you don't even know what we're getting yet." Sora cast a bewildered look at her.

"Trust me, I do," Char ground out. "And it's probably not worth the munny."

Donald threw a glare over his shoulder at her, though the way he had to crane his neck to validate it dulled its effect. "But it's ice cream!" he protested. Turning around, he rose up on his tiptoes and placed his hands on the counter's edge for balance. An instant later, though, he jerked back a little, as the ice covering the counter properly soaked in and sent burning cold along his fingers. Good karmic retribution, Char thought.

Then another flash of white appeared in the shop, leaping up onto what must have been a stool behind the counter. "G'afternoon, lads!" the shopkeeper greeted in a scratchy accent.

Char's eyes widened at the bristly, whisker-like feathers on the stocky duck's face, the tiny spectacles he adjusted on his face, and the bolts of familiarity they brought. More unshaven, certainly, and with a distinctive frown line creasing his forehead that not even his welcoming smile could completely eradicate. But this was definitely the duck from Tron's messages.

"What kin I –?" the shopkeeper began.

"Uncle Scrooge?" Donald burst out.

"You know this guy, Donald?" Sora asked, cocking his head to the side.

_Obviously,_ Char thought. _How many other talking ducks do we know? _She looked over to Sora and Goofy to gauge their reactions, wondering if they were thinking about why Scrooge created that sense of déjà vu. Goofy's expression hinted, at the very least, that he saw the resemblance between ten years ago and now; one of Sora's hands had perched itself just beneath his chin as his gaze flitted from older duck to younger and back again, as though thinking about Donald's reference to the former as "uncle."

Come to think of it, recognition had lit Donald's eyes after returning to Radiant Garden's present. Char didn't know why she hadn't seen it sooner.

Scrooge peered down at his nephew. "Well, if it isn't my favorite nephew, come t'visit my shop!" he laughed, putting his hands on his blue-clad hips. "Takin' a gander at yer old uncle's newest business venture, eh?"

"Uh –" Goofy snapped out of his trance and lifted one finger to correct him, but Sora dropped his hand from his chin to press it over the knight's mouth.

Protesting noises muffled themselves against the boy's hand as he spoke. "Yeah," Sora lied, and Char groaned softly, pushing her bangs off her face. Her fingers in her hair tightened into a fist at his poor deception; from the skepticism on Scrooge's face, he picked it up as well, though neither girl nor merchant said anything of it.

"So are you bringing sea-salt ice cream to Radiant Garden?" Donald prompted.

"Well," the older duck chuckled, "I suppose you could say I am." He gave the frozen surface beneath his hand a couple of hearty pats, seemingly immune to the cold burn that had forced his nephew away. "On my travels a while back, I found this delectable frozen treat. Salty, yet sweet: the ultimate paradox, don't ye think?"

Char rolled her eyes while Donald bobbed his head up and down in emphatic agreement. "More like the ultimate cavity maker," she muttered under her breath. From where he stood next to her, Sora drove a startled sidelong glance in her direction.

Oblivious to her snide remark, Scrooge went on. "And so I sought to spread sea-salt ice cream throughout the land as best I could."

"Gawrsh, Scrooge, d'you think maybe we could have four of those sea-salt ice cream bars?" Goofy queried, looking at Sora. _Oh yeah, _Char remembered belatedly, _he's got all the munny._

Sora perked up at the promise of food, as did Donald, whose interest in his uncle's explanation had faded into near-boredom. Already, the boy was digging around in his pockets for the right amount. "How much is it?" he asked.

Char fought back a sigh. Spending all their hard-earned munny on food. Typical men.

But Scrooge only laughed and shook his head. "I could never ask for money from me own nephew and his friends." He curled both hands under the edge along his side of the counter and pulled gently up. Part of the icy surface slid out and upward to reveal multiple sea-salt ice cream bars, some crystallized together in their frozen state within the cooler. Well, Char reflected, at least the old duck kept it well refrigerated. Twilight Town had done the same, seeing as how it was a local delicacy and the natives liked the stuff a little too much.

Which begged the question as to how exactly Scrooge had brought Twilight Town food over to Radiant Garden at all.

Her mind quickly stamped the conclusion that Mickey had probably sent him here over the question, as he was offering four of the despicable things to them, two in each hand. "One for you, m'boy," he handed one to Donald, who fell back onto his haunches at once and began inhaling his ice cream, "and you," to Sora, who smiled in thanks, "and you," to Goofy, who looked mildly guilty at accepting it without pay, "and finally, to the bonny lass here."

Char blinked the spots produced by bright blue's sudden influx to her vision and shook her head. "No offense, sir, but I'm really not fond of this stuff."

"I'll take it!" Donald immediately darted over and snatched it out of his uncle's grasp. The redhead rolled her eyes, while the others chuckled at his haste.

"Are you sure you don't want us to pay you?" Sora questioned Scrooge, who was regarding his nephew's greed with the affection of an indulgent parent.

The whiskered duck waved a hand at them. "Don't worry about it," he rebuffed merrily. Seeing what almost resembled an older Donald this jovial, Char felt awkward bemusement shudder violently inside her. A talking duck was weird on its own; a _happy_ talking duck sent her remaining sense of logic toppling over itself.

"Well, all right." Sora still sounded dubious, but apparently knew when to take hospitality when given to him.

"Thanks, Scrooge," Goofy said.

"No problem at all, laddies! And call me Uncle Scrooge. Most do," the shopkeeper said.

As the four of them turned on their heel and stepped away from Scrooge's shop, Char heard a "hm" emit from Donald's direction. She glanced down at him and grimaced at the sight she found. Already, he'd finished one ice cream bar and was tucking its remaining stick away into his pocket. "What's up?" she asked.

Donald looked back up at her with a start, as though in his hungry trance he'd forgotten he walked alongside his friends. Beside him, Goofy licked at his own ice cream, carefully at first, then began to eat more quickly at the taste of the food he had only seen in the realm of darkness.

The mage shrugged. "It's just weird to see Uncle Scrooge act that… nice."

"Why's that?" Sora asked, leaning forward to catch an errant drop rolling off his melting ice cream.

"Because believe it or not…" Donald paused, took a few licks at what had been Char's food, relished the dramatic effect. _Must. Not. Roll. Eyes. _Then he lowered his frozen treat and gazed at the others. "He used to be a pretty big jerk. He liked money way too much."

"Oh yeah, I remember when he was like that." Goofy surfaced from his meal to interject. He nodded in slow reminiscence as the memory flowed back to him. "Me and Donald were training with His Majesty, and Scrooge barged right on in."

"Wanting a raise, right?" Char quipped.

"Yeah," Donald confirmed. "But something happened to him." His bill crinkled as he went on, bemusement marking every word. "Overnight, he turned into a big charity case. And he asked the king if he could spread his goods beyond Disney Town."

"And so Mickey agreed and sent him here," Sora filled in the blanks. He earned a grunt in response from Donald, as his second ice cream bar took the place of any words.

Char raised an eyebrow at Donald's terseness. "If I didn't know any better," she couldn't help remarking, "I'd think you almost liked him better when he was a jerk."

Cyan droplets scattered as Donald yanked the ice cream back from his mouth and glared at her. "What I _don't_ like is how he never explained what happened to him," he growled.

"Maybe it didn't need explanation," Char pointed out. "Maybe he thought it'd be better if he just focused on changing himself."

Donald snorted, waving the stick holding the ice cream dismissively. "I'm not surprised you think like that. Secrets and all."

His tone resonated with every bit of causticity he had expressed toward her since her untimely return, making her eyes narrow. Rage pooled together and simmered, low and volatile, in her belly; it channeled its heated influence up to her throat and rendered her all but speechless.

Sora's gaze shifted from one to the other, and he opened his mouth to speak. But Goofy, in his longtime role as mediator, beat him to it, with a nervous chuckle that caused girl and duck to whirl toward him. "Maybe we should find a place to sit."

"Maybe we should," Char muttered, feeling her throat unclench. The liquid fury dropped back into oblivion, though her heartbeat still spluttered out of that fury's remnants. Fury, and something else.

Donald's bark hurt more than his bite; she knew that. But in light of her realization after that untimely kiss with Sora – that she _cared_ what Donald and Goofy thought of her and her choice in love – it almost hurt that the duck had lost whatever kernel of trust he had for her.

Almost.

* * *

Oddly enough, the group found a spot to sit within minutes. Despite the crowds strung about the marketplace, Radiant Garden's populace mostly concentrated itself closer to the restaurants lining its main expanse at the center. As a result, the perimeter remained relatively empty, and Char spotted a café's relatively empty tables sitting nearby. A woman, obviously an employee by her dark green apron and white pantsuit, was rubbing a damp rag over one table, leaving reflective stripes in its path along the dark surface.

The idle chatter of civilians below nearly blotted out Sora's voice as he approached the woman to ask if they could sit outside the shop. He had to raise his voice to be heard, but she picked up his request nonetheless and allowed them to sit down. Judging by the obvious wonder in her voice, the restoration committee had already come by and announced the presence of the people who had saved the town.

Either that, or the cuts mottling Char's face combined with the dried crimson on Donald's feathers and Goofy's fur told the story.

Regardless, she moved away from the table she had just cleaned off to let them sit down. "We haven't really had any customers today," she explained ruefully. "What with all the danger and everything…" Her voice trailed off, and she ducked her head in visible fear before shuffling back into the café.

As the door swung shut behind her, the four of them got comfortable in their chairs. Since only three chairs surrounded the round table, Char ended up having to retrieve an extra for herself from one of its fellows nearby. Its weight nearly toppled her, much to her shame. Even with her suddenly-inflamed muscles howling in protest, though, she managed to drag the chair over.

Trying not to wince at the fire moving along her sides, she stared down at the table's surface and idly listened to the others' conversation. It was ironic: barely an hour ago she had longed to hear the respective timbres mingling with the late afternoon breeze, yet now that her wish had been granted, she found herself hesitating to graze the notion of joining them. Mundane though their words were, they had to use all those unnecessary topics before tomorrow came and replaced them with battle cries and acrimonious insults toward the Organization.

Sora laughed at something Goofy had said, and Char felt herself cringe. Suddenly she found herself riveted on the still-glistening streak running along the table, at her cheekbone's roundness vaguely reflected in that clean spot, instead of the others and their smiles. For some reason, she felt like if she looked up and saw them – Donald's inevitable annoyance, and Goofy's apologetic indulgence, and especially Sora's blithe, naïve, _stupid_ happiness – it would be like staring right into the sun.

It would blind her, and hurt her, and force her nose to nose with tomorrow's reality all over again.

"You know," Sora suddenly began, and the thoughtfulness in those two words alone surprised Char enough to swing her head up. Contemplation dulled the brightness she only now suppressed recoiling from; once she caught on that he was actually _thinking_ about something, she blinked. Really, she was more curious about what he would say next than surprised at his reflections.

"Scrooge was in Tron's flashbacks, right?" he mused aloud, turning to Donald.

The mage nodded. "Yeah, giving out stuff to Hollow Bastion people, I guess."

"Radiant Garden, Donald," Goofy reminded him with a gentle shoulder prod.

"I know that!" Donald snapped back. "I'm just used to calling this place Hollow Bastion, is all."

Sora nodded. "So he might know something about that girl…" He folded his arms, resting his forearms on the table, and tilted his head down. From the visible knit of his brow, he was staring down at the table's reflective surface out of contemplation, not uncertainty.

"Girl?" Char echoed. "You mean the one with the blue hair?" The very last image had confounded her for a couple of seconds, mostly because even on her few outings with the other apprentices, Char couldn't recall that purposeful stride or the intelligence in those dark blue eyes. Both of those traits would have burned themselves into the back of her mind.

Then again, if Braig or Even had spotted the girl – woman, rather – wandering about town, Char would have heard about it, through respective lecherous remarks and loud, heavy sighs.

"I can't explain why," Sora admitted, "but… she looked really, really familiar."

"Really? Have you met her before?" Goofy questioned.

Déjà vu crept up with invisible fingers dancing along Char's spine; she wondered for a few seconds at its origin before realizing it. Back then, the skies above had cast an orange sheen, not bright, cloudless blue, and Twilight Town's alleys had surrounded them, not relieved crowds just recovering from their town's traumatic near-invasion.

And this time, Char couldn't quite blame Sora's sense of familiarity on Roxas. Unless the Nobody had somehow been around at Radiant Garden's initial completion, of course.

Sure enough, the knight's question met with a decisive headshake from Sora. "I don't think so." Despite his peremptory action, his words carried none of that firmness; if anything, the last word's increase in pitch made him sound more like he was asking a question.

"Yeah, Sora would've remembered someone that pretty," Donald teased, pointing one of the sea-salt ice cream sticks – the final remnant of his sated appetite – at Sora.

Char rolled her eyes as Sora backpedaled, sputtering in surprise at the duck's change of tack. The newfound color in his cheeks screamed his agreement more than obviously, though. Somewhere deep inside her heart, she knew that fact should have stoked her jealousy, an emotion that had stirred far too often as of late. Ironically, though, Sora's blush didn't inflict the same rush on Char that his pining after Kairi did.

Maybe that meant she was finally getting over herself and coming to terms with his feelings directing toward her.

"Well, anyway." Sora cleared his throat awkwardly and leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up and crossing his legs. He ducked his head to catch the final droplet of his neglected ice cream as it slid down its stick. "I just remembered I could've asked Scrooge about it," he finished.

Char folded her arms, though the table's rim concealing the action stole its effect. She couldn't help but remember the last time an unbidden sense of déjà vu had driven Sora to ask a world native about it. The Agrabah peddler's whimpers resonated in her memory as loudly as they had that night. _Here's hoping he doesn't get Donald's uncle at Keyblade point this time._

"You could still do it," Donald suggested. "I don't think he'd mind."

Sora sighed. Char saw his fist clench over the popsicle stick on the table and knew he was remembering asking – if that word even fit what he had done – the peddler about Roxas' affiliation with him. Even though she had unintentionally eavesdropped on Sora's bout of viciousness, she recalled it all too easily.

"Nah, I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually." His voice threatened to crack under the weight of his dismissive tone's falseness. Char allowed her eyes to squeeze shut momentarily. _You're a liar. You're gonna let it eat at you until you can't take it anymore._

Her eyes opened just in time to see Sora watching her almost expectantly. "What?" she asked, forcing her voice to remain level. Sympathy for him nearly dragged it into trembling territory, though, and she allowed herself a second to lament her own hypocrisy. Why she felt she had to hide her emotions even now remained a mystery to her, yet Sora didn't get the same privilege.

Meticulously as she had overlaid calmness into her question, some minor tremor must have wormed its way past that, because Goofy angled his head just a bit to the side at her. Donald's open hostility had died down, aided both by time's passage and idle conversation's dulling capabilities, but he narrowed his eyes anyway. Both Disney residents' faces held that unspoken question, that desire to know why she had acted so odd today, albeit in different manifestations.

Sora didn't seem to notice. If he did, he had the good grace not to say what everyone else was thinking. "You lived here when the town was built," he recalled aloud, still addressing Char. "Did you ever see that blue-haired girl walking around?"

Char shook her head, to a disappointed groan from the Keybearer. "If I did, I would've remembered," she told him. "Besides, Ansem didn't find me until Radiant Garden had been built for a while. She might've shown up before I got here."

Well, she assured her completely irrational guilt at disappointing him, that wasn't entirely a lie. Ansem had discovered her cowering near the back of the postern, a six-year-old girl with only blankness where any memory of parents would be, and only five apprentices had greeted her; they'd taken in Xehanort not long after she had settled in to her new life as a researcher. If Char didn't recognize the blue-haired girl, then the latter had probably arrived at Radiant Garden just before the former did.

Sora sighed again and dropped his feet from the table. Just in time, too: something seared along Char's shoulder, the invisible trail created by someone else's glare coming from the café's direction. She glanced over in time to see the employee straightening haughtily before whirling around and scrubbing the pitcher in her grasp with renewed vigor.

"All right… I thought it was worth asking," Sora conceded, though again, the audible drag in his seemingly-dismissive comment threatened to overtake its illusion. "Thanks anyway."

"No big deal," Char mumbled, raising and lowering one shoulder.

As Goofy hastily cut in, trying to steer the conversation to something much less serious, Char found her eyes inexplicably drawn toward the stick still in Sora's grasp. His fingers were wrapped so tightly around it that a small line had begun to climb its surface and threatened to fracture it, but she could still see a brown star positioned above two letters. _WI _read out before its remainder vanished beneath Sora's palm.

In the end, she stopped wondering what it said. It probably wasn't important, anyway.

* * *

"Way to ruin your dinner, guys," Char sighed.

Merlin just shook his head with a haughty sigh. "I don't understand how you boys could stomach ice cream just before dinnertime," he said. Next to him, Yuffie was laughing unabashedly at the expressions on the trio's faces.

Sora groaned, chin dropping to his chest as though just holding his head up proved too much effort now. "I'm just not hungry right now," he mumbled, though his furrowed brow and wrinkled nose cast vague disgust to illuminate that lie.

"Yeah, it's not that Cid's cooking is bad or nothin'," Goofy added hastily. "We're just full on ice cream, that's all." He punctuated the final part by pushing his bowl of mashed potatoes a little away from him.

Cid spun around in his chair at the computer to properly glare at them. "If it ain't that bad, why are you three not eating it?" he growled, squinting one eye. Char saw Donald glance over at the new stare resting on him, only to squawk and cling to his armrests at the vehemence behind Cid's dour stare.

"I liked it fine," Char said with a shrug. Using her fork, she tapped the edge of her own bowl, whose inside was flecked with foamy white remains of her hunger's pillage. "I might get seconds, actually."

Although Yuffie's continuous cackles almost drowned it out, Char heard the others let out a simultaneous groan and felt a smirk dance across her mouth.

Leon folded his arms and stepped forward from where he had leaned against the wall, just as solid a presence as ever. Char could almost see the muscles in the back of his eyes struggling to keep them from rolling up to the ceiling. "You guys are gonna need all the strength you can get for tomorrow," he reminded them. Sora cringed, clearly knowing the older brunette was right. "And that means food."

"Ah, let 'em alone, Squall," Yuffie managed at last, rubbing imaginary tears out of her eyes and poking at the air with her fork. At least, they looked imaginary until the light actually caught their gleam as Yuffie flicked them away from her cheeks and into the air. "If they spoiled themselves on ice cream, that just means more for us, right?"

Leon's eye twitched, just the smallest tic plucking beneath one heavy brow. "Are you ever going to call me Leon in this lifetime?"

"Nope!" Yuffie replied cheerfully, bouncing to her feet. "I'm gonna go get some more food!" With that, she spun around and darted over to the other side of the room, toward Merlin's round desk, where a larger bowl sat.

Synchronized, Sora, Donald, and Goofy groaned and slumped forward, faces against the wooden table's surface. Merlin jerked in surprise at their melodramatic response, while Leon completed the action that had threatened to win over his manners and rolled his eyes. Cid threw up his hands before turning back to the computer, and although Yuffie failed to muster her giggle fit's true extent a second time, a very unceremonious snort erupted from her direction before she hunched further over the bowl of mashed potatoes.

While Char had successfully repressed her smirk, she found it manifesting itself on her face again. Yuffie was still shoving more food into her bowl, Cid was death-glaring at the code striping the computer screen, Leon had gone back to leaning against the wall, and Merlin was sighing indulgently at the trio still face-down on the table – yet the emotion that swept her instinct to stay neutral into the shadows was not spiteful amusement. The feeling was warmth, warmth at these people who had taken her old home and made it a little like its old self.

In that regard, the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee had succeeded in its goal.

Dual raps at the door drew her gaze away from the sight before her. "Now who could that be?" Merlin muttered under his breath.

No sooner had Yuffie's body touched the seat of her chair did she suddenly jerk up one finger, a noise of realization making its way past her closed lips. "That's probably Aerith," she said.

Sora lifted his head from the table; Char noticed him wince, an action that the lamp lined up on the opposite wall illuminated to her, and fought back a sigh. His bangs concealed the true extent of how badly that Heartless' hilt had pummeled him, but his reactions revealed everything just as easily. "Didn't you say she was out picking up supplies?" he addressed Leon.

The older man just nodded in response, already moving to let Aerith in. Through the growing insistence of the following knocks on the door's wooden surface, Char heard Leon mutter "don't everyone get up at once."

Sure enough, when Leon stepped aside, he revealed the newcomer's trademark pink dress and braid, which flared out behind Aerith as she stepped inside. In both hands she held bags threatening to burst at their seams with their contents. "Good evening, everyone," she greeted, sweeping her gaze across Merlin and his guests. She closed the door behind her and stepped fully inside; when Leon extended one hand to take one of her bags, she shook her head decisively, even though Char could practically see the strain on her wrists.

"What's up, Aerith?" Sora said. "That looks like a lot of stuff."

"Yes," Merlin said. "Just, ah, put them on the side table over there, would you?" He motioned with one long hand, surprisingly free of prominent veins, to the round desk where his lamp sat.

As Aerith nodded and walked over to put one bag down, she answered Sora's unspoken question. "I thought it'd be a good idea to pick up some stuff for you guys." She hesitated, slowed in setting one bulging burden down; its contents rattled upon pressing against the table's surface and nearly toppled as they unbalanced against one opened book, but the healing items inside did not fall out. "With tomorrow and all," she finished a little lamely, as though her momentary search for a gentle way to phrase the group's task had brought up few results.

Char didn't blame her at all; tomorrow was tomorrow, a confrontation she had strived for and anticipated for months now. Her own hesitation and nervousness aside, nothing could change that.

"Really?" Donald cried, fingers clenching into fists on either side of his bowl of food. Enthusiasm curled his bill's edges upward, and his fists tightened in a vain attempt to contain it. "Thanks, Aerith!"

"Yeah, considering you guys spent all day eating ice cream and didn't get healing supplies like you should have," Char cut in dryly.

Sora spun toward her, eyes narrowing in a not-quite-playful way. "You're never gonna let us hear the end of that, are you?"

The redhead shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not." Her cryptic words earned an eye-roll from him. He glared down at his bowl, as though the heat of his stare could restore the food within from its cold state; then he jerked his head away at the reminder of just why he had let his dinner get that way in the first place. And Char swore she heard him mutter "I didn't hear you objecting" under his breath.

Oddly enough, his display of annoyance broke another chain wound so tightly about her emotions and created a tangible tug at the corners of her lips.

She opened her mouth to speak, only to close it again when another, much softer knock reverberated from outside – really, its volume, or lack thereof, fit the term _tap_ more than _knock. _Donald and Goofy exchanged confused glances, while Cid glanced over his shoulder and asked, "We expectin' anybody else tonight?"

Yuffie finally surfaced from inhaling her second helping of potatoes to reply. "I don't think so," she replied. Mild disgust blossomed in Char's gut at the ninja's refusal to swallow her food before speaking.

Reluctantly, Leon turned back around and closed his fingers around the doorknob again. Tenseness marked every movement, every twitch of his fingers against the wood; Merlin's steady eye on his back probably prevented him from clutching the knob harder, but enough agitation coiled into his fist that he could have crushed it. From where Char sat, she caught the fur along where his jacket met his neck shift further up and knew he was readying himself to summon his Gunblade if necessary.

Then he opened the door and revealed another familiar face.

"Cloud?" Goofy said incredulously. "What're you doing back here?"

Cloud's gray-blue eyes flicked toward Goofy before returning to the man who stood before him. Leon's shoulders still remained in their tensed position, even though not five days ago the two of them had fought together to preserve Radiant Garden's safety. Alias change or no, Cloud was as much a part of the Restoration Committee at this point as Sora or Aerith or Leon.

Still, Char thought she could understand the hostility that simmered between the two men. It was definitely a guy thing, so its true nature lay hidden to her; then again… She glanced back at Sora and found anxiety in his wide blue eyes as they shifted from Leon to Cloud and back again; the same emotion lay in Donald and Goofy's gazes as well.

Maybe Leon and Cloud had too much in common to truly get along with one another. That, at least, was universal – after all, Char had failed to negotiate a legitimate truce with Falcon until the latter had all but poured venom into her with her eyes for three days straight.

_Three days._ The amount of time that Char had spent – so paltry in comparison to all this – hit her then. Despite her mulling over as much in the past, only now did it truly strike her. Combined with today's other revelations – finding out how the apprentices had died; discovering that Donald and Goofy not only knew about her and Sora's feelings, but they _approved _of them; Sora thinking about that mysterious girl in a much more focused way than she was accustomed to seeing from him – the fact that only three days ago she had been trying to sort out Falcon and Copperhead's situation almost hurt. Especially because the only connection Falcon had with Sora was the fact that their two Nobodies felt at least the heart's vestiges of love toward one another.

A physical shiver of her shoulders accompanied her attempt to shake that mental tangent out of her mind and focus on the situation at hand: Leon and Cloud were still staring each other down. Cid groaned from the other side of the room and turned back to the computer, but even that failed to break the silence.

Ironically, though, Aerith's quiet voice trickling out into the tense quiet did. "Welcome back," she said to Cloud, smiling.

Cloud's pupils slid across to the healer, who was approaching to stand beside Leon. At the table, where the lamplight wove the smallest amount of illumination across the opposite side of the room, Char swore she saw the tiniest crack in his blank expression. Just the slightest hint of a smile.

Then he broke his glare with Leon entirely and stared down at the ground. "Thanks," he muttered.

"Good to see you!" Sora blustered, thumping the empty chair next to him with one hand. Char heard a groan ring out and looked over in time to see Yuffie's palm land solidly against her forehead, a sight that made the redhead quirk her eyebrow.

"He doesn't even try to make it sound natural, does he?" Char asked, low enough for only the ninja to hear.

Yuffie sighed, the sound starkly loud in comparison to Char's attempt at tact, and raised the same palm up to the ceiling. "Men," she groaned, voice raspy with exasperation with all three of them. This time, Char couldn't hold back a chuckle.

Her display of amusement, anomalous for today though it was, went unnoticed in the wake of Cloud's appearance. Guilty relief washed over her as she watched Cloud mill about a moment longer, then steel himself and take the seat Sora had offered for him.

"So," Donald spoke up, "did you ever find that Sephiroth guy?"

_Sephiroth._ The name tasted odd and unfamiliar to Char, and she blinked a couple of times, during which she dug through her memory to find out why Donald remembered and she didn't. When they had arrived at Radiant Garden a few days ago, drawn by darkness' sudden influx in hold on her old home, they'd found Cloud first. And he had mentioned something about returning to Radiant Garden to find his darkness and destroy it – or rather, him.

Then Aerith had shown up, and Cloud had promised he would come back no matter how far away he went. Even now, hot embarrassment lanced along her spine at recalling the sense of intimacy around Cloud and Aerith as the group had watched them talk.

"Sephiroth?" Leon echoed. He had stepped aside, albeit grudgingly and under the influence of Aerith's stare, to let Cloud walk past. Now he moved forward, speed denoting only a fraction of his aggressiveness: that, and near-accusation at the secret Cloud had spoken only to Sora and his companions. Merlin's eyes widened, while Yuffie looked back and forth from one to the other. Sora cringed, knowing that Cloud had trusted them with his secret and Donald had just blabbed it.

To Cloud's credit, he didn't flinch under Leon's glare, nor did he glare at Donald, though the duck had the good grace to jolt up and slap one hand over his beak. "It's nothing," was all the blonde said. "It's my problem, and I'll deal with it."

_Why even tell us about it, then?_ Char wanted to scream, but remained silent.

"Besides," Cloud went on, leather gloves creaking as he curled one hand into a fist against the table, "I know where he is. I just stopped for tonight to get some rest before I fight him tomorrow."

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Char had never realized how much she loathed that word and the future it implied until Riku had shoved her nose to nose with it last night.

She had thought that Sora's presence would calm her heart down, not send it rolling into fear and emotional conflict again. Yet here she was, fighting tension and trying to figure out the past as rigorously as she had with Falcon and Copperhead.

Abruptly, she stood up, making everyone's heads turn to her. "Can I be excused?" she blurted out. The instant the question escaped her lips she knew its idiocy; her fingers braced against the table and twitched in repressed shame. She didn't think she had used that tone since right after Ansem had taken her in.

Here she was, channeling her inner six-year-old. Gods.

Yuffie blinked, fork half-hanging out of her mouth, staring with round dark eyes. Even Cid turned back around with a final _takkety-tak _at the computer's keys, at which the screen went dark.

"Well, ah, I suppose," Merlin finally spoke up, with a final confused stare around at everyone else. It made sense that he had taken it upon himself to respond, since this was his house. "But what seems to be the –"

Char didn't wait to hear the rest of his question. Without entirely knowing why, she yanked the chair out to free herself and made a beeline back through the hallway to her room.

The instant the door slammed behind her, she took a deep breath and pressed her back against it. Counted the seconds till someone came after her. _One, two, three, four, five, six, seven –_

She felt more than heard the single knock at the door; the sound vibrated through her spine and made her tense. For some reason, she prayed she wouldn't find brown spikes and worried blue eyes as she turned around and closed her fingers over the knob.

As it turned out, the spikes reflected a honey-gold hue, and the eyes more gray-blue than sapphire.

Cloud stared at her a moment longer, a distinctively gauging look in his gaze that made discomfort ripple along her body. The last time this had happened, a nightmare had throttled her awake, and he had sat at her bedside observing. Creepy, really.

She was about to voice as much when he spoke. His normally-soft voice had taken up residence at a volume even lower than normal, so that she had to strain to hear. Once she did, though, she couldn't hold back a surprised grunt.

"You're not the only one who has nightmares about the past, you know."

Well, she thought in one final attempt at dryness, that explained why he had expressed that morbid fascination toward her behavior when that nightmare had finished tossing her emotions about.

"I heard about what you guys did for the town," Cloud went on. "It wasn't hard to. The Restoration Committee went around the marketplace and told everyone you saved them. And Sora told me about you guys' mission."

Not knowing what to say, Char remained silent. The man had never spoken this many words at once before; the fact that he was choosing to do so now signified a relevance that demanded her attention.

Cloud sighed, shifted his weight to the opposite leg and folded his arms. Char had never realized how much taller he stood than she – not near to the extent of Riku's Xehanort guise, but past the point where she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. In spite of his half-slumped position, he still towered above her.

"No matter how many battles we fight tomorrow," he said, "we always need to find the light. Somebody told me that once, and I've never stopped clinging to it."

He surveyed her a moment longer, giving her a chance to mull over his words, then continued, in a tone that suggested he was leaving her this last bit to think on. "They're your light, aren't they? Sora, Donald, and Goofy."

Char's eyes widened.

He turned back around in a rush of black and strode down the hall. The rhythm of his footsteps tapping against the floor wormed into her mind and refused to leave, long after it had gone quiet.

* * *

Char found a certain stroke of irony in her current actions. The last time she had roused herself from an emotional low long enough to pull together her remaining courage and follow Sora to his room – the last time she had found it in herself to push her pride aside and address the concern at hand – the encounter had ended with their first kiss. Riku's untimely appearance had effectively cut off any emotional conflict that would have followed, or at least muted it, but the fact remained that things would end very differently this time than the last.

At least, if Sora recognized her assailant's way of holding his weapon, or even the weapon itself, which had clashed with the Keybearer's own silver key in Hollow Bastion. Clad in the Organization coat that set him apart from the Land of Dragons' snow, Riku couldn't hide his battle stance or the bat's wing blade he wielded.

Honestly, the knowledge that Sora would ask her about just who had taken her hovered in the back of Char's mind, buzzing insistently. _He's going to ask. He can't _not_ ask after I just up and disappeared for four straight days. _Xemnas' casual mention of her knowing more about Riku than she let on pushed the sick anticipation to the forefront of her thoughts, gave it more inevitability than before. Standing outside his room, Char felt her fist waver not an inch away from it, knuckles brushing the surface in the tremor she could not hide.

Unnerving silence permeated the air, a state she would have once reveled in, but only increased her sense of desperation. The Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee had departed for their homes, even Cloud, who claimed he had found a place to stay the night before his big confrontation with Sephiroth. Char had expected one last, meaningful glance from him before he left, but surprisingly, he only spoke to Sora individually. The blonde had shoved something into the younger boy's hand and left before Sora could ask about it.

As it turned out, Cloud had bestowed a Keychain on Sora. Its charm vaguely resembled the fox-head badge adorning Cloud's chest; Char had spent a moment wondering where he had acquired a Keychain before dismissing the matter. Sora had found other Keyblades just scattered around the worlds, after all.

Her thoughts immediately crashed to a halt when the barrier between her and Sora's room swung ajar.

The Keybearer stood there, bare-shouldered and tired-eyed. One hand rubbed through his unruly hair, as though working through tangles; he winced and tugged harder to free one, only to widen his eyes when he saw just who stood before him. "Char?" He quickly straightened, not-so-stealthily shifting the hand in his hair down to the back of his neck.

Char forced a smile onto her face. "Hey," she answered. "Can I come in?"

Sora blinked, arm dropping back down to his side. Something flashed across his face momentarily, something she felt her breath catch at; not suspicion, but an emotion treading a little too close to anticipation for her liking. With the rational part of her mind she understood that she should be annoyed that he just expected her to pour out the truth; but it was a logical expectation, considering she had used her time not spent on dodging Heartless or ruminating over tomorrow's clash explaining more about the Organization.

"Uh, yeah, sure." He stepped aside and swept one hand out in an extravagant gesture. "Right this way, ma'am," he announced dramatically. His attempt to turn the conversation in a lighter direction couldn't have been more obvious, yet Char grinned back as she followed his instructions.

Fortunately for her sensibilities, he had yet to demolish the sheets' foundations, and the pillows lay relatively intact on the bed. He had turned the lamp on, causing soft yellow light to reflect off the window and mar the nighttime sky beyond with its reflection on the glass pane. Next to the lamp on the bedside table, his black jacket lay, clearly tossed in a haphazard position: the only evidence to his less-than-organized tendencies.

Glancing over her shoulder at Sora, who was closing the door, she asked, "Why were you going outside, anyway?"

The Keybearer glanced up at her, smile sloughing off his face in lieu of embarrassment. "I was going to go to the bathroom," he confessed, "but I can hold it –"

Char's brow wrinkled. "Too much information, Key-boy." She stood a moment longer, suddenly not knowing what to do or say. Somehow, just sitting down and making herself comfortable on his bed seemed like an obscene, unnecessary move; she had done it in the past, but he had always stretched out there first. And although she would have loved to send him off and wait for him to finish his little mission, something like impatience was clawing its way up inside her and strangling that desire in its tracks.

He noticed her indecision and flopped down on his bed. Tanned arms stretched above his head and his fingers entwined themselves in midair as he let out a jaw-snapping yawn. "I'm tired," he confessed obviously, keeping his arms over his head so his fingers dangled off the bed's edge.

Tentatively, Char joined him, though not without near the same flourish he had. She remained sitting up while he lay on his back, gazing up at the ceiling. In the dim light, the fuzzy yellow glow thrown up around the spikes of Sora's hair, Char found herself suddenly remembering the last time lamplight had illuminated someone close by.

Suddenly, her fingers clenching in the sheets under her hands were ruining any semblance of neatness it had.

Sora's gaze flicked down to the influx of movement, only for his eyes to widen and focus right on her. "You okay?" he asked.

Char took a deep breath. _Inhale, exhale. _"Yeah," she answered, carefully. "Just… thinking about tomorrow."

It wasn't the first lie she had told on this journey, but he believed it nonetheless. "Oh." He blinked, then folded his arms across his chest. "Yeah, I'm kind of nervous too."

Char narrowed her eyes. "You don't look that nervous to me."

Sora sat up, one hand flying out to his side to stave off the dizziness at the abrupt shift in gravity. He turned his head to look at her. "Well, I mean… it's the Organization. And the last Nobody we fought almost beat us."

The redhead shrugged one shoulder. "Demyx wasn't that bad. Goofy got more beaten up than any of us did."

"Demyx…?" Sora trailed off, only to let out a sound of realization. "Oh yeah," he said, "you weren't there. We took out that Xaldin guy at Beast's Castle while you were gone."

Char's eyes widened. "What?" she gasped, rage and disappointment swirling together and injecting an extra burst of energy into her heartbeat. Not only had they fought Jafar, but Dilan, too?

She was going to kill Riku when they found him for snatching her away from all the action.

"Yeah, we did," Sora barreled on, seemingly oblivious to her mounting anger. "It… really hurt, though." He grazed his ribs with one hand and winced, though a smile made its way past his pained expression.

So Char had been right, that day she had sat at the Shadowed Desert's saloon with Riku and Copperhead and assumed the group had gone ahead to Beast's Castle. The imposing turrets and snarling gargoyles strewn about the castle's exterior had appeared after the Land of Dragons' dojo on the Gummi ship's map, and she had advised them to keep searching for a way to the Organization's world. It stood to reason that they had moved on without her; in fact, if they had stuck around… just the thought of the latter made her hold back an already-irritated sigh.

_Dilan could have at least waited until I got back to fight them, though. _Her fellow apprentices didn't exactly revel in doing what she wanted, though. If anything, Dilan had reveled in darting behind her at the last possible moment during their training sessions and lashing out with his lance. His laughter rang through her head, and the shallow cuts that had littered her back for days after created a phantom sting beneath her shirt.

"Who else did you guys beat up without me?" Char demanded, rounding on Sora.

He recoiled, but she didn't let up in her glare in the slightest. Hesitantly, he began counting off on one hand. "Uh… a Heartless that wanted gold, a Heartless that wanted presents, a Heartless made out of Scar's ghost, Jafar…"

Char raised one eyebrow as his voice dropped off after the vizier's name. "And?" she prompted.

Sora hesitated before speaking the final name. "Hades," he mumbled.

She threw up her hands. "Are you _serious?"_

"Yeah," he squeaked.

Char struggled with the incredulous fury now simmering freely inside her body and transferring its heat into her skin a few moments longer; but the visible fear on his face – an expression he hadn't directed toward her in gods knew how long – deadened that flame. She sighed, brushed her fingers over her bangs. "I'm gonna kill that guy," she repeated the thought she had had earlier.

"Guy?" Sora straightened, tilted his head to the side at her.

Char froze. Her ability to speak shut down, causing her mind to flood to the brim with everything she couldn't say.

_What's the matter with you, you knew this would come up eventually, you should've been _ready_ for it –_

"Do you mean the one that kidnapped you?" the Keybearer pressed. Eagerness strained to be set forth, the desire for answers struggling to break the chains of tact and attempts at gently coaxing the truth out of her. Only a few seconds passed before those chains broke and he clenched his fists against his thighs, staring expectantly at her. "Do you know who it was?"

His enthusiasm, as it always had, found its way past the bindings wound about her own honesty: the bindings formed from duty and loyalty and the need to _keep Riku's promise._ As it turned out, that duty and loyalty and need had also throttled her voice in her throat.

But he was so eager and his eyes were so _blue_ and before she knew it he had freed her ability to speak from its chains.

"Don't _you?"_ she shot back, before her common sense could reel her back in.

Sora leaned forward, so abruptly that he nearly reopened his forehead wound bashing his skull into hers. As it was, she surfaced from her own shock and self-chiding long enough to pull back before impact. "So it was Riku!" he declared, leaping to his feet. Char thought his eyes would burst out of his head, they had gotten so wide. The sun she had tried to avoid blinding herself with had condensed itself into his face, happiness making him shine brighter than the lamp in the corner did.

"Where is he? Where did he take you? Is he all right? Does he know we were traveling together? Does he –"

Thankfully, Sora's mouth had yet to defy physics' laws like his eyes had. As a result, even though he was babbling at this point, Char managed to catch his lips with her finger and avoid getting his spit on her hand. Immediately, his jaw snapped shut, though his grin's intensity threatened to burst past the closed-mouthed barrier her finger had put on it.

"Look," she said, "I never said it was actually Riku. All I'll tell you is that the hint you got put us on the right track."

She would have spent another moment deciding whether to leave her revelation at that – at the fact that Riku would be waiting for them, if he had in fact found Ansem's machine, in the World That Never Was – but as always, Sora finished that thought for her.

Something closed around her wrist: gentle, almost tender to the touch, and she felt her finger slide across his chin as Sora tugged her hand away from his mouth. With the barrier gone, he allowed his smile to fully manifest on his face, a big toothy abomination that almost proved contagious to her. Almost.

Then he was moving forward, and she tensed. For a couple of nerve-wracking, horrifically heart-pounding seconds, she thought he would return the action she'd so impulsively done to him and kiss her – but then his arms were coming around her with a fierceness that nearly knocked her on her back.

"What in the –" she spluttered, hands flung out on either side of her. His body heat was already soaking into hers, or maybe that was just her own blush spreading to the rest of her. Either way, his heartbeat melding into her chest from where it pressed to his created a rhythm that harmonized and twined with her own heartbeat, making her breathless.

Yet despite the near-blazing heat and decreased ability to breathe, she couldn't manage to pull herself away.

Any obligatory protest died at the tip of her tongue when she felt his bony little chin settle on her shoulder and one hand sift into her hair.

"Thanks, Char," Sora murmured into her ear, tightening his grip on her. Just like he had so many times before.

This, she realized, was what she had missed: the camaraderie and the trust and the presence of the boy who loved her. And, honestly, who she loved back.

She heard him chuckle when she brought her arms up and returned his hold.

* * *

Btw: I watched Dream Drop Distance's ending on YouTube last night. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but. Um. I cried. A lot. Tears and dry heaving and everything. It was BAD.

Anyway, my point here is that we can add another KH game to TSA's "disregard for the sake of this AU" list. Kay? Kay.


	81. Chapter LXXXI

Hey all! After over a month of adjusting to sophomore year at college and all its time constraints, I've got a double update for you all. You're welcome. :)

(Come on, you knew I had to get this done before the fic's 5-year anniversary. You KNEW it.)

Enjoy!

* * *

It was funny, Riku reflected, how much more vivid the world became when he was tired. The day he had spent wandering around the Shadowed Desert with Falcon and Copperhead draped a film of exhaustion over his surroundings that amplified this world's little nuances, rather than muffling them: night's breeze stirring through the leaves; the trio's footsteps rustling against the brush beneath them; moonlight filtering into Riku's eyes and penetrating deeply enough to make him wince.

He was grateful that Kingdom Hearts' golden light hadn't overtaken the ordinary moon's silver – just another testament to Falcon's hard work as a Keyblade wielder – but somehow he got the feeling that Heartless claws wouldn't hurt near as much as the light did. Xehanort's Heartless influencing his sensitivity or no, on a dark night like this, any glimpse of brightness sent spots dancing across his eyelids.

Riku tore his eyes away from the moon as Copperhead, walking next to him, spoke. "Well," the blonde grumbled, "that was a waste of a day." On his next footstep, he lashed out with that foot and kicked the grass almost too vehemently.

Much as it rankled him to admit, Riku knew Copperhead was right. In hindsight, he supposed he should have known better than to expect Falcon to actually want to expand their search's circumference and graze the citadel's edges; then again, the combined force of both her and Copperhead's desperate avoidance provided a strong enough pull to keep them away from where their goal most likely was. It seemed like the only thing Falcon and Copperhead could both agree on – that terror to tread even slightly close to the past.

Frustrating, considering that with his luck, the machine was there.

And then he almost stopped in his tracks, because he could almost hear Char's voice in his head asking _because Falcon and Copperhead have too much PTSD to take us to the scene of the crime? _

Much as it pained him to admit, the wistfulness coursing through him told him he missed Char. She had spent the entire time complaining about having to be here and staving off her own longing for Sora, but at the very least she had served as a buffer between him and the poster children for messed up pasts.

Honestly, it made him miss the pure simplicity – the lazy afternoons he had once scorned and strived to escape – of Sora and Kairi and their island back home. Here, with Copperhead and Falcon and the leaves swaying overhead, it was much easier to believe darkness lurked close by.

Probably because, with the Nobodies they had found today, the most powerful source did.

At that moment, a breath with a higher pitch than the wind sounded behind him. The sigh from Falcon's direction shouldn't have surprised him, considering its frequency recurring throughout the day, yet with fatigue forcing contemplation and longing into his mind's forefront, it startled him into almost stopping again. As her reminding him of her presence yanked him out of his reverie, he spotted Copperhead's shoulders twitch out of the corner of his eye.

Glancing over his shoulder, he very tentatively surveyed Falcon's expression. Her head was angled down, and as a cloud slipped away from the moon the ensuing light played off a shallow set of scratches along her neck where Heartless had clawed her.

"There's always tomorrow," Falcon muttered. Riku would have asked about her sudden sense of optimism, which sounded odd given her refusal to even speak today; but her lighter tone carried falseness that forced her pitch upward and lent it a strain that made Riku give a muted wince.

Besides his secondhand embarrassment for her, though, a niggling sense of agreement with the likely frustration fueling her voice's edge made itself known: not as strong as that empathy for said frustration, but enough to furrow his brow and make him mimic his current guise's original nature more than before. With Char's departure, the search had taken two steps back. Copperhead had taken the first debilitating step by revealing his crimes, and Riku himself had completed the second by allowing Char to finish the promise she had made him a month and a million years ago. It had lent the extra helping hand back to Sora, Riku argued with himself, and gods only knew his Keyblade-wielding, dorky best friend needed all the help he could get, with just who he was fighting.

_Especially_ with who he was fighting.

However much his sense of friendship bristled at thinking of Char as nothing more than an extra fighter to be passed between him and the boy she loved, though, Riku knew one thing above all: even though Char had treated her sojourn in this world like a delay, she had still accomplished more in three days than he had in a week. A sigh threatened to escape him, but he stifled it before it could get loose.

By now their destination had appeared before them. In the silence, Riku heard the sets of footsteps ascending the steps to Falcon's back door that much better. Threefold _thuds_ cut through the breezy night, mingled with his own feet's impact on the surface and twined with it even as tile replaced the wood beneath him and the resonance changed.

Falcon slid into the house behind him and Copperhead and eased the door shut in her wake, effectively shattering the tiny blade of moonlight that had followed her inside. Although she remained silent, Riku could detect her breathing sharpen as she bumped into something in her quest for the light switch. Copperhead whispered out an apology, and Riku almost jumped as something brushed his arm; then he relaxed as he realized it was just the older man moving away from Falcon. He couldn't blame Copperhead for his skittishness. Falcon's current emotional state balanced on the tip of a pin and just colliding with its source could send it over that proverbial edge.

As he listened to their breaths mingling in the air, Riku's eyelids slipped shut, even though it was already dark. For the briefest of moments, dark like this, he could almost imagine he was sneaking back into his house after a late night on the island with Sora and Kairi.

Then a _tock_ resounded – Falcon had found the light switch.

Riku's eyes opened, only for the flood of artificial light to force them into a squint. Once his senses had accommodated the abrupt brightness shift, he found himself not in his house's familiar hallway, but in Falcon's living room. It would have been a lot more difficult to sneak in here anyway, he reflected as he glanced around; at least the hallway back home had led practically right to his room, free of any possible dealings with his father's anger.

It made him wonder how many times Falcon had had to slip past her parents' room to get to her own safe haven upstairs, after nights fighting Heartless at Copperhead's side.

The thought was an unwelcome one, and besides, he knew the answer. Falcon had admitted, from her spot at the coffee table straight ahead, that even if her parents had spotted her she doubted they would have thought much of it.

_In fact,_ she had chuckled with an extra sip of her orange juice, _I think they would be worried if I _wasn't_ out late a few nights a week._

Thinking back now, staring at the table's translucent surface and finding the ring where she had set her sweating glass down branded into it, Riku suddenly wondered why he hadn't heard the bitterness pounding through every word. With Copperhead's story – the clipped, desperately terse account of how he had taken those potentially-worried parents and indirectly robbed them of their hearts – casting an unwelcome light on the past, even the memory of Falcon's accounts drove pained sympathy into Riku's heart.

Dark fabric rustled in his periphery, and he glanced over to see Falcon sweeping past him, spinning on her heel at the last moment to head for the kitchen. Notably enough, she dodged past Copperhead with plenty of space between them: surprising, since she had expended more than enough effort on shoving and pushing and all but forcing him away from her. Except for when the trio had broken apart from their tight-knit formation to fight Heartless and Nobodies, when adrenaline had replaced her anger, that snide habit had never swayed – unlike Copperhead, who had stopped each and every time and stared after her like he had just watched her kick a puppy. Openly injured, shocked, without enough fire to muster indignation.

Copperhead had the exact same expression on his face now. Even with only glimpsing the side of his face, Riku could pick up wistfulness and regret.

And whereas he had sympathized with Falcon, he felt a furious gorge rising in his belly at how damn pathetic Copperhead looked.

_You're the one who told me and Char your story,_ the dark boy wanted to shout. _You should have expected this._

Falcon kept her stride brisk as she passed up the island dividing the kitchen from the living room and halted in front of the stove. Without turning around to face them, she asked, "Is it too late for dinner?"

As though her question had summoned it, hunger tunneled up within Riku's belly and voiced its umbrage. He fought the urge to pull a Sora and duck his head, while Copperhead looked over at him and laughed. "Amen to that, Riku's stomach," he said with a mock bow.

Riku simply rolled his eyes, unwilling to rise to the bait and justify himself. He hadn't eaten anything since their rather meager lunch at the saloon – not necessarily due to lack of hunger, but because the discomfort in the air between all three of them had all but destroyed his appetite. Since James was still recovering from the Behemoth attack two days earlier, a different waiter had served them, and as a result the task of diffusing the tension fell solely on Riku's shoulders.

A task that, he had discovered, he couldn't exactly accomplish by himself.

Before he had brought Char here, it had just been him, Falcon, and Copperhead. The three of them had never all been together in the same place, since Falcon wouldn't permit it and Copperhead had never exactly brought up how he knew her.

_You wondered about it, but you never acted on it,_ Riku reflected ruefully. _And you never expected Char to want to know as much as she did._

He shook himself out of regret toward his own willing obliviousness in time to watch Falcon place a pot on top of the stove. "Get comfortable," she called back. "I'll let you know when the food's ready."

The fact that she failed to address either or both of them was not lost on Riku. Copperhead realized it as well, for he cast an almost nervous glance in the younger's direction. Somehow, that nervousness proved contagious; Copperhead's blithe mask had suffered a fissure more easily than before.

That, and Riku got the feeling that had Falcon possessed a little less self-control and maturity, she might just poison Copperhead's share of dinner. And they would have an even bigger problem on their hands.

Almost as soon as the notion had occurred to him, Riku dismissed it. The pervert following them back to her house hadn't been his idea, certainly, but if Falcon truly disapproved as much as her open hostility indicated then she would have forced Copperhead to turn around and go home already.

Ultimately, Riku ended up wedged between the couch and the table, overly long legs drawn up to accommodate the smaller space, arms folded across his knees. Copperhead sprawled out on the floor next to him as casually as if he still lived here, one elbow resting on an upraised knee and the other braced against the other leg.

He pulled the strap of the scythe's sheathe off his shoulder gently and let it roll off his torso so the entire long weapon rested on the floor. From the almost haunted gleam in his eyes, he was remembering days when he had settled down here in the exact same way. Perhaps with Falcon's parents sitting on the couch, and Falcon herself in Riku's place, with steam rising up from freshly cooked food and laughter billowing up to wreathe about its physical companion in the air.

Only when Riku remembered Copperhead had only come here after his brother's death – and, as a result, would have had laughter in relatively short supply – did he realize the discrepancy between his ideal mental image and the truth.

Fast on the heels of that epiphany came the fact that he was recalling the times he had spent the night at Sora's house, and that he was thinking of a memory, not a fantasy.

And along with those, there came echoes and images of those memories he had created with Sora. His mother's smiles and cookies, and his father's booming voice and smoke-tinged cologne; and most of all, Sora's happy expression and eternal earnestness.

Come to think of it, Copperhead's expression looked like the beast of the past inside was tugging him between wistfulness and bitterness. Again, it reminded Riku far too much of himself, right after the darkness had come – and he didn't dare think of how he, like Copperhead, had all but beckoned that imbalance in the first place – and he had first met up with Sora again.

Wistfulness. Bitterness. Both emotions that tangled together in Riku's heart now.

He ripped his gaze away from Copperhead with a muffled sigh. They needed to find Ansem – the real one's – machine soon, because if he was comparing himself to that perverted, deeply flawed, eternally covetous murderer, something had gone horribly wrong.

* * *

No sooner had Copperhead slurped up the last bit of spaghetti on his plate did he announce, "Well, I should probably go."

Riku had leaned back with a distasteful grimace in order to dodge the sauce droplets flung his way; at Copperhead's declaration, though, he straightened, narrowly avoiding bumping his knees against the bottom of the table in the process. "Right now?" he couldn't help inquiring. Much as Copperhead's presence fed the tension between the trio enough to breed that choking silence, Riku found himself wondering why he would pick now to show some tact and leave. He had never exactly had done so in the past, after all.

Almost against his will, Riku dared turn his head to look at Falcon, who had situated herself strategically at the end of the couch farthest from him. Her desire for distance made speaking with her nearly impossible, and her continued reticence didn't help that at all. Though he should have just passed it off as a result of her wanting to eat dinner after today's vigorous yet futile searching, he just couldn't. That lack of apathy concerned him more than anything else.

She said nothing, only watching the man who had once been her best friend with narrowed green eyes. The fork speckled with red sauce from the scant few bites she had taken of her dinner trembled in her grip, though, and the light caught off a newfound sparkle in her eyes.

Seeing that glimmer, Riku realized, with the weight of a Sorcerer's force field colliding with his skull, that it was the patented mark of tears straining to escape. The sight upset him more than he would have liked.

A flicker of honey gold pulled his gaze back across the table's expanse to Copperhead again.

"Yeah," he went on, a hitch tugging at his voice as he rose to his feet and made sure to stretch his arms in the process. Riku swore he felt Falcon's eyes rolling as if into his own skull and nearly smiled, before remembering the situation's gravity.

Gods, he _had_ to have gone and reported his lack of progress to the old man yesterday. If he had stayed with the group, he could have steered Char's fury away from Copperhead and focused them all on more important matters.

If ignorance, albeit ignorance tinged with frustration, was bliss, Riku thought he would rather have stayed in even that corrupted happiness with Falcon's past. Everything had screwed up in his absence.

_Not everything,_ he had to remind himself, thinking of Sora and the times he had almost thought he and Kairi would have been better off without his darkness infecting their light.

"I'm tired after today," Copperhead was saying. He leaned down to pick up his scythe from the floor, an almost sheepish smile on his face as he did so, and slung the strap across his chest. "Think I'm gonna head back home and get some sleep." To Riku, not taking his eyes off him, he queried, "Same time and place tomorrow morning?"

Riku nodded. "Yeah," he answered, slowly. "See you then."

Incidentally, even touching on the more unpleasant memories of opposing Sora – of envying his Keyblade and despising his light – proved a mistake, because that thought led to the question of where his best friend was now. Char had provided a bit of insight, yes, but that information could only keep his worry at bay for so long. Sora had almost recognized him when they had crossed paths at Agrabah yesterday; he had almost dropped the candy cane-like Keyblade in his grasp when Riku had made the mistake of pulling out the Soul Eater.

He hoped that, at least, Sora had moved on from there and ended up in Hollow Bastion. That way he wouldn't have taken Char back to the main site of her own painful memories for nothing.

As Copperhead gave a single awkward jerk of a nod in Riku's direction and spun around to leave, Riku suddenly found himself wondering if Char would fulfill her promise and lead Sora to the World That Never Was.

Because if she did, and Riku was still held up in this world…

Falcon started when Riku jerked up, only to slump back a little and swear under his breath when the table halted his attempt to get to his feet and created an audible clatter. "Riku…?" she began.

He shook his head at her, pulling his legs out from underneath the table and trying not to bash his kneecaps again. Add another reason to the list of the things he loathed Xehanort's Heartless for: dragging his heart into darkness, possessing his body, and now nearly fracturing his knees. "I just… I need to talk to Copperhead about something," he managed. At least that wasn't entirely a lie.

The speed at which Falcon's bemusement twisted into darkness, toeing the glow-in-the-dark line dividing her from unabashed anger, sent a shiver along Riku's spine. "Do you," she intoned coldly.

"It's…" Riku paused, suddenly struggling with the decision whether or not to confess his newfound concern – that Sora would end up at their final destination and Riku would still be wasting his time here, running an errand for that revenge-crazed madman.

If Riku ever found his way back home, he wanted to be at Sora and Kairi's side, not lagging behind: something he had never done before.

Falcon watched him a couple of moments longer. At this point, she had stepped away from the boundary dividing anger's restraint and its release. Only after the fact did Riku realize her daring to toe that line at all marked an anomaly for her, the one who had bottled all her rage for Copperhead up inside.

But she had shoved it back down, it seemed, in favor of worry and that other emotion she always displayed when looking at him. No matter how much discomfort it caused him – that knowledge that he could never return that particular brand of warmth and affection, only a paler image of it – he found himself grasping at it with all his might now.

"I'm worried we won't find the machine in time," he confessed.

Falcon tipped her head to one side, brow wrinkling in confusion, not annoyance. "In time for what?"

Riku sighed, and all the pressure seemed to release from him in that one breath. "In time for me to go home."

Falcon's eyes widened. A paltry "oh" emitted from her direction, and she lifted one arm to rub the opposite one. "Well," she mumbled, "I guess – do what you have to."

Her expression and voice lost a significant amount of fire in that one reluctant demand, and Riku tried not to flinch at knowing that he had doused that fire, however briefly and angrily it had blazed up. _I do want to see Sora and Kairi again… I just don't see why I have to make Falcon feel bad in the process._

He found himself echoing Falcon's actions and stifling his guilt. As he spun back around, seized the doorknob, pulled the door open and took that first step out into the night, he tried to focus on the white-clad figure shuffling off down the moonlit forest path instead of the burn of her stare on his own dark back.

"Copperhead!" he called after the receding man.

Copperhead stopped in his tracks, tails on the bottom of his coat cutting white streaks against the darkness with the action's suddenness. Although he had kept his pace steady enough for most of his form's details to be visible, Riku still felt himself start a little at the scythe's curved blade spinning as its carrier turned to face him. His fingers twitched, reflex to summon the Soul Eater flaring up inside and channeling its heat into his hands – at least until the weapon jutting out from Copperhead's back became invisible, shielded by his body.

A confused "hm?" drew Riku's gaze back up Copperhead's body to his face. He was regarding Riku with undisguised surprise that only intensified as he stepped closer, feet rustling lightly over the forest leaves.

"What's up, Riku?" Copperhead asked as he halted in front of Riku. Eking out a grin under his exhaustion's obvious strain, he added, "Calling dramatically after me, right in front of Falcon's house? This has to be important."

Riku ended up losing his mental battle with the urge to roll his eyes. "Actually, yes, it is."

To Copperhead's credit, he dropped the fake smile almost instantly. "All right," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "I'm listening."

"Right." Riku puffed out a sigh, rubbed his fingertips against his temples. He ended up grazing over where a Sorcerer's pink cubes bludgeoning his skull had left a jagged, shallow gash dividing his hairline and dropped his hand at once – both because of the pain at just that slight touch, and because of what the Sorcerer Nobodies represented.

If Xemnas truly was here, sending out his Nobodies, then he had to have the machine somewhere close by. Therein, Riku supposed, lay the crux of the matter: Xemnas had to know about Falcon and Copperhead's fear of the citadel and all it represented. More than likely, he was exploiting their latent emotions for all they were worth and hiding up at the citadel. Probably trying to figure out how to take apart his master's vital tool of retaliation while he was at it. Just the thought forced Riku's gloved hands into fists and his jaw into a near-painful clench.

The only problem lay in how to convince his two companions to take him up there so he could finally, _finally_ complete Ansem's errand and reunite with Sora and Kairi.

Unbidden, the question as to what Char would do floated into his mind, born on contemplation's haze and all the seemingly-random proposals that clogged it. Ironically, though, that stray thought waved the fog aside.

Sora-induced changes aside, he knew what she would do. Even before meeting Sora, she would do the same thing he would: watch, and wait, and let the curiosity and frustration build up inside. Really, Riku had done the exact same thing with Char's past and Falcon and Copperhead's.

That streak of defiance that had borne Char back to where she belonged renewed itself in his heart then, and he spoke.

"I have a feeling I know where the machine is."

Copperhead's eyes lit up, and the smile on his face almost hurt Riku's eyes, it was so genuine. He almost didn't want to keep going.

Almost.

"Really?" the blonde gasped. "That's great! Uh, so…" He trailed off, brow furrowing. One arm lifted to brace its elbow against the opposite hand; after a moment of tapping his chin in thought, he leveled his gaze back at Riku. "Where, exactly? We've torn the entire town apart already."

This time, the sigh that tore out of Riku carried significantly more heaviness. "The citadel," he muttered.

For the second time in the last ten minutes, that bemusement as to how quickly gentle interest could lose its buoyancy and fall into darker territory entirely swiped cold claws along Riku's spine. Unlike Falcon, though, Copperhead's expression became cloaked in dread. His arms fell limply back to his sides, fingers gaining an already visible tremble; although this reaction didn't surprise Riku in the slightest, self-hatred seared across his heart at the memories condensing themselves in that newfound shadow.

He couldn't see what nighttime terrors flashed across Copperhead's mind, but he could imagine. Whenever he remembered Hollow Bastion – triumph when he had finally gained the Keyblade; mounting terror when Sora and the Beast showed up and his allies returned to his side; horror when the Keyblade had left him; desperation when Xehanort's Heartless had offered that power to him – faded echoes of those emotions' resonation felt raw inside his chest all over again. Having experienced the same emotional trauma, then, allowed Riku to easily anticipate Copperhead reliving it right in front of him.

What he did _not_ expect, however, was for him to glance up and give a few overly emphatic nods.

"All right," Copperhead agreed.

Riku blinked. "Huh?"

His intelligent expression of confusion met a shrug of affected nonchalance. "I-I mean, do what you've gotta do and everything," Copperhead hastened to justify his acquiescence. Riku watched him turn away, arms reaching up to cushion against the back of his head, and couldn't help narrowing his eyes. _Stop trying so hard to act like you're not terrified over this,_ he wanted to say.

Aloud, though, he only cleared his throat, making Copperhead glance over his shoulder. Even though the moonlight glanced off his scythe's protruding blade and forced Riku's eyes into a further squint, it couldn't conceal those traces of fear quickly enough for him to miss.

"Tomorrow morning, then, we'll meet up here and ask Fal about it. Right?" Copperhead spoke up before Riku could so much as open his mouth.

"Yeah," Riku said, wariness of Copperhead's feigned readiness drawing out the word. He folded his arms across his chest and appraised the other man a moment longer; only when Copperhead's smile began to falter, mask suffering fissures under Riku's scrutiny, did he continue. "Copperhead," he said, "you know Xemnas is probably going to be up there. He's the reason Char and I had to come here at all."

Copperhead's eyes widened. "And that's how Blaze knew who he was," he assumed. A sigh heaved itself out of him as he leaned on one leg, balancing his weight on that side. "Small world."

His low, rumbling tone – treading the line of self-deprecation, but never deigning to cross it entirely – sounded familiar, which puzzled Riku, at least until he remembered Copperhead's explanation of the past he and Xemnas shared. Copperhead had spoken the exact same way when he revealed how he'd deduced Char knowing of Xemnas too. Inwardly, Riku scoffed; _knowing of_ was an understatement.

The wind picked up a little bit then, carrying with it a higher pitch. Riku jerked slightly – for a minute there, it sounded like a gasp – then dismissed it. Just an illusion brought about by his exhaustion and the wind's newfound speed, nothing more.

Copperhead shivered, rubbing his bare arms up and down in a vain attempt to assuage his sudden chill. "It's getting cold," he remarked obviously, "so I'm gonna go home."

Riku watched him turn away and trudge off down the forest path, then pivoted around and stepped up onto Falcon's porch.

Strange. Copperhead's ready agreement, false though it was, should have released the strain on his shoulders a little; the knowledge of finally, _finally_ growing closer to accomplishing his goal should have lightened his heart – yet all he could feel was a sense of foreboding.

* * *

_Xemnas._

Xemnas was in the citadel with the machine.

The latter's location didn't surprise her. She and the others had wasted the last few days running around town and almost unconsciously carving a wide arc around the site of so many nightmares and terrible memories; then again, she supposed she and Copperhead shared the blame on that one more than Riku.

But… Xemnas. That was something she hadn't realized.

Sheets sloughed off her form as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of her bed. A tree's leaves met her stare at the window, but she could imagine what lay beyond it. The citadel's imposing spires, the reflective floor where she had watched herself break down, the man who had smiled and parried every stroke of the Keyblade in his direction and just left after she had sacrificed her own heart.

Only when her knuckles began to cramp did she realize just how strongly her fingers had knotted in the sheets around her legs. Her eyes slipped shut in an attempt to calm herself, yet even that failed, as the inside of her eyelids only thrust the smug bastard who had orchestrated her parents' murder into full focus.

Copperhead had his share of the blame – had brought her parents to die in that forsaken place. And yet…

Maybe that was why she had balked at the notion of truly hating him. Incredulity leaped up inside her at the thought of actually rationalizing her twisted emotions toward him, but she forced herself to douse that disbelief.

Maybe she couldn't bring herself to cut ties with the Copperhead-shaped part of her past because Xemnas had had the bigger role in the tragedy one year ago.

Abruptly, she rose to her feet. Blood shifted to the rest of her body and left dizziness in its wake as she did so. Combined with fatigue and emotional exhaustion from today's events – Char's departure, the epiphany that she did care about the girl she had once perceived as a mere romantic rival, Riku's awkward silences added to her and Copperhead's tense refusal to speak, the sensation of something driving into her chest as she had looked at Riku and her own unrequited feelings had gleamed amber in his eyes – that dizziness all but toppled her.

But she forced herself up, and to the door where she had hung her jacket, and once she quelled the sudden tremor in her arms long enough to secure its long sleeves over them she crossed the room to the closet to secure her stockings and skirt.

Muffled, shaky cursing rasped out into the dark room as, impeded by the lack of visibility around her, Falcon shoved one boot onto the wrong foot. It occurred to her that maybe she should have turned the desk lamp on, but she had already dragged her battle garments out into the open and ended up eschewing the light.

She felt around for the closet door and grasped it with one hand; to her immense shame, she could feel the tremble return to her body, leaving the door rattling beneath her grip. Almost on instinct, the other hand groped around for her jacket pocket and finally settled on her Keychain, shaking fingertips finding purchase against its charm. Just like the first time she had summoned it – just as she had the day when, in retrospect, all of this had started, the Heartless and Copperhead's friendship and the path to his betrayal – she thought on how much it felt like one of her father's old guitar picks. Smooth, unbent beneath the pads of her fingers.

Her father, who had moved here for his job. Her mother, who had taught her how to cook. And Copperhead, the boy – man – who she had fallen for, before Dyme's death had ripped her trust for him into pieces.

_Even if I don't avenge them, at least I can buy time for Riku to get there and get the machine._

If she was going to die – and Falcon's mind found itself considering the possibility, rolling it over and over with a probing curiosity that finally gave way to acceptance – she figured she might as well do it while helping the few people she still loved in the world.

Before she relinquished her grip on the closet door to head downstairs, though, her fingers slid up the edge and brushed against something soft. By this time her eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to pick out minor details, and so when she looked up her eyes widened at what she saw.

The old scarf, the one that had once belonged to Copperhead. Nighttime and all its shadows had washed the knitted material's purple in grayscale, but she would know those ragged edges anywhere.

Almost against her will, she felt her arm completing its journey up the door, all but strained her ankles rising onto her tip-toes to reach it, and clasped her fingers around the scarf. It uncoiled from its haphazard rolls and collapsed onto her hand as she withdrew it.

Staring down at it, Falcon felt a multitude of memories rush back into her. Minutes before Copperhead had first kissed her, he had unwound the scarf around his neck and extended it to her shivering form; and hours after he had betrayed her, she had thrown it into the top of her closet, wanting more than anything never to see that reminder of him again.

Her uncontainable rage from that day returned as an echo of its former self, dully aching with every staccato throb of her heartbeat. And yet she felt herself winding it about her neck before turning to the door.

It was just because night had arrived, and it would be cold outside. That was all.

* * *

"Never thought I'd see you whip out that old thing again."

Falcon's already-tense nerves snapped at that deep voice. She tried to ignore the very squeaky noise of shock that tore itself from her lips and kept her motions calm as she turned toward its source.

Copperhead stood leaning against a tree, arms folded across his chest, staring at the scarf he had given her. That stupid scythe still lay strapped across his back, even though it couldn't have been comfortable creating a barrier between his back and the tree's bark.

Above any discomfort, though, smugness rose, visible in his eyes and the smile twitching at his lips. That, and something like _hope._

She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's cold tonight," she answered through clenched teeth.

Copperhead quirked one eyebrow. While she had failed to quash the hope in his eyes – the thought that maybe he meant more than just an unwelcome catalyst driving the past's thorns into her anew every time their eyes met – she did succeed in wiping that infernal grin off his face. "Not really," he rebuffed.

Much as she hated admitting it, he kind of had a point. The nighttime breeze that had once nipped through her jacket's thin material now lay somewhat stagnant, leaving his gift to her a hot, irritating presence about her throat. But like hell was she going to gratify him and take it off.

"Get to the point, Copperhead," she growled at him. "Why are you out here stalking me?"

He sighed. With the dramatic nature of that movement, the expansion of his ribcage pushed him off the tree and sent him walking toward her. "I needed a walk after today. A nice, calm, Heartless-free walk," he added with a wry smile, which Falcon didn't return. "To think about things."

_Like how you're a selfish murderer? _Falcon left that thought unspoken and just quirked an eyebrow at him. "You wanted to take a walk right next to my house." It was not a question.

Copperhead lifted his palms up in a placating gesture: the intention of which failed, once again, to worm its way past the resolve slitting her eyes and accelerating her heartbeat. "Hey," he pointed out, "the forest around here's a great place to think. Not like the one near the citadel."

Falcon's eyes widened. Now that – that meant something to her.

In contrast, his own violet gaze narrowed. He had hit a nerve, and both of them knew it. And in Falcon's revenge-throttled, desperation-wrought state, her nerves felt more raw than ever before.

"Which is why," Copperhead went on icily, "I find it a little strange that you're heading back there."

All of a sudden, with the chill his unspoken indictment inflicted on the air, Falcon felt grateful for the scarf's warmth around her neck. Of course, that bit of positivity sizzled into oblivion with his stare's intensity on her, and she felt her fingers moving up to clutch at the scarf's frayed ends before catching herself and dropping her hands to her sides again.

He knew she had overheard him and Riku discussing tomorrow's course of action. He had to.

"Don't look so surprised," Copperhead went on, lowering his hands. Not once did he take his eyes from hers – ironic, considering both how she had treated him today and over the last year. However, every bit of boldness and scorn that he once could have easily mustered seemed to have condensed itself into his voice then, forcing it into a low, near threatening pitch. "The minute Riku first spoke Xemnas' name, I knew you'd overheard. He forgot to close the door when he went outside. And of course you were curious."

The words _you're going to face Xemnas yourself_ never once escaped his lips. And yet they lingered in Falcon's ears nonetheless, in as deep a rumble as the way he sounded now.

"I suppose you're here to try and stop me," she said.

She expected a vehement confirmation – that, or its polar opposite, a fervent denial as to how much concern he still had invested in her well-being, even though she had discarded her own toward him long ago. His voice rumbled too deeply to transition into the desperation in either, but he had surprised her before.

As he did now: another sigh oozed out of him, one hand rising up to press his bangs tight against his forehead. In the moonlight, the honey strands straining to light up against the black fabric of his glove were tinted whitewashed yellow.

"Weren't you listening?" he groaned. "I literally just told you I was taking a walk."

Something inside Falcon twisted and broke then, and she balled her hand into a fist, fully intending to make the other side of his jaw match the still-swollen mark of her wrath –

But then he was dropping his hand, stepping closer to her, and invoking memories of the last time he had gotten so close and stroked his bare hand up the fabric of his scarf to her cheek. Falcon's fist trembled, but did not uncoil.

Thankfully, he stopped just short of recreating that moment: not bending down to kiss her, as he had before, but simply gazing down his nose at her. Not reaching out with one hand to card it through her hair, as he had at the mayor's party two nights before, but keeping his hands at his sides.

"I'm not going to try and stop you," he murmured. Falcon's eyes widened, but he barreled on before she could interject. "Because I know your mind's made up." Tilting his head down to meet her gaze better, he added dryly, "As much as you haven't cared about anything around you in the past year, I do still remember what determination looks like on you."

Falcon blinked. She hadn't even known he had noticed. He didn't look like he was lying, though; shame blazed hot along her spine, originating from the weight around her throat, at the fact that she remembered what honesty looked like on him.

Both remembrances were ironic, considering their current situations.

Movement caught her eye, then, and she glanced down just in time to see the hand that had once covered his forehead lower from where it had lifted up. Almost as though he had considered touching her.

"But," he suddenly said – and despite his claim that he didn't want to impede her vengeance he sounded like he was choking on even that one word – "I can't guarantee… that Riku won't try and stop you."

_Riku._ If Copperhead's tone hadn't thrown her – if the way he ground out every word like it physically pained him to force Riku's name out didn't shock her – the way he dared to bring up her closest friend now did the job more than well enough.

And suddenly she was fighting to squeeze a defiant rebuttal past an obstacle in her throat as well. In spite of Riku not returning her feelings, in spite of him not reciprocating that l-word she had never even touched with Copperhead, he had still made it clear he regarded her as closely in his heart as any of his friends, wherever they were.

Before thoughts of who would miss her could surface and swarm about her already-quaking resolve, she forced herself to snarl back at Copperhead. "Tell him whatever you like. It won't change anything." She turned on her heel and strode past him.

He only let her get a few feet away, then called after her. "I know."

Those two words stopped her in her tracks.

_Move,_ her mind screamed at her, _he doesn't need to hold you back anymore,_ but his next words rooted her to the spot.

"I know you," Copperhead said, quietly. "I'm probably the only person left in the world who knows you."

Falcon thought of her parents, and somehow her hand slipped into the pocket with her Keychain in it and wrapped around its charm.

"If you want to do something," he went on, "then nothing can stop you. And if it's for someone you care about – like Riku and your parents – then you won't stop until it's done." A pause, then, "It's for all of them, right? Getting the machine for Riku, and beating Xemnas for your parents."

Falcon gave herself a few seconds to struggle with herself before resuming her trek toward the citadel's spires rising up in the distance.

Copperhead didn't follow her.

* * *

Over the last year, Falcon had trained herself to repress memories of that dark, bloody night. For the most part, both time and her conscious efforts had done the trick. The wound over her heart and cutting her ability to trust hadn't healed so much as scabbed over, and nighttime's shadows tended to usher the past forward and offer it an easy path into her subconscious, but during the day she kept everything relatively well hidden.

Avoiding Copperhead helped matters immensely, as she knew his presence would tear that barely-healed sore in her heart to ribbons and make everything raw again. It was why she had balked so much at Riku wanting Copperhead to help them; she hadn't even known the two of them had met up at all.

Despite her suppressing the past, though, she found herself tracing the path to the citadel's gates as easily as she had a year ago. Purpose tugged her forward and steadied her pace, not the panic that had driven her to a sprint, but she had returned nonetheless.

The path she walked would have been familiar to her anyway: she, Riku, and Copperhead had wandered up and down every winding path of this very forest over the last few days, searching for something that lay at the labyrinth's end. The old days running around with Copperhead and fighting Heartless had familiarized this place to her as well.

As Falcon stepped off the bridge and into the town's outskirts, she recognized the spot where, looking out over the river, she had accepted her bounty and turned to greet Riku and Char; as the grass tickling her stocking-clad calves lengthened and the forest's trees threw shadows across her every step, a rustle of the breeze through the bushes drew her gaze to the way she had walked to meet up with Riku. As the clouds withdrew a little from the moon, silver shafted down and bounced off every leaf twined above her head to illuminate dark specks scattered across the ground – the spot where, if she remembered correctly, Heartless had attacked her group just hours earlier.

Her fingers pushed beneath the scarf still tightly wrapped around her neck and rubbed the shallow scratches there. Riku had tossed her a Potion right after the Heartless had sliced her, but not even that healing elixir could spread through and eliminate the bleeding entirely.

_You okay?_ Riku had shouted, even while batting a ball-like Heartless away with his bat-wing blade. Amber eyes had regarded her with concern, which made sense, considering those deadly claws had made contact dangerously close to her carotid artery.

Thinking of his worry now, Falcon almost gasped aloud at the pain that worked its way across her heart. She quickly pulled the scarf up, even though no one would have seen her moment of weakness anyway, and drove herself on.

* * *

Perhaps the thoughts of dinner with Sora's family and his old home in general had woven their way past wakeful reminiscence and into slumbering subconscious, for Riku's dreams contained Destiny Island's light more than Hollow Bastion's darkness. In his dream, sand sprayed up around his feet as he charged down the beach, with Sora and Kairi trailing along behind. The silver-gray hair blowing into his periphery with every step told him Xehanort's Heartless had yet to find him and exploit his weakness.

_C'mon, Sora! _he shouted back. _You can keep up, right?_

He turned back around, only to rear up, startled into stopping, as light flooded his senses, brighter than the island sun had ever seemed. It came in a muted, red-orange haze, though, almost as though something blocked the majority of it out.

Riku's eyes opened, only for the light to force them back into a squint. That tiny bit of moonlight from earlier felt like a tiny pinprick of pain compared to the daggers slicing into his vision now. A groan escaped him, and he tried to throw one arm over his face to save his eyes, only to be brought up short. Something had a vice-grip clamped about his shoulders.

Panic surged through him briefly, before he mentally pried his eyelids apart and glimpsed huge violet eyes.

"Copperhead?" he mumbled.

In response, the other man loosened his grasp on Riku, slid his fingers off his bare shoulders and stepped away from the couch. He kept a steady grip on the couch's arm, though, all but crushing it. "We've got trouble," he said breathlessly. Whether that came from having run back here or not, Riku wasn't sure; however, moonlight traced along his trembling form and showed his desperation.

Whatever had happened, it had affected him badly enough for it to deprive him of the sleep he had bemoaned losing.

That, more than anything, ejected a fresh stream of wakefulness into Riku's body, and he sat up, ignoring the way his sleep-cramped muscles protested. "All right," he agreed, swinging his legs over the side of the couch and taking care to not hit his legs on the table. "I'll go upstairs and get Falcon, and we can –"

But Copperhead was shaking his head furiously, leaning forward so far that he threatened to suspend himself on the couch's arm. "That's the trouble," he said desperately. "She… she overheard us talking about Xemnas."

Riku's eyes widened, and he stumbled to his feet. _Now_ he was awake. "She _what?"_

Copperhead said nothing, just bounced up and down, as though so terrified he couldn't contain it.

Now that Riku thought about it, he had picked up something like a gasp disrupting the evening breeze's cadence. That breath, that one hint at something having gone wrong, had come and gone so quickly that he had dismissed it as the wind picking up; but it wasn't, and dread percolated in a low heat within his belly at what Falcon might have done.

It was clear that she had left, and Copperhead hadn't tried to stop her. If he had, then Falcon hadn't listened to him, a choice that didn't shock Riku in the slightest. No, if anything, that choice lent more fire to the fear for her blazing inside him and forcing his heartbeat into overtime.

Either way, though, she had left. Whether she had done it to avenge her parents or retrieve the machine, he didn't know. Riku found himself wishing for the former with a fervency that made his chest hurt even more. If she had gone off to die, gods forbid she had done it for him.

He didn't want anyone trying to die for him when he didn't deserve it.

_Do what you have to._ Riku bit back the bitter laugh that suddenly was clawing for purchase at the tip of his tongue. Of course she was following her own advice.

"So what are we going to do?" Copperhead's deep voice made Riku look over.

He blinked when he found the other man watching him with a mix of urgency and impatience. "You're the one who came over here," he pointed out. "We're going to save her." Already he was moving toward the door, arm darting out to yank his coat off its perch next to the door. The newfound tremble in his hands made it difficult to get the jacket on, but after a few moments he succeeded.

Turning around gave him a sight he had not expected: Copperhead staring at the ground, still holding the couch's edge by the pads of his fingers. Riku quirked one eyebrow. "I'm going even if you're not," he said, fighting to keep a growl out of his voice. _You came barging in here freaking out about her, and now you're having second thoughts?_

Despite that incredulous thought, though, something held him in place. Some twisted loyalty to this pathetic person, some remnant sense of friendship toward Copperhead – something grabbed hold of his anger and gently told it to hear him out.

When he said nothing, though – just staring at his shoes, as though he could find the answer to the turmoil in his heart in their dark surface – Riku couldn't hold himself back any longer.

Copperhead jumped, startled into jerking his head up to stare at Riku, at the explosive groan that tore itself out of him. Moments later, Riku had crossed the living room, shoes _clacking_ rapidly against the tile floor and silencing at the transfer to carpet, and grabbed Copperhead's shoulders. He shook the other almost viciously, fury rasping his voice.

Somewhere in his heart, he swore Xehanort's Heartless was almost purring at his host's dark display.

"The woman you love is gonna die," he hissed into Copperhead's face, "and you're just going to sit back and let it happen?"

Copperhead stared at him a moment longer, pupils flicking briefly down to the black-clad fingers stark against his jacket's white fabric. Now that Riku had stilled him, his own hands had no real reason to continue bracing against the couch's arm; yet they remained there, and movement from close to Copperhead's hips drew Riku's gaze to those gloved fingers curling against the dull material.

He looked back up into those violet eyes and all but dropped his hands back to his side at what he found: fear and desperation having hardened into something like… resolve.

"No," Copperhead muttered, "I'm not."

* * *

Fun fact: I love cliffhangers. Because I am evil.


	82. Chapter LXXXII

Parte deux of the double update special! (Did I do that right? I took 4 years of Spanish, so my French is a little bad.) And some of you are either going to hate me for dragging it out this long, or hate me for how the chapter ends. Either way, you're gonna hate me. Which is good, because it means I did my job right.

(Unless you hate me for writing Mary-Sues. In which case, aww.)

Also, Xemnas is unexpectedly hard to write. I hope I did him justice. D:

Enjoy!

* * *

Falcon channeled her growing rage into a shard of ice and pointed her Keyblade in the Heartless' direction. An instant later, the spell coalesced in solid form at the Azure Ice's tip, pale blue all but blending with her weapon's form before detaching and firing.

The off-white creature still had its arm-like appendages wrapped about its body, pink shield rotating around its form. Incidentally, though, the Blizzaga shot through a tiny gap in the cube, collided with the off-white creature's head, and knocked the enemy back. It flung its arms out and sent its pink cube careening toward her, but Falcon ducked before it could make contact with her head. Purple flared out in her periphery – a sight she would have flung her Keyblade toward, given both the adrenaline of the fight and her frayed nerves, but she had grown used to the scarf's presence.

She refused to believe it felt like Copperhead fighting at her side, because it _didn't._

The momentum from ducking so abruptly pulled her into a roll that she sprang up from at once. One lunge and physical assault from her Keyblade later, the enemy before her exploded in a shower of bubbles.

She gave herself a grand total of two seconds to wipe the debris off her face before whirling back to the masses in front of her. _It figures that the minute I walk in here, these things swarm all over me._

An instant later, though, she shook off whatever doubt might have arisen from just how many obstacles stood in her way and charged forward, Keyblade out first, eyes on the spiraling staircase that wove up just behind them. "Out of the way!" she screeched.

* * *

Normally, Riku's exhaustion would have impeded his ability to feel wary about something. Even with his task in mind – a thought that, with every notion attached to its dread-filled coattails of Falcon's Keyblade clashing with Xemnas' ethereal blades, woke him up enough – the fact remained that only four hours of sleep or so lay bottled up in his system, and so were the only source of energy he could draw from.

Tired though he was, though, the lack of Heartless or Nobodies lurking in the outskirts forest's umbra unnerved him more than the darkness could.

Copperhead seemed to share Riku's sentiment. The scythe strapped across his back, whose curved end tapered out close enough to the back of his neck in tandem with his straightened spine, twitched as he shivered. Minute though the movement was, Riku spotted it anyway.

"Kinda quiet out tonight," the blonde tossed over his shoulder. He cringed at how loud and misplaced his own nonchalance sounded and lowered his voice. "Where _are_ they?" he murmured, sounding almost panicky.

Riku knew he was referring to the Heartless, though their current mission's context implicated Falcon and Xemnas. "Probably all in the citadel," he replied.

This time, Copperhead did glance back, bemusement raising one eyebrow into his bangs. "And you know this how?"

Intentional or not, an irritated edge sharpened Copperhead's query. Worry created that edge, Riku knew that much; yet he still had to keep himself from bristling at the other's petulance. "Xemnas has been sending Heartless here, more than likely," he told Copperhead above a chorus of crackling leaves underfoot. "It's just like him to toy with us like this."

"So right now Falcon's fighting all those Heartless at once…?" Copperhead trailed off, then swerved fully back around and increased his pace. He didn't even comment on Riku's revelation about Xemnas, despite the fact that something about _the Heartless master guy_ could have come so easily.

_We need to hurry._

Riku's longer legs allowed him to easily keep up with Copperhead, yet he remained at his back, albeit keeping his own stride just fast enough to stay behind. Although uncertainty fed his fear for Falcon and tapped out a staccato heartbeat in his chest, his footsteps' rhythm didn't match that of Copperhead, whose feet crunching through the leaves littered along the path twined in tandem with Riku's heart.

As it turned out, thinking about Xemnas proved the least productive use of the contemplation offered to Riku by the ensuing silence. More than a tiny bit of truth had surfaced in the second part of his explanation: it was just like Xemnas, the manipulative bastard, to cluster every Heartless and Sorcerer Nobody in the citadel, where he knew Falcon would be. He had to be relishing the added bit of anxiety to the males chasing after her as well.

Riku's fists coiled so tightly into fists that his fingers rebelled, cramping and forcing his hands apart again. _As if Xemnas didn't give us enough of a reason to hate him. Leading the Organization, messing up the worlds, manipulating Copperhead…_

And then he frowned, bemusement clouding his rising anger. The last thought had come completely unbidden, and was an unwelcome one – Copperhead had lied and killed to get what he had wanted, after all.

_But he's still your friend,_ something in the back of his mind pointed out gently. Due to that tone's unfamiliar nature, he almost didn't realize the voice sounded quiet and husky enough to emanate Char's until he remembered where he had heard her speak like that before.

About Sora, and everything the journey with him had entailed.

Riku fought back a sigh. If he was missing her now, of all times, he was definitely tired.

Trying to distract himself from that unwelcome revelation – both of them – he glanced up, only to blink in confusion. Moonlight poured darkness-tainted light over the forest, albeit somewhat stifled by the cover of a cloud passing overhead. Yet even though those shadows kept him from fully recognizing his surroundings, Riku had at least gleaned some familiarity from every tree and bush Copperhead led him past. Now, though, an even deeper darkness swathed itself over the path, an umbra born as much of unfamiliarity as the clouds obscuring the only light source.

Looking around, he realized he could see a gap through the foliage – and, upon tilting his head back and feeling the ends of his gray hair slipping further down his spine, spires arching austerely into the sky revealed themselves to him as well. The citadel's presence had been something he'd known of since he had brought Char here, but never before had it seemed so close.

Not just the citadel itself, Riku reflected, but… It exuded imposing ominousness, something he could only describe as a _presence._

Whatever had happened here, even before Falcon and Copperhead's pasts and terrors had become intertwined with it, those battles and that blood clung to this place. Riku could practically smell the darkness wreathed around it.

The forest cleared around them at last, and the trees widened out into a clearing, creating a ring around the citadel, as though not daring to approach it. Riku stopped in his tracks, even though Copperhead strode on ahead, a bit too much haste clinging to his gait. Now, the younger thought, he could understand why Falcon and Copperhead had steered clear of this place. The turrets that he vaguely remembered staring out at with Char nestled against his side rose up before him and seemed to stare him down; whatever windows lined the front walls lay in shattered ruin on the ground, and the moonlight made its reappearance just in time to catch off a piece of glass and nearly blind Riku.

Thankfully, he shoved his hand over his eyes just before it could pierce his cornea entirely and looked away before removing it. He glimpsed the white tail of Copperhead's coat waving as its wearer disappeared around a corner. "Wait up!" he shouted, trying not to cringe at how loud his voice sounded in the silence. Starting after the other at a sprint proved a mistake, as dead grass met his every footfall and rattled out a series of crackles that sounded too much like what he imagined a death wheeze would.

In the end, Riku forced himself to slow down and follow calmly after Copperhead, even though both his pride and his mounting wariness strained to pull him into a dash again. He wound his way around the corner of the building and saw Copperhead tugging at something; for a moment, his mind chose to draw on the four hours of rest it had gotten instead of what was in front of him and thought Copperhead was trying to pull a Heartless off the wall.

Really, though, Copperhead's next action all but justified the indecision that flexed at Riku's fingers to summon the Soul Eater: a fierce snarl escaped him and he reached one hand behind his back to pull his scythe free.

Riku reared back, shocked back into wakefulness, as Copperhead swung his weapon back and drove its blade into the obstacle before him. All at once, the illusion of a Heartless' feral form shattered under the force of Copperhead's fury; veins bulged along his arms with the strength of his grip, which did not waver at all. Jagged fault lines zigzagged along what Riku could now see as a boulder, followed by a loud _crack_ as his only warning before the rock splintered entirely.

He narrowly dodged a fragment that flew his way, growling lowly at just how close one got to impaling his eye. Quickly, he rounded on Copperhead, who was letting the scythe sag in his grip and staring, panting, down at the evidence of his anger. "Be careful!" Riku hissed.

"Sorry." Copperhead seemed to realize how raspy his own voice sounded and cleared his throat. "Sorry," he repeated.

Riku sighed, the sound clattering against his rapid heartbeat and making it rattle. In as gentle a voice as he could muster, he reminded him, "We can't help Falcon if I'm blind in one eye."

The mention of their friend's name jarred Copperhead. He straightened, raised his scythe again and exposed the furrows that its blade's tip had scraped along the dirt. "You're right," he admitted.

"Why did you want to go this way?" Riku asked, having calmed himself from his surprise enough to let curiosity show. The question was a valid one – the front gate wasn't exactly barred; in fact, its iron-wrought door swung wide open, almost inviting the two of them inside.

Thinking on that, Riku suddenly found himself wondering if the gates had beckoned Falcon inside the exact same way. If she had rushed inside, Keyblade at the ready, desperate to help her parents.

"This way is closer to the stairs," Copperhead explained. He kicked a few fragments of rock aside, wrinkling his nose up at the fine cloud of dust that sprang up at the contact. "I think…" A pause, then a low, rasping breath. "I just have a feeling in my gut that they're at the top of the citadel."

"I guess that's where it happened a year ago?" The words poured out of Riku before he could stop them. As soon as the near-accusatory question escaped him, guilt stirred inside him, all but begging him to want to snatch it back again; but he remained staring at Copperhead, genuinely interested, until the older turned away.

_Guess that's a "yes."_

As Copperhead, stone-faced, picked his way over the rock and stepped into the hole created by its disappearance, Riku peered around him to get a look at the citadel's interior. True to Copperhead's word, the first thing Riku saw was a spiraling set of steps that wound off in his periphery. On the other side of the room, another flight of stairs wove its way upward, eventually intertwining with its counterpart in the middle before coming apart again. That point where the two staircases intersected was offset by a stained glass window that, miraculously, hadn't broken in some ancient scuffle yet.

As for the entry hall itself, a simple long carpet stretched throughout the area. Extravagant as the citadel must have seemed long ago, the present gave nothing of that away: only that extravagance's remnants, a shadow of what it had once been.

Riku ripped his gaze away with a muted shudder. He had never been too fond of ruins; Char had known more history of the worlds and the Keyblade War than he had, so he had left that knowledge to her.

But, judging by the broken windows and dark-stained floor and nature taking up the task of wrapping around the walls…

Something had definitely happened here long ago, to force the Shadowed Desert natives to regard it as their world's own haunted house.

Copperhead was standing there, looking around. He had never sheathed the scythe, and so now it dragged along the floor behind him, making soft scratching noises that Riku winced at. The blonde's back hunched visibly, tension wracking his spine and belying the true extent of his fear; his head tilted down toward the ground: perhaps seeing another source of the specks littering the otherwise-pristine, if worn, surface. Judging by the silence, Falcon had gone through here already – and, in all likelihood, ascended the stairs.

Riku drew in a sharp breath, suddenly gripped by such a sharp wave of desperation it physically pained him. _Please don't let us be too late._

He took another step forward, intending to snap Copperhead out of his trance by his own actions, only to stop when he felt his foot bump against something. Without entirely knowing why, he moved his foot aside and squinted down at the floor. Amid the rock fragments littering the ground and covering the boundary where dead grass ended and worn-down tile began, something glinted up at him.

Maroon hair and violet eyes and the most beautiful smile and everything he missed about home flashed across his mind then.

Copperhead heard Riku gasp and whirled around, one gloved hand flying to his scythe and fear etched onto his face. "What?" he demanded.

Riku jerked his head back up from the object in his palm. "N-nothing," he stuttered, closing his fingers over his burden. "Just… something I picked up."

Copperhead's entire body slumped down with his tension's release, and his arm dropped limply back down to his side. "Don't _do_ that!" he groaned, bracing his hands against his knees and letting his head droop toward the floor.

While he faced away from Riku, the latter took a moment to open his hand and stare down at the Keychain, stark against his palm. Other than dirt and rust curling about its chain, it looked innocuous enough, though its light-colored form stood out starkly against his dark-gloved palm.

The charm was what had startled him: how much it resembled the star-shaped paopu fruit back home.

Maybe it was because of what exactly paopu fruit signified, and who he had dreamed of sharing it with in another life, but he had thought of Kairi.

_She's not a Keyblade wielder, though,_ his logic immediately set on arguing with himself. _She can't be. It's not possible._

Still, he found himself stuffing the charm into his pocket.

By this time, Copperhead had looked up at him with, of all things, a stupid grin on his face. Trying to diffuse the tension in the atmosphere, Riku guessed, although the situation's magnitude should have made him toss the mask aside completely for once. "You shouldn't grave-rob, man," he laughed, straightening up. "Angry, Keyblade-wielding spirits will come get you, y'know?" He wiggled his fingers in imitation of said _angry spirits_ as he spoke.

Riku rolled his eyes and stepped carefully over the rock scattered about; the hem of his coat brushed over said rock as he cleared it and approached Copperhead. "Somehow, I doubt that –"

Globes of shadow and smoky gray-white alike materialized around them then, effectively cutting Riku off. As the spheres' burdens dropped to the floor – or, in the Nobodies' cases, uncoiled sinuously, some with pink cubes coalescing around their bodies – Riku brought his arm back into his battle stance and summoned the Soul Eater to him.

"I think we found them," he remarked dryly.

Copperhead said nothing, only hefted the scythe up. His jaw set, violet eyes staring down the obstacles in his way.

As one, the two of them sprang apart, each lunging for the first enemy they could get their blades into. For Riku, that enemy was currently loping toward him at the marked, lazy pace of its kind – the Dusk's walk almost resembled a slide at first. However, that languid movement quickly transformed into something that belied its true nature as the Dusk pivoted around to rest on its head and swung its arms toward him. More than enough experience dealing with the lowest lesser Nobodies allowed Riku to easily dodge behind it. While it was glancing around, confused, he swung the Soul Eater and rendered the Nobody a pile of bubbles on the ground.

Spinning around, he found a silvery blur inches away from his face and brought up his blade to block. The robot Heartless' gold eyes bored relentlessly into his, and he thanked the gods that they were dull enough to not make him squint. Limited visibility, at this point, could mean getting overrun.

The Heartless' sword, trembling right against Riku's own, pulled back, only for its owner to press forward again in an airborne attack. Unable to dance back in time, the boy growled in pain as the first blow sliced into him. It pierced into the flesh between his ribcage and hipbones, into a barely-healed wound from earlier today. His free hand instinctively pushed against the afflicted area, stemming the source of the heat already beginning to rise there.

As the robot lifted its weapon to slash again, though, Riku lashed out with the Soul Eater, free hand still pressed against his side, and felt satisfaction rise at the shockwaves that shook up his arm upon the bat wing colliding with that metallic skull. The Heartless stumbled back and into one of its fellows; Riku lifted the Soul Eater again, ready to finish both of them off, but then they suddenly froze, as if transfixed by something. Then a series of spasms wracked their bodies, which suddenly found themselves offset by a red blur writhing behind them.

The Heartless dissolved in dual explosions of black smoke, which spiraled into oblivion and wreathed about Copperhead's face. Moonlight filtering from the stained glass window above illuminated every terror-wrought line of his countenance, but he let none of that fear for Falcon show. Instead, Riku found hardness in that violet glare.

That hardness told him that no mock scornful remarks about Riku's inability to keep up with him would be forthcoming.

Wordlessly, Copperhead spun around, taking his scythe with him. The ensuing spinning slash knocked two Dusks and one Sorcerer away from him; while the former, weaker foes vanished under the single, fierce attack, the latter merely swayed backward in midair before lashing out with its pink cube.

Riku watched Copperhead swing his blade forward with a snarl, gray eyebrows jumping up on his forehead as the blonde leapt and twirled his scythe around to deliver a series of blows to the Nobody's vulnerable, rippling form. From the looks of things, Copperhead had his situation more than under control.

He turned just in time to throw up one arm against the pink glow that assaulted his eyes. His mind had a second or so to string the name _Sorcerer_ to that blinding light's source before something hammered his forearm and pain exploded there. It was all he could do not to howl, both in agony and in anger toward himself for doing something so stupid.

Well, he tried to force reason past the block of rage and pain that the Nobody's attack had stationed over his rational thought, the cube had failed to produce a cracking noise. At the very least, his arm wasn't broken.

Pulling his seemingly-crushed arm back slightly, enough for him to be able to see, Riku glimpsed that faceless, off-white being, its form bathed in that otherworldly pink light. Before it could attack him again, he darted forward, aimed the Soul Eater's tip at the Sorcerer's body. Unlike the Heartless before, whose form had creaked in protest against the undue weight crushing its skull, the Nobody twitched violently away from Riku's assault; but he kept up, pushing it back with his blade in a series of rapid thrusts, until it finally gave up its jerking movements and succumbed to his assault.

Riku lowered his arm from where his final attack's momentum had flung it back behind him. After a quick, rudimentary glance to make sure all the flies stayed off him, he lifted his badly bruised arm, only to wince and halt his intended appraisal immediately at the tongue of flame that lanced up into his elbow. The fiery pain trickled into a low throb between the two bones in his arm, but he didn't dare try to move it again.

Seconds of digging around in his pockets later, he realized that in their hurry, he and Copperhead had failed to pick up any healing items. Hell, he thought with mild panic twitching in his belly, even swiping a roll of gauze from the floor would have helped.

Then again, he recalled, Falcon had flitted past him and Char, that first night, and made a hasty cleanup around the room. She had tried to hide it, but she couldn't have expressed more nervousness at her guests' presence in her home – a sanctum she had kept hidden to all but herself for a year.

_That,_ he thought, _and she was suddenly so close to the person she –_

And then his thoughts were scraping up against that l-word, that taboo word, that word he had only allowed himself to think of in context of his feelings for Kairi and Char's feelings for Sora, and the breath caught in his throat and his entire body seized up.

As abruptly as the icy fear had seeped into his bloodstream, though, it evaporated.

He whirled around, seeking out Copperhead's white coattails, or even the crimson blur that his scythe's hilt symbolized. Beyond the heaving sea of curdled white, metallic gray, luminescent pink, and the occasional flash of shadowy black, Riku could barely discern anything else.

Suddenly something was surging up from beneath him and embedding its talons into his coat.

Leather tearing apart wasn't an unfamiliar feeling to him. The occasional trip to other worlds, or the virtual Twilight Town's tunnels, had acquainted him with as much: the ripping sound, followed by cool air rushing to the exposed area and a snarl of retribution as the Soul Eater tore into the offending Heartless or Nobody. In fact, Namine had sewed the Organization coat up for him more than once, to the point where she had only shaken her head and reached out one dainty white hand upon opening the door for him.

Nonetheless, the sensation of claws snagging against his flesh once they had peeled back the coat's protective layer wasn't one he ever grew used to.

Sleepy fog wreathed about his mind for a moment and tricked him into thinking a robot Heartless' blade had done the trick, despite the hot breath that billowed up unnervingly against the top of his thighs. Heat radiated off the claws that had dug into him as well, a sign of life that had always unsettled him when Heartless had attacked him.

But then hot liquid splattered against his hip as his assailant yanked its weapon back. He spun, angling his wrist in preparation to parry a sword – then the Soul Eater froze in its horizontal state as gold, black-surrounded eyes leered at him.

The Neo-Shadow pulled its hand – paw? – back, talons glistening with what he realized was his blood. Riku recovered from his confused state long enough to bring his blade back and drive it into the Heartless' paw with a growl of exertion. The Heartless recoiled, more startled than in pain, at the blow. Riku took that moment, as he had earlier, to sweep in with his bat-wing sword and finish it off.

Straightening, he winced at the newfound stinging feeling just beneath his hip. On the same area as the side wound too, he reflected; he needed to keep that side covered more often. Combined with the throb pulsing through his thoroughly crushed arm, though, he found himself all but unable to think.

However, he did catch himself in the act of making the mental reminder _get Falcon to heal me when we find her_ before his desperation slammed itself down over that thought.

_When we find her, huh? That's optimistic._

_ When. Not if, when. When we find her._

Had this really shrunk down to that sort of chance?

"Riku!" Copperhead's deep voice bellowed out from above. Riku glanced up and saw the very person whose trademark colors he had sought out earlier, standing on the stairs that stretched up and over his head. The distance between them rendered Copperhead's expression all but a nebulous blur, but his urgency tunneled its way further into Riku's own heart nonetheless.

"We don't have time for this," Copperhead called down.

Riku rolled his eyes. "You think I don't know that?" The last word turned into a gasp of surprise when he turned away and found a Dusk hovering in front of him, close enough that its gray face loomed up at him beneath its hood. It drew back one arm to slice into him…

…then an off-white shape barreled into it from the side.

Confused as to why the Nobodies had suddenly turned on one another, Riku blinked a couple of times, during which his savior's true form became clear to him. The Nobody's stance – feet apart, sword held aloft, almost like that of a fencer – struck dual chords of familiarity inside him: one that Falcon's presence had strummed ready fingers over in the last few days, and the other nigh untouched.

The latter was what he ended up focusing on, though, as that chord's melody unfolded memories of wandering neon-lit streets under a heart-shaped moon and turbulent sky.

He shook his head with a chuckle, even as more Avengers sprang forward. One of them lunged mere inches away from his face, making his grip on the Soul Eater twitch; but it passed him entirely and pounced on a Heartless that had also tried to approach him.

_Anxclof, helping us now? This _has _to be Xemnas' fault._

A startled grunt floated down to him from Copperhead's direction. Turning back toward him, Riku lifted and lowered one shoulder. "Not exactly what I was looking for," he said, raising his voice over the _clangs_ of pale blade clashing with gray, "but I'll go with it. Let's go."

* * *

Dizziness induced by adrenaline and mounting fatigue wrung Falcon's vision into a blurred mess, but she still managed to step forward from the final spiral staircase without much stumbling. With the part of her mind untouched by resolve – the determination that added a new layer of blindness to her eyes – she reflected on just how much flame that ascending the stairs had pumped into her legs.

No matter how much soreness plagued her body, though, her reason for coming out here at all lingered at the front of her thoughts.

She paused a moment at the top of the stairs to catch her breath, and cast a brief glance back down the way she had come. The moonlight chose that moment to filter in through the citadel's stained glass windows, a sight she found herself suddenly wincing at, for it illuminated the dark spots sprinkled in her wake all the more easily. Were it not for the silvery light clashing with the myriad colors, darkness would still conceal the evidence of her struggles to get up here.

A shiver rippled along her spine then. Even though iridescent blue had surged across a Heartless' prone form, setting its pink burden free of its dark cage, barely moments before, the past half hour or so of fighting came to her only as hazy half-images and sensations. As ichor clinging to her Keyblade's teeth; as pink hearts and pink cubes alike imprinting spots across every blink; as her own blood and sweat warming against and beneath her coat; as the beginning stirrings of fatigue with every drop of mana she expended on a Blizzaga or healing spell.

Thinking about every small battle that had led up to this one proved an almost painful strain on her fatigue and strummed at her taut nerves. More powerfully than ever before, it thrust into her mind the idea of dying in this building, in the lair of more than one bloody past, and watching her blood flow over the reflective floor in the next room.

Her palm, already sweaty from the last hour of fighting – or was it half-hour? She didn't even remember anymore – twitched against the Azure Ice's hilt. When her grip slackened on the steel, though, she felt her fingers instinctively gripping tighter, pulling it back into her grasp. At her vision's edge, the teardrop-shaped charm swung, and she watched it eventually complete its journey to stillness.

Just like she would.

_Because I have nothing left to lose._

She pressed one shoulder against the ornate door before her and leaned into it.

Surprisingly, the door yielded under her weight within seconds; the abruptness with which the way opened up yanked her off balance and forced her to stumble before her sense of balance returned. Falcon stepped over the threshold, into the site of so many bad memories.

Every step echoed eerily in the silence. Every impact of her feet against the reflective surface sent a _tok tok tok_ bouncing about the round room's contents. In the past, royal scientists might have stargazed here, or perhaps gathered around to observe each other's notes. The moonlight pouring down into the darkness certainly provided the right ambience for either one.

Only when the rattle of a single chain joined her footfalls as the only noises did she realize her hands were shaking.

Fear's tides had just begun licking at the very edge of her consciousness when a break in the light drew her gaze. Even after sixteen months, even after her nightmares and her isolation and Riku's friendship and Char's truce and Copperhead's revelation, Falcon's memory honed in on that darkness' familiarity at once.

The object next to Xemnas was one she had never seen before, though. Its vaguely cone-shaped form somehow managed to balance at a very small pin protruding from its bottom. Dual, yellow bulges, set off by blue globes and iron chains, climbed its sides, before the object tapered up into what almost resembled a test tube. A bell balanced itself atop the test tube-like structure, and a long, thin pipe rose up from the bell's top.

_The machine,_ Falcon realized. Her formerly-slippery hand clenched around her Keyblade. So this was what Riku had spent days here searching for. Rage stirred deep in her chest, pumping flame into every throb her heart made, as she watched Xemnas reach out one arm and stroke it over the machine's form. The gesture was almost loving, albeit spitefully so.

Falcon didn't even notice how hard her teeth were biting into the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

At that moment, those dark-clad shoulders twitched, and the pivotal figure in her life's collapse, the hurricane that had thrown her sense of trust into a tumbling whirlwind and shredded it to paltry remains, turned to face her. The hand on the machine slithered away and lifted to brush coarse gray hair – so much like Riku's, and _no you are not going to think about him now this is the man who ruined everything not Riku not him_ – out of gleaming amber eyes.

"Greetings, Falcon," Xemnas greeted, and so much cordiality dripped from his voice she all but crushed the Azure Ice's hilt in her grip. "It has certainly been a while."

That deep voice coiled up inside her mind, wedged itself behind the block she had shoved over those bad memories and deftly smashed it to ribbons.

_I suppose their hearts simply weren't strong enough,_ he had said of her parents that day, among other things. But that particular phrase ghosted its way up to the top of her consciousness.

Her last bit of self-control snapped.

The way his eyebrows jumped up on his forehead when she shot forward gratified her entirely too much. Then his features were curling up into a smirk and bright red seared into her vision as he brought up one ethereal blade to parry her strike. Friction sizzled up where the Azure Ice landed against the slender beam of fuzzy light.

_I'm finishing this,_ Falcon thought, glaring at Xemnas, _and you're going down._

She didn't realize she had spoken aloud until those orange eyes, bathed in both preternatural crimson light and earthly silver moonlight, narrowed in amusement. "Going down?" he echoed, quirking one slender eyebrow. "Oh, dear girl. Does your heart still ache from what happened one year ago?"

"Sixteen months, actually," she snarled back, "but who's counting?"

Annoyance at her instinctive reaction heightened even further inside her when that reaction met with a low chuckle. "Certainly not you, I assume," he chortled, then twisted away from her and whirled in an unnerving contrast of dark black and bright red.

She danced away from the attack, landed on her tiptoes, and surged forward again. This time, though, he lowered the single lightsaber and raised his other hand – a gesture that confused her until a solid, translucent wall suddenly loomed up in her path. The wall's composition – dozens of cubes set atop each other – reminded her of the white enemies' pink weapons.

Unable to halt her momentum enough to pull up short, she swerved sharply to the side and ducked when he swung his lightsaber at her. The weapon's heat swept close enough to the top of her head to make her flinch, but she allowed herself no more display of weakness than that before leaping back to her feet and lashing out with her Keyblade. Xemnas was still lowering his arm from where he had struck out at her, Falcon thought, so he couldn't possibly have a chance to block her in time. Gods willing, the exposed column of dark-skinned throat would give beneath her assault, and this would all be over.

Her brow furrowed when the Azure Ice met not with bare skin, but with a fluid sphere of darkness that enveloped Xemnas. When it moved across the floor and out of her field of vision, Falcon spun around, chased after it; but suddenly the sphere darted away from her again and bright red flashed above her head.

She looked up just in time for the source of that flash to blind her. An instant later, physical pain joined the light's drill into her eyes as Xemnas twirled above her, lightsabers ebbing and flowing in an extension of his spinning form. Only after those dual blades had collided with her ribs and shoulders several times did Falcon recover herself long enough to jump back and out of the way.

Liquid spattered the floor behind and beneath her, added a touch of opaqueness to the reflective battleground. Falcon didn't dare look down at the floor to see the dual condemnation of her own blood and her own pained expression there.

Xemnas landed smoothly, dark robes swaying in response to his feet touching the ground. The fuzzy glow from his weapons crawled up his body, and through the film of hazy agony that had draped itself over her vision, Falcon could see that uneven light eventually give up on lightening his garb and skip to his face instead.

He flicked one lightsaber: a seemingly odd gesture, but one that made sense when something dark flew from it and landed on the floor. As he continued to regard her with that _damned_ smirk on his face, Falcon realized she could also see mild surprise in his smug amusement. Like his plaything had done something he hadn't expected.

_He's just toying with me. He hadn't planned to use both blades to take me out at all._

One foot nearly gave out from under her when she charged forward again, almost making her slip in her haste; but she still managed to recover herself and force her Keyblade forward. Again, Xemnas blocked it with barely any effort. This time, though, the presence of an extra sword allowed him to pivot around on his heel and drive said extra sword toward her, at an angle that would slice deep into her side. The trick looked familiar to her, for a reason that rippled an entirely different shade of red from the ethereal swords in Xemnas' hands.

A shade that resembled the life fluid dotting the floor than anything else.

Of course, Falcon suddenly realized – Char had done the exact same thing more than once, on the group's excursions to the forest and the Heartless' haven. She refused to think of their awkwardly balanced tension as _her_ group, because that brought up the question as to whether Riku was coming after her or not and she didn't need that right now.

But that blade was still moving toward her on a one-way journey to her right kidney, so she pivoted her own body away from that deadly weapon and danced behind him.

"Come now," Xemnas purred. He lowered his blade again and slowly turned to face her, head cocked to the side. If she hadn't known any better, she would have called the look on his face _hurt. _"Is this not the confrontation you so desperately wanted?" One hand curled into a fist around his lightsaber and swept out in a near-placating gesture, carving a bright red arc in the air close to him.

The tone in his voice sounded almost like that of a parent admonishing their child.

"Shut up!" she spat back. Her fingers shook, rattling the Keyblade in her hand and making its chain jingle again. "You don't – you don't even know what I want."

_Wow, Falcon, sound a little more pathetic, why don't you,_ but she stood her ground and renewed her glare at him, even though at this point dizziness from blood loss had begun to manifest at the edges of her vision in fuzzy black splotches.

Xemnas blinked at her, eyebrows jumping on his forehead again. "I can imagine," he answered in that silky voice. When he began to move forward, she quickly repressed her trembling and flexed the fingers of her free hand, flinging it back behind her to give her next blow more force. Yet she found herself unable to move.

_Move come on now's your chance get him while he's taunting you –_

Her rapid breathing and his boots colliding with the floor with every step became the only sounds in the room, at least until he stopped in his tracks and spoke up again. "I can imagine what must have plagued your heart. Being betrayed by your closest friend, losing your parents… it must have been more than you could bear."

The instant he brought up Copperhead, Falcon knew she couldn't let Xemnas talk anymore.

The gray-haired man maneuvered himself away from her oncoming attack and used the momentum from his dodge to spin around and slash at her with his blades. However, before either could make contact, Falcon slammed the Azure Ice forward so it ran perpendicular to the dual, glowing red lines of his blades. There, she threw her weight forward with every ounce of strength left, inwardly gathering her mana to heal herself. If anything, she thought while tamping down the panic stirring inside her, she could stall him out.

Xemnas effectively tore that plan apart in an instant. Just as the ghost of that green glimmer touched the tips of her Keyblade, he ripped one lightsaber from beneath the slender, translucent cyan and drove it toward her. She was forced to yank the Azure Ice back and jump back to avoid having her skull impaled.

_I can't run around and dodge his attacks forever_, she realized with a thrill of dread.

In the past, she had always manipulated Heartless' haste and fury by using what fencing had taught her and sweeping around them, before taking advantage of their surprise and finishing them off. With Xemnas and the off-white newcomers, though, her strategy didn't work as well.

Darkness rippled through the air as Xemnas darted forward again. Just before his blades could touch her, though, intangible shadow cloaked his form in an extra layer of black, and the globe of darkness formed around him.

This time, though, she prepared herself for his attack. The moment heat seared across her spine, she whirled and thrust the Azure Ice forward. Triumph flared inside her just as hotly as the now-stinging laceration along her back at Xemnas' slightly opened mouth and quirked eyebrows. His equivalent of surprise, most likely.

Still, her raw nerves and the tremble along her body poured gasoline onto the tiny blaze that was her satisfaction at having finally hit him. Even that small amount of surprise, which rapidly turned to mild pain as she laid into him, gratified her.

Just as quickly as triumph had come, though, the same fear from before replaced it. Although her Keyblade had connected with his flesh multiple times, no blood or bruising welled up at the points of contact. He simply rose back up to his feet, looking a little shaken, but that infuriating smugness did not waver in the slightest.

"I believe it is time to end this," Xemnas suddenly sighed.

_I've been telling myself that for the past few hours,_ Falcon thought, but said nothing and only narrowed her eyes.

"And what does that mean?" she demanded with far more bravado than she felt. As though just the mental effort required in affixing this new mask had summoned it, something wet dribbled down her scalp. Whether Xemnas had inflicted that wound or whether some latent injury from fighting those Heartless had reopened, she didn't know; but she did know, through the fog of exhaustion that had suddenly wreathed about her senses, that it was the last thing she needed.

When she felt herself swaying slightly on her feet, she shook her head and renewed her glare on Xemnas, just as he continued.

"I mean," he said, "that you have wasted enough of my time here."

Maybe the pain and fatigue was clouding her mind more than she thought, because she swore the tiniest hint of a snarl embedded itself in his voice and turned the tail end of his declaration rough.

In the next moment, though, he was sweeping behind her in a moonlit blur of shadow and blood-colored light – or maybe that was just her imagination – and something hot was searing across her body, just as it had that day sixteen months ago.

_Sixteen months and ten days. But who's counting?_

_ Sixteen… months…_

Unlike before, she couldn't catch herself in time before the floor jumped up to meet her. Unlike before, she found condemnation in her reflection with her cheek pressed to the floor. Unlike before, she found not desperation and terror and horror, but apathy and resignation and the look of hope's last embers finally dying.

_Well, Falcon, you wanted to die. You're getting your wish._

Just before darkness oozed over her vision entirely, though, something deep rumbled at the edges of her hearing. Something like a voice: that, despite its normal timbre, stretched up toward a higher octave and then cracked beneath the strain.

_Great. My last thought's going to be of that bastard._

_ Just like before._

Falcon Gracebreeze closed her eyes.

* * *

For a moment, staring at the limp, small body that served as a lone stretch of darkness in the otherwise-translucent floor, Riku felt his blood freeze in his veins.

Copperhead was already sprinting over to that smear of black. When he grew close enough, he dropped to kneel beside the prone form on the ground, so abruptly that his kneecaps colliding with the ground sent an unnerving thud reverberating throughout the silent room. Riku didn't know if that volume indicated Copperhead's knees had given out.

More than likely, though, it did, and they had.

Shadows flickered just near the body – Riku didn't dare think of its, _her,_ name for fear of how real this would become if he did – and he glanced just slightly upward to see ahead. Grogginess made one final round on his senses and tricked him into thinking that said shadows originated from the still form.

But no: even though Copperhead was now hefting it – _her_ – up into his arms and desperately sweeping his hand over the bangs that had fallen into her eyes, the movement that had drawn Riku's eye came from another source entirely.

Xemnas appraised Riku with a seemingly blank expression. As Copperhead's voice, half-choked with fear and horror and nearly breaking under the pressure of both, rose shakily up between them, though, the younger realized he could see the corner of the Nobody's lips shifting ever so slightly upward.

Although he had never encountered the Organization leader face to face like this before, Riku had watched Roxas' memories play out in Twilight Town's artificially lit basement. Those memories alone had held more than enough of the Superior for Riku to know his equivalent of smug triumph.

That little upward quirk of his lips was it.

Behind him sat an odd-looking apparatus, which Riku realized abruptly was the machine. _We finally found it._

Gods knew he hadn't wanted to pay this price, though. He hadn't wanted any of them to pay this price.

"I'm afraid you're too late to save your friend," Xemnas announced obviously. He tilted his head down ever so slightly, just enough for gray locks to spill over his collarbone – a sight that had Riku suddenly fighting the urge to pull at his own, matching hair. Dual pairs of orange eyes watched Copperhead finally give up and lean forward, even though the action caused more of Falcon's blood to stain his jacket scarlet red, to press his forehead to the red-splotched purple scarf wrapped around her neck.

Riku thought of the healing item he had tossed at her earlier today. He thought of her aggression turned curiosity on the day they had met and he had saved her from the chameleon Heartless. He thought of her groaning and demanding why they had recruited Copperhead to help find the machine. He thought of her envy and veiled jabs toward Char before the latter had offered a mediating hand and Falcon had accepted it.

_Char._ Now when he reunited with Sora and Kairi and Char, he would have to tell Char that Falcon – Fal was –

Suddenly Copperhead rose to his feet, lowering Falcon's body with a tenderness that belied her current state. Riku dared to step closer until he stood next to the older man, a decision he regretted almost instantly. Bright red stood out in bold strokes along his torso; if Riku hadn't known any better, he would have thought it was just a painting mishap, and not blood that had resulted in this. When he lifted his head to look at Xemnas, obvious tear tracks marked his cheeks. Grief and sorrow had melted away into rage.

"You know," Copperhead said suddenly, "my entire life, all I've done is just sit back and let things happen. When my brother took the attack that Heartless aimed at me? I sat there and didn't do anything. When you came into my life and ruined both it and Fal's? Sat back and watched you do it. When Fal ripped her own damned heart out because she thought it would bring back the people she loved most? Guess what I did. Nothing."

"As you did this time," Xemnas pointed out. "You watched Falcon go off to fight me, knowing full well how things would end. It was a simple conclusion to deduce," he added when Copperhead's eyes widened.

Riku stared at the blonde. The incredulous query as to why he had let Falcon go – when he'd _had_ a chance to stop her, nonetheless – scrabbled against the grief-wrought lump in his throat, but eventually gave up when it couldn't push past.

Then Copperhead laughed, a sad little sound that came as more of a sigh.

"You're right," he admitted. One hand reached behind his back, and Riku saw it rest close to the hilt of his scythe. "I thought it would be easier than facing up to her about what I had done. But now it's too late, and I can't even think about being the coward anymore." He pulled his weapon free, so abruptly that Riku had to dart to the side to avoid getting gored.

Copperhead aimed a quick, apologetic grin in Riku's direction in response to the latter's indignant stare, before redirecting his glower at Xemnas. "I won't let you get away with killing her," he said.

Xemnas chuckled. Of all the responses to an implicit declaration of his impending doom, the bastard chuckled. White-hot anger oozed past the numbness in Riku's heart and finally dissolved the obstruction in his throat. "What's so funny?" he demanded, summoning the Soul Eater and lifting it into his battle stance.

One black-clad shoulder raised and lowered. "You know which Keyblade wielder has consistently interfered with our plans," Xemnas said, pointing at Riku. That same hand came to rest on the opposite arm as he folded both across his chest. "It is truly ironic, then, that one who I had cast aside long ago crossed blades with me now." He dropped his arms back to his sides and quirked one eyebrow at Riku.

_Sora._ The one who interfered was Sora.

Char's influence aside, Riku knew Sora could hardly stand to just let the Organization move about in the shadows and warp the world of light. Only now, though, did the extent of just how much hit him. Just the thought had him fighting back a smile: the one thing that made him different from his current form's doppelganger eyeing him from across the room.

"I figured Sora couldn't just leave you alone," he remarked. "And you know what? I can't let him one-up me here. So I won't back down."

Copperhead looked over at him, confusion dancing across his face; then he seemed to decide that the details of Riku and Xemnas' conversation didn't matter and gave a single, determined nod.

Riku cast a glance back down at Falcon's body, even though every muscle in his body strained to keep him from it. Fortuitously enough, seeing his friend's husk on the ground pumped an extra strain of fire into his heart and strengthened his resolve.

_I'm sorry, Falcon._

Turning back to Xemnas, he tightened his grip on the Soul Eater. The paopu-shaped Keychain in his pocket came to mind, reminding him of just what he was fighting for. "I'm not going to let you kill any more of my friends or mess up our worlds," he growled out.

Xemnas nodded, as if understanding his opponents' reasons, and lifted both lightsabers in a silent invitation for them to fight…

…then a shattering noise drew all their attention to the windows.

Shards of rainbow-colored glass littered the floor, and more moonlight shone in through the newly created gap in the stained glass window; but not even that silver light could win over the newfound blaze of gold.

A shade that Riku had watched die into tiny embers around a sea of emerald green from beneath his hood and with otherworldly flame ebbing around his hands.

"Hey there, boss," Anxclof hissed, pushing herself into the room with the hand not gripping her Keyblade. "Remember me?"

* * *

Yeah, guys, Anxclof. Remember her? Sort of? ...okay...


	83. Chapter LXXXIII

First things first: I am so sorry this took this long. Finals are coming up, so I've been focusing on school more than fanfic. Plus, it turns out ending a story arc completely and bidding goodbye to these characters is really difficult.

But, uh. Yeah. Enjoy.

* * *

The first thing Riku noticed about the newcomer was the complete lucidity in her gaze. Last time he had seen her, she had regarded him with a mixture of rising panic – though oddly that had lingered in those green-turned-ochre eyes before his arrival, and he had just augmented it – and rage. Something feral had flickered there, a final vestige of her vengefulness toward Char, before vanishing entirely. Riku knew that tiny ember had simmered inside Anxclof before his arrival; in fact, he had all but anticipated it and swiped an Elixir from the treasure lying about in Twilight Town's tunnels before heading off to help Char.

This rage, though, was not the kind he had expected from Anxclof. Last time, vengeance had controlled her Keyblade, and all but blinded her to the fact that killing Char would change nothing about Roxas' current situation.

Whatever had happened to Anxclof between her disappearance from Hollow Bastion's corridors and now, she had had time to clear her mind.

_Why are you so surprised?_ he scolded himself. _Remember the Avengers keeping those Heartless and Sorcerers off you while you and Copperhead climbed the stairs? You knew she was helping._

At least the reasoning behind her actions – sending her lesser Nobodies out to distract Xemnas' lackeys, and now striding forward with a glare whose ferocity went far beyond keeping her and her friends placid in the Castle That Never Was – was obvious. She had promised Roxas she would find her Other, only to have come too late. The anger that brightened the Heartless-eye gold in her gaze came from her inability to keep that promise.

Riku watched Anxclof cross the room, creating a rapid series of tapping footfalls in her wake. The fingers on her free hand flexed, and he couldn't help his own muscles tensing in preparation for her to attack Xemnas.

Instead, though, Anxclof came to stand next to him. "Long time no see," she greeted tensely.

Copperhead quirked one eyebrow. "Friend of yours?" he asked Riku.

The question, innocuous in nature though it was, made Anxclof bare her teeth in a sardonic grin. "Something like that," she answered loftily. Riku swung his head toward her, mouth already opened to voice the objection that had sprung to his tongue, but she ignored him and continued. "And a friend of yours, too, if I remember right."

Riku's jaw closed, abruptly enough for the sound of his teeth clicking together to ring out in the silence. From the corner of his eye, Anxclof's grin widened to an almost wolf-like level; across the room, light emanating from his weapons played over Xemnas' much more subdued expression of amusement.

No sooner had Copperhead's slender eyebrows united on his forehead in confusion did Xemnas speak and make them turn back to him. "Number XIV," he said to Anxclof. "Truly a pleasure to see you again."

Almost the instant his deep voice uncoiled, Anxclof's amusement died down: lips drew back down over her bared teeth; veins along her knuckles bulged out as her fingers tightened over her Keyblade.

"Wow. So you do remember. Color me surprised," she snorted. "I wish I could say the same for me." A snarl tightened the last part and tainted her scorn with a trace of the hot rage coloring her eyes amber. She tilted her head just slightly, pupils flicking downward toward her Other's body on the ground; maybe Riku's lack of sleep was controlling his ability to gauge emotions, but he swore her face softened a bit at the sight of Falcon's body.

Then she glowered back up at Xemnas, the brief moment passed, and the only source of light in the room besides the intermittent moonshine glowed in fury again.

Xemnas' eyebrows jumped up on his forehead. "Are you upset about what I did to her?" he asked, even though the answer was obvious. In response, a low growl rolled up from within her throat's confines, audible to Riku and Copperhead from where they stood next to her. Other than a visible bulge where her jaw tapered into her ear, though, Anxclof remained still, as if restraining herself from attacking Xemnas. Only her hands trembling gave away her emotions. Copperhead's knuckles strained against the confines of their gloves, and the rage in his glare toward Xemnas could have singed the latter had it physical form.

At that moment, an all-too-familiar _whoosh_ yanked his attention back to the man in front of him. The sound that had drawn him marked the arrival of dark tendrils undulating together into a portal to gods knew where.

Riku was aware of Anxclof snarling in disbelief and anger, and the blur of white created by her jacket as she flung herself forward; and Copperhead's grip on his scythe slackening enough for its blade to dip downward and create a drawn-out _skrrk_ as it dragged across the reflective floor. But the boy clad in the guise of his former enemy could not truly register either of his companions' reactions, or their separate expressions of incredulity.

Xemnas kept his stare focused right in on Riku's as he stepped backward into the portal. Both arms stretched out on either side of him, an unspoken challenge in that gesture and in the downward tilt of his chin.

_Come,_ his face seemed to say.

Shadowy tendrils enveloped the foot Xemnas had stepped back on, yet no sound rang out, even though translucent marble should have met his boot. Ironically, the silence was what snapped Riku out of his trance.

His elbow twitched in preparation to move the Soul Eater out in front of him and charge. Before his legs could follow up on that intention, though, flowing ribbons of darkness whipped over Xemnas' face and swallowed him up entirely. The amber eyes vanished last, the challenge still simmering low and dangerous there.

Anxclof skidded to a graceless halt, all but tripping over her own feet, as the portal vanished and swallowed up her target. Her arms swept out for balance, only for her Keyblade to bounce off the floor and all but unbalance her. Normally, the sight of the Nobody who had brought one of his friends to her knees exhibiting such clumsiness would have amused Riku; but that amber stare boring into his own flashed across his vision with every blink and kept that amusement beneath the surface.

Xemnas was baiting him. His expression almost _promised_ that they would settle everything – the Organization's use of Hollow Bastion's Heartless factory to ravage the worlds; Sora's attempts to defeat said Heartless, only to inadvertently help his enemies; and above all, DiZ's damned revenge and his using Sora, Riku, and Char to implement it – in the World That Never Was. Why Xemnas wanted to wait until they were all there, Riku wasn't sure.

_Probably wants to make it as dramatic as possible._ The derisive thought helped calm his nerves, if only for a moment.

Copperhead spoke up then, startling Riku into glancing over at him. "Okay, so," he began, looking from dark boy to female Nobody and back again. Although his tone only gave away how much the recent encounter flabbergasted him, Riku couldn't help noticing that Copperhead avoided sweeping his gaze over Falcon's body. "Somebody want to tell me what the hell just happened?" He pivoted toward Anxclof, lifting his palms, even the one still clutching the scythe. To his credit, though, he made sure to swap hands so that his raising his weapon didn't gore Riku's eyes, which the latter appreciated.

"Anyone?" the older prompted, voice almost cracking under the strain of incredulity.

Anxclof steadied herself as calmly as she could, considering the rage that still shook visibly along her spine. When she turned, though, her eyes shone green, not gold. "Coward," she spat. "He _would_ run away right when it seemed like the tables had turned."

"I don't think that's what he did," Riku began slowly.

When Anxclof spun toward him, the tired part of him almost channeled into his muscles and made him flinch back. However, he caught himself just before that instinctive reaction could manifest.

"I guess the portal of darkness that he just walked away with was just for show, right?" the female Nobody asked, an almost challenging edge to her voice. She cocked her head to the side at Riku, which prompted Copperhead to let out a low hiss behind him. Whether he'd made that noise out of fear at Anxclof's anger, or of surprise at just how similar she looked to Falcon right now, Riku wasn't sure. Fists clenched, emerald eyes the same shade as hers narrowed: though the amber flickering in those dark green slits was distinctly Anxclof's and not Falcon's, the similarity clawed viciously at his heart and refused to stop.

His eyes had begun to sting a bit already, but a series of carefully paced blinks kept any liquid grief in that barely tangible form. "I never said that," he answered. "The way he looked at me just now – it was a challenge. He wants me to come after him."

Copperhead swung his head toward Riku in a cascade of honey blond. Turning his own head to meet the blonde's gaze, Riku saw bewilderment on Copperhead's face. "Come after him?" Copperhead repeated. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned on one leg, placing the butt of his scythe against the floor. "I know you said you knew the guy, but you have got some seriously dangerous enemies."

Violet eyes slid across to Anxclof, and Riku heard Copperhead mutter, "And dangerous friends, too." At this point she was regarding Copperhead with an odd mixture of hatred and fascination twisting her countenance.

Both emotions he had seen from Falcon enough times.

"She and I aren't really friends," he said, of all things, and tossed over his shoulder, "No offense," without entirely knowing why. Maybe because Anxclof's arrival had spared them from a fight that, as deeply as grief had impaired both him and Copperhead at Falcon's body, they would almost certainly have lost.

And then where would Sora and Kairi and Char be?

Anxclof raised and lowered one shoulder at Riku's placating remark. "None taken." Those two words carried a light humor that, as few times as he had encountered her in the past month since Roxas' union with Sora, struck a powerful chord of incongruity within Riku's heart. He could recall hearing her sound that… _friendly_ only within Roxas' memories, and when surrounded by her two best friends.

_She's had a lot to think about since Roxas disappeared, though. Why else would she have rescued us?_

Falcon dying, and her equally stubborn Nobody changing. The irony tasted so bitter Riku could have choked on it.

Almost as though the bile suddenly accumulating at the back of his throat had transferred to her own mouth, the tiny smile on Anxclof's face faded. She angled her head down toward the ground and moved closer; Riku found himself tensing, fingers tightening over the weapon he had never told to disappear, in spite of Anxclof's failure to harm either of them so far –

But she strode right between him and Copperhead, eliciting a startled grunt from the latter. He lifted confused violet eyes to Riku's; before Riku could gauge anything from that eye contact, though, the white-clad figure in his periphery dropped, and Copperhead jerked toward her.

Riku followed his gaze, and even though he _knew_ Falcon was gone, the urge to yank Anxclof back still blazed up. Even though her aversion to strangers brazenly approaching her for anything other than a bounty had no importance now, the sight of Falcon's Nobody on one knee next to her body stoked that protectiveness nonetheless.

Her Nobody.

Something in the back of Riku's mind, some ability to reason that Falcon's death had blocked, stirred then. That obstacle's departure heralded the memory of when Sora had gone to sleep, and DiZ's rumbling voice promising that Roxas' return to his heart could wake him.

Riku quickly dismissed the hope whose light had begun to shine through his despondency – the feeling that, in spite of Xemnas' challenge, cast a shadow on whatever determination might have met that challenge. _That was a special case,_ he argued with those rays, _and besides, you can't bring back the dead._

Then again, Falcon had died once already. So had Sora, when he stabbed himself with the same Keyblade to release his heart.

Copperhead was lunging for Anxclof, snarling "Don't touch her!" with a vehemence that belied the current state of Anxclof's target; but Riku's fingers wrapped around his wrist and applied enough pressure on the flat underside of the bone to keep him there.

"What are you doing?" the blonde demanded, whirling to glare at Riku over his shoulder. "She's – Fal's body –"

He stopped abruptly when Riku shook his head and released his wrist. The dark boy looked back up at Anxclof, who was already regarding him with her head tipped to one side.

"Are you trying to bring her back?" Riku asked, wariness creeping into his voice despite knowing the answer. He asked the question mostly for Copperhead, who at this point was glancing from Nobody-disguised-as-girl to boy-disguised-as-man and back again. His jacket shifted with his movements and drew Riku's gaze down; the crimson painted there startled him until he remembered whose blood colored the white fabric.

Anxclof stared evenly back at them. She placed one gloved hand on Falcon's forehead with a tenderness Riku had never once thought she could muster. "I've got nothing to gain from leaving her dead," she answered evenly.

Although she had no way of knowing as much, the knowledge of what exactly motivated her kept Riku from questioning her. From the slight hitch in her voice, she was remembering the exact same thing: that day at the top of Twilight Town's clock tower, almost a year ago, when she and Roxas had promised they would find their Others.

Even after his disappearance, she wanted to honor the boy she loved.

Copperhead still didn't look convinced, even though a bit of the same hope – hope that bordered terror if the next moments didn't satisfy it – skittered across his face before lighting out. "Do you know what you're doing?" he demanded of Anxclof instead. When the sharpness of his question pushed her eyebrows up, he sighed and repeated himself, though not without a small snarl embedded in it. "Do you know what you're doing? Because if this doesn't work…"

He trailed off then, and Riku knew he wasn't willing to think of what might follow that "if."

_If. _Yet again, things had come down to chance. This time, though, Riku and Copperhead weren't the ones toeing the glow-in-the-dark line between uncertainty and probability; it was Anxclof. And gods only knew if she had any idea how to unite with her Other without complications.

Still, Riku felt himself clinging to that probability. _If it means I don't lose a friend, then it's all we've got._

Anxclof gave a single, determined nod before lifting the hand on Falcon's forehead. As her fingers grazed the bloodstained fabric over her Other's heart, a tremor spread through to their tips, every quivering groove of which quickly became stained by Falcon's blood. Maybe, for the first time, Anxclof was realizing exactly what all Roxas' fate entailed: integrating with someone else's heart; losing identity at the moment she should have been gaining a heart.

Then her fingers calmed, and the palm of her hand brushed against Falcon's chest. Before anything could happen, though, Anxclof's head swung up toward Copperhead. "Hey," she said, a little aggressively. "You break her heart again, and I won't be liable for what happens to you. Got it?"

The clumsy attempt at protectiveness coaxed bemused responses out of both men watching: dual blinks from Riku, and a single narrowed eye from Copperhead. "Uh, yeah," he said, and hastened to correct himself when it sounded more like a question. "Don't worry," he amended, unexpected seriousness flowing into his words.

Anxclof nodded again, then glanced back to Riku, tilting her head back to meet his gaze properly. He blinked, confused as to why she would talk to him now; then she spoke and halted anything other than shock in its tracks.

"Tell Char to take care of him," she told him.

Riku drew back, opening his mouth to speak – to say what, though? _Which "him" are you talking about, Sora or Roxas? _

But then specks of light were spiraling up and around Anxclof from Falcon's chest. They accumulated around her body, and Copperhead all but scrambled away in his confusion; still, though, Anxclof didn't take her eyes off Riku until he nodded.

She turned back to Falcon and closed her eyes.

Light blazed throughout the room then, forcing Riku to throw his arm over his eyes. It screamed in protest at the movement and reminded him that he had just moved the arm the Heartless had crushed, but he kept that swath of darkness over his eyes until the light failed to offset the black of his sleeve anymore.

He opened his eyes, which had somehow squeezed shut against the physical evidence of Anxclof's disappearance. Next to him, Copperhead was doing the same; he had squinted to avoid the pain that the flash's sudden contrast to the darkness would have inflicted on his eyes, but now that said light had disappeared, his eyes flew wide again.

Both pairs of eyes fell on the maybe-live girl splayed on the floor, and the sight severed the thin, gauzy trance that Anxclof's departure had draped over them. Next thing Riku knew, Copperhead's scythe was falling to the ground with a loud clatter and he was falling to his knees next to her body again, just like he had moments before.

Riku followed at a more sedate pace, suddenly terrified of what would result if he got too close. The notion was childish and something he chided himself for feeling at once. Despite all the misdeeds Xehanort's Heartless had committed and the worlds his darkness had swallowed, Riku knew that the dark being held sway only over his appearance, not his heart.

Yet now, of all times, his self-doubts chose to return, suffocating his ability to think clearly just as Falcon's maybe-death had. The fear throttled his breath in his lungs and clamped his feet to the floor. Only when he had to force his fingers to remain still did he realize just how badly they had been quivering.

Falcon's head lolled limply to one side when Copperhead propped his knees beneath it, and Riku felt himself wince at the sight. For a moment, the two men watched her for any sign of life – any indication that they and Anxclof had performed this final gambit in time to snatch her spirit back from Kingdom Hearts' unforgiving grasp.

Then that blood-soaked chest heaved and Falcon coughed, closed eyes crinkling with the effort of that action. Copperhead nearly scrambled back, but thankfully caught himself before her head's support could slip out from beneath her. As it was, his shock manifested itself in the wideness of his eyes. "Unbelievable," he breathed, resting one quaking hand against the ground – probably to keep himself up.

Riku's jaw dropped. From where he stood next to them, he could see red dribbling down her chin, though not near to the extent of the wound that had –

Gods, he couldn't even bring himself to think the word. _Killed,_ Xemnas had definitely killed her; no one could survive that blood loss, could look that _pale_ unless death had swept that life and complexion away.

Anxclof. Her Nobody had saved her, just like Roxas had saved Sora.

Riku felt himself drop to his knees next to Falcon and Copperhead: not so much because the miracle had pulled his balance out from under him, but because he needed to see Falcon alive again. All of a sudden, despite her apparent return to the world of the living, disbelief was choosing now to rise up inside him and wreath itself about his chest and stomach.

Falcon was breathing a little more steadily now, though her eyes remained closed and her chest lifted and fell sheathed in ruddy red dried blood. If Riku didn't know any better, he might have drawn his blade on this reanimated corpse.

But he did know better, even though what Anxclof had done batted the rational part of his mind about in a maelstrom. Confusion careened into shock, shock tumbled headlong into latent anger toward Xemnas' unspoken challenge, anger dissipated in the face of its much stronger fellows – above all, though, the storm cleared just enough for relief to shine through its turbulence.

_She's alive. She died twice and made it back both times. _The Keybearers he knew were resilient that way, he supposed. The dry thought sufficed to break through his trance, and abruptly everything skidded into a harsh clarity comparable to the sun rising after a long night: Falcon trying to lift herself up, only to stop with a ragged gasp as her head tilted down enough to glimpse just how much blood covered her; Copperhead immediately grabbing her arm and gently pushing her back down; her visibly tensing, before deciding that she couldn't muster any real animosity and resting her head against his knees.

"How…?" she rasped out. She pressed one hand against her ruined stomach, only to gasp again, the sound rattling across Riku's senses. When she placed her hand back on the ground, it came away clean and pale, not with fresh coat of scarlet like the patterns along Copperhead's coat.

"How am I not…?" she began again, trailed off again, then shook her head and looked at Riku.

Somehow, their last encounter drifted back into his mind, borne on the expression in her still-dazed eyes: the spaghetti sauce's fresh tang on his tongue; her coldness when he had mentioned following Copperhead out; Riku's grasping at the pity her feelings for him allowed her to easily muster and facilitate his escape; his guilt all but pushing him out the door.

_Do what you have to do,_ she had mumbled just before he had left.

Riku found himself unable to meet her gaze, though this time for a different, less petty reason entirely. Before now, the thought of another love entirely had propelled him to break that eye contact – violet eyes and maroon hair and skin that remained pale despite the sun continuously beating down and wrapping her boys in bronzed tan. Knowing he could never truly reciprocate Falcon's feelings had fueled his guilt.

Now, though, that emotion surfaced because he knew he could have stopped her from doing this.

Why, he wondered, hadn't he paid more attention to her behavior after he'd returned from his talk with Copperhead? She had acted a little odd, but he had dismissed it as exhaustion both from fighting through the Shadowed Desert and from being around Copperhead. Not once had it crossed his mind that maybe she had overheard him mention Xemnas' presence in the Shadowed Desert, and any consequences that might arise from her eavesdropping.

In Riku's peripheral vision, he saw that dark head remain angled in his direction before tilting back in Copperhead's direction. The relieved breath issued out of him in a way that ended up only pumping more contrition into his veins at knowing she wasn't looking at him anymore.

"Well?" Falcon prompted Copperhead.

Copperhead straightened from where he'd been leaning over her. "Uh," he said.

He cast a helpless look at Riku. The unspoken question from Copperhead lay bundled in the set of his jaw: which, while remaining closed in its owner's speechlessness, might as well have asked for how loud the desire for explanation tumbled about Riku's thoughts. _What the hell just happened?_

Really, Riku wasn't sure himself.

Some of Riku's emotions must have squeezed past the tight lock he had shoved between tangibility and visibility, for Copperhead's quiet desperation dissolved into bemused concern. Falcon, too – the girl who had just come back from the dead and had no right whatsoever to be worried about him – was hefting herself off Copperhead's lap and balancing herself on her elbows, not once taking her eyes off Riku.

Suddenly filled with the need to focus anywhere than on the two world natives, Riku turned away. The moon had descended a bit in the pitch-black sky since he and Copperhead had rushed out of Falcon's house to rescue her, and so its silvery taint didn't sweep as thoroughly across the citadel's reflective floor as it once had.

As a result, it was probably inevitable that his eyes honed in on the one splash of color besides the stained glass and their reflections.

Three days ago, or even when DiZ had announced the Organization had wormed their way past the virtual Twilight Town's defenses and snatched the machine from beneath his red-wrapped, upturned nose, Riku had looked forward to finding that machine again more than anything else. The fervency of his desire to run the old man's errand as quickly as possible – and the irritability-tinged dread that had pooled in his stomach when DiZ had commanded him to enlist Char's help in the search – made a half-hearted effort at permeating his chest and belly again as he remembered those emotions. Three days ago, he had only anticipated a difficult search in the sense that the Organization knew every nook and shadow of the worlds in which to hide themselves: and, by extension, the tool to their demise that they had stolen.

Now, though, running his eyes from pipe-shaped tip to pin-shaped bottom, noting its conical form and splashes of dull yellow and turquoise, all Riku could feel was a hollow, tired sense of muted triumph.

He could almost feel Char at his side, then, oddly enough. Maybe that sense came from DiZ's original desire for her to help him, or maybe the fact that Char's master had created this tool for the Organization's demise in the first place.

Still, Riku could almost hear her saying _congrats, it only took you forever but you finally found it._

Almost immediately after her dry comment crossed his mind, Riku nearly shook his head at it. The Char of a month ago might have said that, with quite a bit more causticity twisted about just how long it had taken him to find the machine, but Sora had diluted that acid and rendered its jab a light sting. Something about _we actually did it_ would escape her lips, perhaps, or she might not even speak at all.

Somehow, he thought the latter would fit better, from what he had glimpsed of her changed self.

He strode forward, almost forgetting about the length of his coat in the process and tripping over the hem, and crouched down to properly survey the machine. It definitely looked like something DiZ would build – right down to the unnecessary bell-shaped bridge between its body and the test tube-shaped tip. Riku held back a sigh; the old man did have a tendency toward the extravagant.

He brushed one gloved finger over the machine's surface. The leather-clad fingertip came away covered with a translucent pinpoint of dust, making Riku wonder if Xemnas had stashed the machine up here immediately after stealing it over a week ago.

Knowing him, he probably had. Sneaky bastard.

"I guess that's it, then?" Copperhead's voice cut sharply enough into Riku's thoughts to startle him. He quickly stifled the surprise that skittered across his consciousness and rose to his feet, carefully pressing one hand against the machine to balance himself. The partially-crushed arm screamed in protest, but that silent sound manifested itself only in a muffled grunt on Riku's part.

Turning around, he saw that both Falcon and Copperhead had stood up. Somehow, Copperhead had wound his arm about Falcon's waist and fit her flush against his side with the only traces of blood on him belonging to her. Her fingers curled tightly against that bloodstained jacket, though, and the way the veins there threatened to bulge out betrayed just how much her injuries had sapped her sense of balance. Even as Riku watched, Falcon's arm, bent so she could dig her fingers into him as a steady point, straightened a bit, only for her to stumble. The movement was so minute that not even Copperhead, whose contact with her should have alerted him first, noticed.

An instant later, before Riku could ask whether or not she needed his own help to stand, she righted herself, determinedly avoiding his gaze. Riku stopped the confused frown before it could manifest on his face, knowing the hypocrisy in his indignation. He couldn't meet her eyes; she could hardly be expected to extend the same courtesy to him.

While her eyes clung just as fiercely to the red streaks marring his coat, Copperhead's attention was still on the machine. He adjusted his arm about Falcon's waist to keep her upright, but the brightness in his eyes, which the moonlight dragged out from beneath a façade of curiosity, suggested he was reassuring himself of her return from the brink more than anything else.

"Is that what we've been looking for all this time?" he repeated himself, eyes on the machine. It was funny, Riku thought, how they were all avoiding looking at each other.

Defiance surged inside him at the shame that dared keep him from such a simple gesture. Even when he had betrayed Sora – a memory whose presence in his mind scored fiery claws of guilt across his heart, but he did not quell that heat as he should have and let it mercilessly continue – he had been able to look his best friend in the eye. Had _needed_ to do that much, to see whether his well-buried envy for the spiky-haired hero had finally pierced its way through Sora's thick skull.

If anyone here now had to break the tense cycle, it might as well have been Riku.

"Yeah, this is it," he said, pressing one hand against it for emphasis. In the back of his mind he registered that his palm would come away with the same layer of debris that coated the tip of his finger, but then his arm was twinging again and he couldn't repress the pained grunt in time.

Immediately Falcon lifted her hand from Copperhead, presumably to cast a healing spell on Riku. Then the vertigo caught up to her and pinned her hand back to her side, at the same time pushing the opposite one up to her forehead and pumping a groan out of her.

"We need to stop somewhere and get some rest," Copperhead said. His eyes flicked from shaken girl to successful boy, lingering on the latter almost nervously. Riku could understand why.

Up until now, with the exception of maybe Char on that revealing morning he had gone to meet DiZ, Riku had taken control of matters within their little group. Falcon and Copperhead had led them around since they knew the Shadowed Desert's every shadow and secret, and Char had served as the final light to eliminate the darkness about their pasts; but Riku had decided they would stay at Falcon's house. He had finished off the Behemoth. He had exposed the ability to feel that Falcon had laid to rest over a year ago. He had persuaded Copperhead out of his desire to let Falcon confront Xemnas.

Riku tried to take his mind off the mounting sense of a weight on his shoulders – the weight of these two people's faith and trust and broken beings – by reflecting that Copperhead taking charge now must be part of his little speech earlier. About not wanting to sit back and watch anymore.

At some point in time, Riku had made that vow as well. The two of them were similar even to the end.

"You're right," he admitted to Copperhead, who blinked and straightened drastically enough to near lift Falcon off her feet. Falcon hissed in protest, but he quickly touched her back down to the floor. Riku went on, "We do need to get somewhere and rest." _In more ways than one, _he added mentally, as the final word he spoke brought the fog of sleepiness back.

"My house would be the best bet," Falcon piped up. "I know it's not very close, but I have healing items."

She paused, then shook her head, mumbling "somewhere" under her breath. Riku remembered the mess scattered about her living room floor, from which he'd seen gauze poke up pale white amidst the detritus, and held back a smile.

Copperhead cocked his head to the side at the machine and reached out with one dark-gloved hand to touch it; before he could, though, Riku's own hand – thankfully the non-injured one – shot out and lightly batted the machine's would-be assailant away.

"I'll take it back to her place," he told Copperhead, placing the same palm atop the machine's bell. He had to lean down in order to do so, and irritability flashed across his conscience at just how much he loathed such an increase in height.

"Are you going to meet us there, then?" Falcon's question was innocent enough, yet Riku still had to hold back a flinch as he turned to her. He had been darting in and out of her world often enough over the last month for her to have grown familiar with his disappearances, he told himself; therefore, it only made sense that she had anticipated his splitting off from them.

The expression on her face did not fit the sense of weary resignation he had come to associate with his untimely departures, though. If anything, panic brightened her eyes more than anything else.

He thought he understood why. She didn't want him to leave her alone with Copperhead. After how the blond had just allowed her to pass him and face her death at Xemnas' blades, Riku couldn't blame her.

For a moment, he seriously considered coaxing forth every ounce of strength he had left and lugging the machine back with the two of them. Then his ruined arm twinged, and he realized that for the first time since he had become aware of Falcon and Copperhead's shared past, he had to be the selfish one.

Physical pain aside, he knew Falcon and Copperhead had a lot to discuss. And it was about time they swallowed their pride and did it.

"Yeah," he answered Falcon's question. "Yeah, I think so."

He glimpsed true fear beginning to stir on her face – the widening of her eyes, the tightening of her fingers in Copperhead's bloody coat, the way she opened her mouth a little to suck in more air – before guilt veered him around toward the machine.

* * *

For some reason, Falcon couldn't bring herself to muster up the energy for anger at Riku. Maybe her return from death still lingered in her consciousness, a bog in which her instinctive rage at Copperhead's presence found itself immobilized but for the tiniest, half-hearted twitches. And, much like a swamp lapping at the feet of its victims, the memory of what had just happened was winning out against her emotions.

The top of the citadel had seen this happen before: her own willing death at Xemnas' hands, caused by his words or by his blade; and Copperhead's horrified response as he watched her fall to the floor. Both times, she had succumbed to her fate's inevitability and let the darkness take her.

This time, though, Copperhead was leading her back with the support of his shoulder. Not chasing after her, cheek still stinging from the slap she had delivered to it moments before, begging her to _please wait, please listen –_

"This isn't gonna work," Copperhead's voice rumbled low in her ear. Surprise twitched along her arms at the abrupt shift from remembrance to reality, causing weakened support in her current pillar of balance. When she nearly stumbled, though, the arm about her waist tightened.

That was another difference between her last return from that darkness and now: his presence not letting her fall. Sixteen months ago, she couldn't count how many times her desire to sustain her fury had had to keep her face from meeting the stairs.

And this time, heat came not from the steady blaze licking along the inside of her ribcage; it came from his body flush against her side.

Hating just how warm and familiar his contact felt, she tilted her head back to try and figure out what had prompted his remark. Her cheekbone nearly brushed his jaw with the movement, and the scarf still wound about her neck threatened to choke her; but she still saw the contemplation that creased his brow.

"What?" she asked, in lieu of anything else.

"Stairs," he answered simply, pointing with his free hand.

She followed his gaze and realized he was right. The very same stairwell she had ascended earlier, Keyblade flashing and bits of ichor flying all the way, stretched out before them.

"It'll be a pain to drag you all the way down these stairs," he mused, though at the same time a shadow passed over his eyes. Falcon guessed he was remembering sixteen months ago, when she had managed to run down the stairs in just about the same half-inebriated state as now.

The thought crossed her mind, briefly, to offer to walk down by herself and spare him the effort. A movement from next to him caught her eye, and she glanced up at it just in time to both see his arm moving up to his face and nearly hit her head against his chin.

"Can you walk by yourself?" he asked at last, dropping his arm and turning his head toward hers. Dulled as death and its retreat had made her emotions, her breath caught at how damned _familiar_ his eyes looked at this close range.

She quickly nodded, before he could notice her jaw's slight drop. Fortunately, the exaggerated sigh of relief that billowed from his way assisted her scorn's return, and she couldn't help rolling her eyes at him.

"Good," Copperhead said, carefully releasing her. Once he had pulled back enough, he clapped his hands together. "Just let me know if you need me to catch you, and I'll be there in a flash," he added with a wink.

Falcon thought her eyes would hit the back of her head.

He seemed to notice and offered a grin, then moved forward to descend the stairs. As he did so, the moonlight filtered in from the stained glass window behind him and bounced off the curved blade of his scythe, forcing Falcon's eyes into a squint.

Really, she was glad for the justification to look away.

_Why did Riku have to go another way?_ she wondered, more than a bit of self-deprecation attached to the mental query. She followed after Copperhead, eyes trained steadily on the white coattails swinging with every step he took. However, her thoughts grasped at another boy entirely. _I know he had to take the machine, but…_ She fought back a flinch at the wistfulness that stung at her heart. _It feels too much like when he has to go._

Not for the first time, Falcon reminded herself that Riku had a mission to accomplish. His friendship with her – the very thing she held in such high regard because she had cast off her closest friend months before meeting him – could not change Riku's obligations. Meeting Char had only increased Falcon's knowledge of that. Now that his enemies included Xemnas, one of her greatest, that sense of pained acknowledgment strengthened even further in her chest.

But now that Riku had found the reason he had recruited her and sent Copperhead crashing back into her life's carefully-resettled porcelain, he would probably have to leave and go find his oldest friends again.

Just like Char had, right when Falcon had grown used to her abrasive comments and steady camaraderie expanding to include her.

When Falcon let out a pained gasp, Copperhead spun around, one foot positioned on the step below. "What?" he demanded, flinging his arms forward as if to catch her. "Is your wound hurting you?"

Falcon forced herself to shake her head, even though it was a blatant lie: her grievous wound had stopped bleeding, but the ache in her chest throbbed powerfully enough to make up for it. _So much for the "emotions being slowed down" theory. _"I'm just… wondering where Riku will go after this." In spite of herself, her chest tightened further when she thought of the boy for whom she had summoned all the light remaining in her heart to conjure some shadow of – that l-word.

_Would it really be so bad to think it, though? You know it's true, even though you can't even say it._

Copperhead blinked. "Oh." He turned back around and began walking down the stairs again. "He'll probably go meet up with Char," he tossed over his shoulder at her. The fact that he actually used Char's name was not lost on Falcon, and she spent a second hesitating before trailing after Copperhead again.

"They'll go take down Xemnas and his cronies," the blond went on. He kicked at the floor, more than a little viciousness contained in his foot. "And then he's going to go home."

_Home._ Falcon wondered how Riku could be so sure of that word's definition anymore. Darkness had held his island for over a year now, he had seen so much, gone through so much – yet he clung to that, and the friends that envy had spurred his heart into betraying.

_If I had clung to you and how you had changed, even after Dyme's death, _she thought, staring at the scythe slung across Copperhead's broad back,_ where would you and I be now?_

She didn't even realize she had spoken aloud until Copperhead stopped in his tracks and she all but stepped on his foot. Annoyance flickered inside her, until her actions caught up with her and she all but clapped her hands over her mouth. "Copperhead?" she managed. Suddenly, her heart was pounding so hard in her chest it almost hurt.

Why had she said that? Why. Had. She. Said. That.

Slowly, Copperhead turned to face her. The air felt so heavy Falcon could barely breathe, so quiet her blood roared in her ears. His expression was odd: like he had anticipated something like this for ages, but didn't know how to feel about its advent.

"I don't know where we'd be," he finally admitted. "But…" He suddenly sighed and pressed one hand to his forehead. "Are we really having this conversation now?"

Falcon blinked. "Sorry," she replied, more coldly than she had intended. "I didn't know the reason why you killed my parents was a bad topic."

Copperhead shook his head, brow furrowing. "That's not what I meant," he amended. "I just mean that… with everything we've been through in the last few days, it just seems like an odd time to talk about it. That's all."

Falcon narrowed her eyes_. _While a very large part of her yearned to spit acid back in his face – to tear him apart as she always had – a tiny voice in the back of her mind piped up and agreed with him. The notion swirled nausea into her already-unbalanced gut, and she had to reach up and tug at the scarf, which suddenly felt uncomfortable hot along her throat.

Gods, why had she spoken her thoughts aloud?

Copperhead noticed the expression on her face – though her slitted eyes belied the uncertainty churning away inside her chest and belly – and turned away, the action so hasty that it all but toppled him off the steps. That untimely demise's failure didn't induce the sadistic disappointment it always had, to Falcon's chagrin.

"Then again," he mused to himself, "you _did_ just almost die. I still have no clue what happened back there, but I guess… now _is_ as good a time as any."

He glanced back to her, fingers twitching at his sides as he did so: like he was suppressing the urge to reach up and graze her cheeks. The intensity in his eyes only enforced that theory.

Some long-dormant part of her that still held feelings for him – feelings not curdled with the icy flame of bitterness, but blazing with the emotion that had swung decidedly toward Riku – seized control of her heartbeat, then. Drove its rhythm into overdrive, made her wonder with a surge of panic if she was really ready for this discussion.

Her jaw snapped shut with an audible _click_ at his next words, which didn't surprise her in the slightest.

"I'm sorry for what I did," he blurted.

So many enraged responses jostled for release at the tip of her tongue – _that's incredibly pathetic even for you, don't even bother, I thought you weren't going to apologize, tell my parents that – _yet she forced them back. Their weight and volume almost choked her.

"I've never stopped being sorry," he went on, voice shaking in a way she hadn't heard in years. The last time he had expressed this much nervousness, the same idiotic scarf had trembled with every throb of her heartbeat in the veins in her neck, and white snowflakes had speckled their clothes and hair.

He hesitated before continuing. "Dead is dead," he said, and then repeated himself. "Dead is dead. I knew that the minute… the minute those Heartless ripped my brother apart in front of me." The same hand that he had once used to stroke her hair and face raked back through his own locks, then fell, quaking, back to his side. Falcon found herself staring at the way his hair had rumpled as a result; then he spoke up again and drew her gaze back to his face.

It occurred to her that his posture, normally straight and strong, had faltered.

"So yeah, when somebody came by telling me I could bring Dyme back? I went for it." He took a deep breath. "But I shouldn't have had to hurt you to make myself happy. Friends don't do that."

_Friends._ They were friends once, Falcon remembered. Once, in a time preceding Keyblades and secrets and Heartless and feelings. Just that realization heralded the rush of so many bittersweet memories that she nearly gasped aloud again. Thankfully, though, she kept it sealed inside her, behind the half-corroded fence about her emotions.

"And then I went and let Xemnas kill you today." Copperhead sighed, eyes slipping shut. For a moment, he almost looked like he never wanted to open them again.

But the moment passed, and he did.

"I know you can't forgive me," he said. "But… we screwed over Char and Riku so much over the last few days. All because we couldn't face up to what I'd done. _I_ couldn't face up to it, fine," he added, a little irritably, at Falcon's raised eyebrow. "I'm pouring my heart out to you here, give me a break. Okay, dumb request.

"I'm just gonna stop talking," he groaned loudly, palming his forehead again. "I just… wanted to say that us not working together slowed down this search a lot more than it needed to. I can't count how many death glares Blaze tossed me when she brought up the citadel and I tried to change the subject." A wry grin twisted his countenance.

Falcon could only stare at him. Somewhere in her mind, the dry reflection as to how he was still trying to deflect the seriousness of the matter stirred, but in the rush of her heartbeat in her ears any attempt at scorn toward him soundly evaporated.

He was still smiling to himself, though not without slight bewilderment permeating the smile, as though just Char's glower tracing along his face manipulated it into that expression. Quickly, Falcon tore her gaze away from him, so he wouldn't be watching her once he finished reminiscing about their brief but meaningful companion. For some reason, if those violet eyes were trained on her while she mulled over his words...

Her pride tamped down that thought before it could finish, but she knew it lay along the lines of _it would hurt too much._

Copperhead jerked his head toward her when she failed to respond. "Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked, pleading obvious in his voice.

She looked over at him instinctively and regretted it the instant she did.

"You're saying you want us to work together from now on." It wasn't a question.

His head bobbed up and down. "Well, yeah, basically. I'm not asking you to forgive me," he added unnecessarily. "Just… you always looked tired when you got done with bounties. And if this encounter's proved anything, it's that you can never do anything alone."

Falcon's eyebrows jumped up. "Excuse me?" Even as the offended phrase ripped from her lips, though, she couldn't help but graze her fingers against her once-ruined side.

"Not you specifically!" Copperhead said, raising his palms in a placating gesture. "I'm just saying that fighting was easier with the two of us working together. _Everything_ was easier. Everything _is_ easier, when you've got friends stepping up to help."

Falcon almost succumbed to the past's squeezing grip about her perception of him and spat back a rebuttal. She _should_ have spat back a rebuttal. But he was looking at her again, so accursedly _serious_ that she found herself considering what he had said.

She thought of when Copperhead had jumped in and rescued her, Char, and Riku from the strange, white-bodied enemies. Of when Char had assured her that she wasn't vying for Riku's heart, and relief had twined a rhythm in every rapid beat in Falcon's chest. Of when she and Copperhead had worked together, however temporarily, to distract the Behemoth while Riku and Char battered its back. Of when Copperhead had run his fingers through her hair and told her that her insecurities about Char were unfounded. Of when she had been so ready to die at the mysterious, black-cloaked not-Xemnas' hands, and Char and Copperhead had thrown her out of the cave. Of when she had barked out what Copperhead had done to her, and then heard Char screaming at him through the trees.

Of when she had scraped together her ability to focus, fog of death already painting hazy shadows across her eyes, and spotted Copperhead and Riku charging into the room, weapons drawn, so determined to save her even when she knew she didn't deserve saving.

Gods, she hated it when Copperhead was right.

During the few moments she spent thinking back on everything the four of them had done together, Copperhead did not take his eyes off her. Only when a small hum of laughter escaped him did their situation crash down on her, and with that wave came reality: their accomplished mission; her standing here, one foot on the step below, in the place where her life had tumbled into a downward spiral; the source of that spiral standing before her, blood that wasn't his smeared all over his front, just waiting for her to speak.

The place where Xemnas had gored her began to ache again. She honed in on splaying her fingers over it instead of speaking. In response, Copperhead's pupils flicked down to that hand, before roving up her body back to her face again. He offered her a tentative smile, one so completely different from the wry reminiscence that had coated it minutes earlier, and offered one hand.

"Will you let me help you, in the future?"

And there it was – the question he had avoided directly voicing until now.

"You know…" Falcon began, then stopped, suddenly not knowing why she had spoken aloud. Again. Even in the last few minutes, voicing her emotions had only led to emotional conflict and her heart tangling up the present and past.

_Maybe it's for the better, though. Maybe you've kept quiet for too long._

_ Maybe it's finally time for you to move on. Not forgive him for what he did. But move on._

Copperhead perked up instantly when she spoke, though. Light just pooled into his eyes as easily as the moonshine could pierce the stained glass and spill onto the floor untainted. Quickly, before it could blind her, she continued, words fumbling for purchase at the tip of her tongue.

"I… I was ready to die today. Last night," she amended. Midnight had passed by long ago; her body could feel that much. "But when you guys came to save me, I realized –"

"Yeah?" Copperhead prompted breathlessly, and laughed – a relieved sound that shook as he freed it from its restraints – when she cast him a glare that demanded silence.

"I realized I had someone to count on after all." Suddenly, every link in her meticulously-wrought fences trembled in her chest, weakening through every rattling thrum of her stuttering heartbeat. All her restraint threatened to crumble then, as easily as the Heartless had dissipated under her Keyblade and its ice spells, and her voice all but broke on the last part. Because it was true, even if her own loneliness had kept her from seeing it.

"So I…" Falcon paused, pulled in a deep inhalation of the cool air. The citadel's eroding walls did little to insulate the main hall from outdoor temperatures, so the breeze wove its way inside with little effort. As a result, it combed along her spine and stirred within her gratefulness for the warm scarf around her neck.

"I'd like for us to work together," she managed at last. _There,_ she thought, _that wasn't so hard, was it, at least you're trying to move on._

_ Baby steps, that's all you need._

Copperhead still had his hand held out; it hung in the air, fingers outstretched, so asinine that she had to do something about it. So she obliged him and took that hand. His grip felt warm and firm under her palm, and only when she realized just how glad she was that they were both wearing gloves did she yank her hand back.

Keeping back her instinctive desire to retch at even that small contact proved almost unnervingly easy, now that she had resolved herself to fight that desire.

The way he was watching her still unnerved her, though, so she quickly faced forward again and asked, "Don't we need to meet Riku?"

As Copperhead jerked out of his trance and nodded, she followed after him with tremors not entirely born of blood loss marring her every step. She couldn't decide whether those shakes arose due to regret or anxiety at taking that proverbial step forward.

At the very least, though, she had made the effort to reach beyond her mistrust and its fences. That, she knew, would be the beginning of finally repairing herself.

* * *

Riku had dozed off stretched out on Falcon's couch. His arms screamed in protest when he lifted the machine – as it turned out, he nearly dropped the thing at just how much strain it put on him – but once he had stepped through the portal of darkness into Falcon's living room, he could set it down and collapse onto his surrogate bed. Once his cheek touched the inside of the armrest, sleep had sucked him in so easily it should have chafed his pride. Frankly, how he had managed that much with the amount of thoughts tumbling about his head confused him, at least until fatigue closed his eyes.

As it turned out, a combination of two things roused him from his slumber: the rising sun stretching its bright tentacles between the slats in the blinds; and the door's friction against its hinges creaking as it opened.

Amber eyes flickered open, albeit with no small amount of reluctance. Once sleepiness loosened its hold on his cognitive abilities enough, he realized that other than the door opening, complete silence reigned throughout the room. He didn't know what that meant for Falcon and Copperhead's conversation.

Almost against his will, Riku lifted his head and twisted his body to lie on his back, rather than his side, so he could see the answer to his curiosity. _Well,_ he reflected, _other than the blood stains on his jacket, Copperhead looks fine. I guess things went well._

"Hi," Falcon greeted, quietly. She stepped back from Copperhead, who had been holding her up with one arm around her waist: a sight that sent belated surprise shuddering through Riku's body. She was letting Copperhead _touch_ her?

Rather than voice that incredulous question, though, Riku slid his palms on either side of his body and pushed himself into a sitting position. He ignored the pain that howled along his crushed arm in lieu of answering her. "Morning," he said, and cast a glance over his shoulder at the window. After a moment of squinting at it, he looked back to Falcon and Copperhead. "What time is it?"

Copperhead blinked. "Uh. Well, the sun's coming up!" he said, raising one finger to the ceiling.

Falcon rolled her eyes, though not near as much causticity accompanied the words that came with the action. "So informative. As always."

When she hobbled across the room to him, Riku's eyes widened and he swung one leg off the couch, fully ready to catch her if needed; but she only ended up stopping, casting one withering stare down at his other leg stretched across the couch, then leaning on the opposite armrest. Her gaze flicked over to something on the other side of the room, then she spoke. "That's the machine, huh?" Only the tiniest trace of bitterness tainted her words: surprising, considering the machine had caused everything that had happened to her tonight.

_You didn't let her go to die, _he reminded himself. _She chose to go up there and get killed by Xemnas._

_ But it was only because of Anxclof that we got her back at all. If she hadn't been there, then…_

_ I would have lost a friend for real._

Dwelling on the past wouldn't keep him moving forward. Riku knew that, had known it from the moment Roxas had first pressed the Oathkeeper's icy, rain-drenched tip to his throat and Riku had realized he couldn't win by himself. Forcing himself to remain in darkness only kept him anchored in it and away from the light.

Yet just thinking back to the moment he had strung the name _Falcon _to the small, bloodied thing on the citadel's floor made his chest tight.

"Yeah," he answered Falcon's question. His eyes flicked over to the colorful contraption sitting on the floor. Sunlight spilled in and lifted the thin layer of dust into visibility. "Yeah, it is."

In his periphery, he saw Copperhead quirk an eyebrow at him. Whether bemusement or concern fueled the movement, Riku didn't know. All he did know was that guilt was suddenly washing so heavily over his heart the tide buoyed words up to his tongue.

"Falcon," he said, whipping his head back toward her, "I'm sorry we didn't show up in time –"

Her shoulders twitched when he said her name, but when his apology spilled forth, her entire body went rigid. However, it didn't hinder her ability to cut him off. "Don't be sorry," she said.

"But you _died_ because we didn't show up," Riku pointed out. The effort it took to keep trembling out of his voice sent hot shame flaring along his spine. "If Anxclof hadn't shown up –"

"That's her name?" Falcon suddenly interrupted.

Riku's eyes widened, and Copperhead revoked his choice to stay silent to let a tiny gasp release.

Seeming not to notice either of their reactions – understandable, as her back faced them – Falcon continued. "I remember… a weird floating sensation. Just like the last time this happened."

Somewhere behind Riku, he imagined Copperhead was wincing.

"But someone reached out and touched me. She said something like 'you have to go back. I forbid you to stay here.'" Falcon let out a shaky chuckle. "I don't know why, but something about that voice and presence compelled me enough to listen."

She turned around and stared at Riku. "Anyway," she said, "it's not your fault." A bitter laugh clawed its way out of her, so starkly bleak in comparison to her last chuckle that Riku actually recoiled a little.

Falcon sounded so self-deprecating in that one bark of laughter, so much less _vulnerable_ than before, and it stung Riku to know that even now, she was repressing how she really felt.

"It was my stupid fault for wanting to die at all," she said.

Almost against his will, Riku found himself glancing down at the machine, at the dust along its bulky frame. With the sight of that dust came the memory of barely hours before, when he had rolled his fingertips over the machine in the cool, silver moonlight of the citadel. Along with that telltale silver, hooded amber flashed in his mind to remind him of Xemnas' unspoken challenge.

_You have to go,_ Riku told himself. _You promised DiZ, and Char. And Sora._

Still, reluctance tugged at his heart. It was paltry and weak in comparison to the pull toward Kairi and Sora and the sea's own ebb and flow at his island's sands, but the hesitation was there nonetheless.

Gods knew Riku didn't want to leave here with any regrets.

"What are you guys gonna do after I leave?" he asked, abruptly. Although his question addressed both Falcon and Copperhead, the latter turned his face away, leaving it to Falcon to answer. In response to Copperhead's reticence, she blinked, confused, before looking back at Riku.

"Copperhead and I are going to work together to protect the town," she announced.

Riku almost choked on his own spit. As it was, he barely tamped down the strength of his reaction before it could cross the barrier between tangibility and reality: calmed the instinctive quake of his spine and the visceral closing of his throat. "Working together?" he echoed, a bit incredulously.

Falcon sighed, curling her fingers around her ribs and rubbing her arm with the opposite hand. "We discussed it," she explained, heaviness weighing down every word. Riku expected a rumbling voice to chime in then, but Copperhead continued to stay silent, taking up the shadowy presence that Riku himself normally would with Sora and Kairi. "Nothing got done in your mission because… because he and I were always at odds. So we're going to change that."

_Nothing got done because of us._ Finally, someone had said it. Riku felt like a weight had lifted off his chest and let him breathe easily again for the amount of tension that her admission released.

As Falcon spoke, something odd flashed in her eyes. At her promise to change the lack of progress around town, a flicker of movement drew Riku's gaze down. She had drawn the hand on her arm down and tucked it into a fist.

It was at that moment that a low laugh resonated from behind Riku. Copperhead was grinning at Falcon, the widest Riku had ever seen from him. The blithe, carefree mask had distorted that smile, Riku realized; as it turned out, Falcon's unfamiliar expression brought out something there that feigned happiness couldn't.

He looked back to Falcon again. Maybe it was because Falcon's heart had absorbed Anxclof's being, but the sharpness in her eyes brought him back to watching Roxas' memories in the Twilight Town mansion's basement. Anxclof's eyes had flashed the exact same way every time Xemnas condescended to her, or every time Axel threw his arm around her shoulder and laughed at some goal she was trying to accomplish.

Of course. Determination. That was Falcon's expression now.

Riku thought he rather liked the way she wore it.

_They'll be fine,_ he knew. _They have to be._

Raising himself to his feet, he stared down at Falcon, then pivoted to face Copperhead, albeit raising his head considerably to accommodate the latter's greater height than the former. "I have to go," he said.

"We know," Copperhead said, breaking his silence for the second time in as many minutes. He folded his arms and leaned on one leg, smugness stretching at the corners of his lips. "Y'know, I never pegged you as a guy for the dramatic goodbyes."

Riku rolled his eyes. "This is different," he told him. _I might not see you guys again if we stop the Organization. _If they took down Xemnas, then they would close the corridors between worlds as well. Even with Riku's affinity for darkness, hopefully, closing the pathways would purge Xehanort's Heartless and his powers from his heart.

Hopefully.

Copperhead laughed. "I know, man. I'm just messing with you." He stepped forward and reached up to clap a hand on Riku's shoulder. "As pushy and broody as you can be sometimes, I'll definitely miss you. You're…" A wry smile twisted his lips. "Well, you and Char were the best friends I've had after Falcon."

His confession should have seemed odd. After all, his relationship with Char had revolved around playful flirting from him and fervent rebuffing from her; Riku's feelings toward him had answered to tolerance, at best. Yet Riku could understand what he meant. Falcon wasn't the only one who had shut herself off after what Copperhead had done to her.

He nodded to Copperhead, not knowing what else to say or do, then turned to Falcon. For some reason, anything he tried to say suddenly found itself barricaded by a wall of thorns in his throat. _I'll miss you. Don't tear Copperhead apart. You don't need to heal me before you go. _Sentimentality, teasing, anticipation of the concern that widened her eyes as she observed the battered nature of his arm – none of those things could encapsulate what he wanted to say.

"Falcon…" he began, then shook his head and practically blurted it out. "Try – try to be happy, okay?"

A moment later, when she failed to respond, he felt himself shifting forward, stretching his arms downward, and wrapping them around her. Just like he had for Char, a little over a month ago. But Char and Falcon were different women entirely, and so unlike Char, Falcon went stiff in his arms for a moment.

Unlike Char, after that moment, Falcon decided that she had resisted for far too long and fairly dissolved into him.

He only realized that his arms were pressing in on each side of her neck when a distinctively powerful throb began to push against the inside of his wrists: her heartbeat straining against her carotid artery. So he slid his arms downward, being very careful not to graze over the still-raw injury from earlier tonight, until he felt her shoulder blades bump against his palms. Riku had never realized just how tiny Falcon was compared to his current form until now. Somehow, that epiphany injected a fresh surge of protectiveness into his veins.

Once he had gotten accommodated, he tightened his grip on her: an action that he was glad he had performed the moment he became aware something damp glistening on his leather coat. Falcon's face only met the broad part of his sternum, but he still tilted his head down to rest his chin atop her head as best he could.

Honestly, he was grateful she didn't follow the _crying on his shoulder_ cliché, her height notwithstanding.

Suddenly he wondered why he was dwelling on the logistics of this. It was a hug, something meant to comfort her until – well, in all likelihood they would never meet again. That notion further quickened the pace of his heart; he had considered never seeing her again after she had died, yet for some reason this felt more final. More painful. Saying goodbye to Char had hurt, too, but at least he knew they would meet up again in the World That Never Was.

Sora was used to this, he thought fleetingly. Sora said goodbye to people all the time. Friends he had met and helped throughout the worlds. Riku remembered just how damned jealous he had felt while watching his dorky, Keyblade-toting best friend bid farewell to sadly smiling world natives.

Now that Riku was experiencing it for himself, though, it hit him that he would never wish these feelings on anyone.

Sometime in the past minute or so, the rustling of clothes behind Riku told him Copperhead was approaching; then something dark flashed in Riku's blurry periphery – blurry, when had that happened? – and squeezed his shoulder. The pressure there shifted as the white-clad form bent to kneel next to them – when had Riku and Falcon fallen to their knees, anyway?

_Probably about the same time you started crying._

Eventually, gold light slanted against the inside of Riku's eyelids, and he forced himself to open his eyes and step back. Crimson veins stretched out from Falcon's green irises, and Copperhead's face looked blotchy despite his dry eyes; but Riku chose to ignore that and stood to retrieve the machine.

Once he had it safely in his grasp, he nodded to both of them, not knowing what else to say or do. All he knew, though, was that as much as they depended on him, he had two – no, three – more people depending on his return to them.

The door to Falcon's house creaked as he eased it shut behind him.

* * *

Melodramatic cheesy ending is cheesy and melodramatic. Eh. Whatever. At least we can finally, finally move into the last arc of the fic. I'm going to miss my emo OC babies, though.

Review please, and hopefully 84 will come soon enough that people won't forget about this fic.


	84. Chapter LXXXIV

...I have no excuses. Well, nothing you haven't heard before, anyway: college, et al. Don't worry, though: I'm not going to up and quit this fic when it's so close to being done.

* * *

It was a peculiar feeling to Char, waking up with no idea of her location. Maybe she had just gotten used to her bed in Falcon's guest room that the sunlight drifting in at any other angle than directly into her retinas struck confusion into her, or maybe because her bed on the Gummi ship heralded misty, green light instead of blinding gold. Or maybe because, traveling with Sora and the others, they'd spent time trying to find any place to sleep they could and readily settling for it.

Regardless of the theories that swarmed her mind following the realization that she had no clue where she was, Char knew she hardly wanted to go to the trouble of actually opening her eyes and finding out what was happening.

However, her eyes flew open when she heard a quiet, distinctively masculine murmur emitting from somewhere slightly below her.

The redhead jolted up, only to groan and press the heel of her hand to her eyes at the bout of dizziness that blindsided her. Once the intermittent, multicolored flurries had finished their disorienting dance across her vision, Char lowered her hand to survey her surroundings. Only now did she notice that the sheets stretched out over her legs weren't the light gold of her bed in Merlin's house.

The navy fabric around her bunched up into her fists as she remembered last night. Warm arms enveloping her, and dark blue eyes staring into hers; and her not knowing how to adjust to the sudden addition of a pounding heart beating right next to her own.

Which, if she was in Sora's bed – the thought slipped from her mental restraint before Char could stop herself, and she instantly hated the heat that met her fingers as she pushed her bangs back – meant the murmuring noise had come from…

Almost against her own will, she peered over the side of the bed. True to her predictions, a pile of sapphire-colored sheets greeted her eyes. As she watched, wide-eyed, the pile shifted and drew her eyes to the cinnamon-tipped spikes poking up above the pile.

Of course; now Char remembered. She had come to his room last night intending to drop at least some sort of hint about Riku's connection to their final destination. After getting angry about her lack of participation in Jafar, Hades, and Xaldin's demises, she had all but blurted out what she knew about Riku. While _what she knew_ basically entailed how he was going to meet her and Sora at the World That Never Was, it was more than what Riku wanted Sora to know about him just yet. For some reason, though, she couldn't bring herself to feel like she had betrayed Riku.

_Only because right after you told Sora he was on the right track heading to take down the Organization, he basically tackled you down to the bed. You hopeless, lovesick moron._

The irritated voice – some remainder of her old, logic-toting self, no doubt – died down when the rest of last night played out in Char's mind. Sora had finally disentangled himself from her, though not without reluctance in the fingers he kept twined with hers; after a mildly uncomfortable moment's debate of whether or not to pull her hands back, she had finally relented.

They had stayed like that while Sora had told her everything else she had missed. She had felt mildly guilty at her own inability to extend the same courtesy, but fortunately, he was so caught up in his own stories that he left no blank spaces for her to insert hers. Whether he had done that on purpose, she didn't know, but such relief had washed over her because of it.

At some point, one of them had glanced up at the clock on the wall and pointed out how late it had gotten. It wasn't the first time such a phenomenon had occurred – plenty of times before, Donald and Goofy had joined the two teenagers and intermingled tales of their homes and pasts had both reversed and accelerated time's flow – but it was the first time since before Riku had kidnapped her that it had happened.

Either way, Char had known they all needed every minute of sleep they could glean in light of the next day's events. Although Sora's presence and his reminder that she wasn't alone fighting their greatest enemy alleviated yesterday's anxiety, Char still felt that fear stir in her belly now.

Rather than dwell on that, though, she thought on what had happened after the realization of how late it had gotten.

She had tried to get up from his bed to fall asleep in her own, but Sora had tugged her back by her wrist. Shockingly, he had asked her to stay with him. And in turn, she had demanded – more out of the nervous throbbing of her own heart than anything else, because gods help her, she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep alone either – how the situation would work with one bed. In a stroke of thought she would have once blamed on Roxas, he suggested her taking his bed while he put together a makeshift bed of blankets on the floor.

From the looks of things, that arrangement had worked out just fine.

For a moment, Char lay half-leaned over the side of the bed, elbow propped against an upraised knee and that elbow's fist propped against her jaw, and watched the pile of blankets that encased Sora. After a couple of seconds of rhythmic, all but hypnotizing movement, it suddenly heaved upward. Startled, Char all but scrambled back until the blankets shifted to the side a little and revealed the burden encased within them. Sora wiggled about a little more before settling on his side with his fingers curled into the blankets and his hair creating a wild, brown halo about his head.

She relaxed and wrinkled her nose at the sight of the boy now: savior of the worlds, friend to many, honorary member of the Restoration Committee… open-mouthed sleeper.

_Ew,_ she thought as something glistening on the pillow next to him drew her eye, _he's drooling._

Yet somehow, a sight that would have once incited disgust and nothing more sent additional affection into her chest. She had to force herself to tamp down her growing grin when the blue burrito on the floor burrowed his nose deeper into his pillow, as though savoring his sleep.

_He's smiling in his sleep, too. What a dork. What does Sora even dream about?_

Unbidden, her mind suddenly fixated on the mental image of the clock, and she whipped her head toward it. After a few seconds' confusion, she realized she was staring at where the clock was on the wall in her own room and fought a tiny twinge of frustration as she found the clock in Sora's room. It read _9:33,_ to her surprise.

_When was the last time I even slept this late?_ she wondered, absent-mindedly rubbing the corner of one eye. Not only had Ansem's academic regimen given her a strict, early rising time that shaped her sleeping schedule even now, but over the last year, nightmares had forced her awake sometimes before the sun rose.

Over the last year, though, she had crawled into Riku's bed and found comfort in his warmth and the knowledge that he understood the dark pull the past could have on one's subconscious.

_At least this isn't the first time I haven't woken up in my own bed,_ she reflected dryly.

Gods, that sounded bad out of context.

A sound from below drew her eye to dual additions of dark blue to the blankets on the floor. Still wrapped up in the blankets, Sora stared groggily at her, and even though he was clearly still too sleepy to figure it out himself, Char abruptly realized she was still leaning over the side of the bed.

She all but fell onto her back moving away and tried to compose herself. "Morning," she muttered, without entirely knowing why. For one, she suddenly couldn't bring herself to even look at him anymore; for another, she thought her face had suddenly fallen victim to Hades' flames; and he was probably just sitting up in his sleep or something. After all, in Sora time, nine-thirty in the morning could probably pass for how Char felt about five-thirty in the morning.

His eyes had opened a little wider, as though the sunlight filtering in through the window next to his form had pulled back in its early-morning assault on his retinas. Now he was just staring at her, with the corners of his lips quirking upward.

_Oh,_ crossed Char's mind fleetingly, _so that's what Donald meant yesterday about Sora looking at girls he likes._

"Hi," he said, not wavering in that stupid smile.

What came out of Char's mouth could only be described as a grunt.

She tore her eyes away from him and focused unwaveringly on a point near the doorframe. Time's passage had worn on that particular corner, she noted; this room's disuse probably had eased that process along as well. However, any further dwelling she could have accomplished on that triviality halted when she heard fabric rustling behind her.

A tap on her shoulder alerted her to the fact that she had discarded her jacket sometime between going to bed last night and now, as well as shifted her attention behind her. Sora had stood up while she had been observing the doorframe, forcing her to look up to meet his eyes. He kept the finger he had used to get her attention lingering on her shoulder as he uncurled the fingers of his other hand to join them there; he had taken off his gloves last night, so even though his fingers were cold, the heat in his bare palm on her skin made up for it.

"You ready to take down the Organization?" were the first words out of his mouth.

As it turned out, it was entirely the wrong thing to bring up first thing in the morning: the unease that had died down to a churning simmer in Char's belly roared back up again and boiled up into her chest. Her emotions must have flashed across his face, for he pulled his hand back and had the nerve to look at least a little guilty.

_Why are you so nervous?_ Char demanded of herself. _This is only the event you were preparing for all of last year. The reason you agreed to go along with Sora in the first place._

Sora was still watching her. Waiting for her to say something, probably. His hand hovered, crooked fingers trembling slightly, and so much damned sympathy lurked in his eyes – _no one should be able to muster that much emotion right after just waking up _– that she suddenly had to fight the urge to throw her arms around him like he had done to her last night.

Instead, she sighed: a quaking, raspy sound that startled even her.

"As ready as I'll ever be," she announced.

In response, the grin returned to Sora's face, albeit much gentler than his all-but-goofy smile from moments before. "We'll be fine," he said. "You've got me, and Donald, and Goofy… And the King and Riku, too!" he added suddenly, eyes brightening. All at once, any trace of grogginess that might have lingered on his face evaporated at once, mere mist in the face of the sunlight that thinking of his best friend summoned.

Its brightness forced Char's chest to become tight, and she rolled her eyes to stave off the smile that threatened to appear. If Sora was that determined, then she knew they had nothing to worry about.

"I'm well aware of that," she said.

"I know," Sora laughed. He surveyed her a moment longer, the expression on his face familiar to her from watching Roxas in the virtual Twilight Town. It was the look of someone weighing two options in his mind, and trying to decide which would yield the least pain.

An instant later, Sora sated Char's curiosity as to why he looked like that. She couldn't hold back a tiny yelp of surprise as he surged toward her, wrapped one arm about her back, and tugged her forward into his chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted his arm shifting forward, only to hesitate – an odd choice now, since he'd already pulled her into a hug. Then something settled on the back of her neck and she realized it must be his free hand in her hair now.

Beneath the warm sleepiness drifting into her nostrils with every breath, her senses picked up something sweet: the same scent that she had detected when she had curled up next to his lion cub form in the Pride Lands. Back then, it had made sense considering her feline form's improved nose; now, though, she wondered at how she could place that paopu aroma with her comparably stunted senses.

And _why_ was she dwelling on that when Sora's fingers were combing over the base of her scalp and she was finally understanding why people enjoyed having their hair played with?

Quickly, without entirely knowing why, she pulled back, bracing both hands against the sheets beneath her for balance. "We should meet the others," she said.

Sora looked vaguely disappointed, but he did slide his fingers out of her hair and unwind his arm from about her back. For some reason, the places where his hands had been felt starkly cold in comparison to the rest of her body. "Yeah," he said, disappointment forgotten. "The sooner we head out to the Organization's world, the better."

* * *

As the two of them stepped into the hallway, Char lagged behind Sora, to the point where she pressed back against the wall just to let him move ahead. Surprisingly, nervousness about today's task played no part in her decision; if anything, the echo of Yuffie's giggles and the image of Aerith's subdued grin pushed her back. Char could almost hear the Radiant Garden residents' reactions if she and Sora emerged from the same room together. Even though Sora might not understand – scratch that, she _knew_ he wouldn't understand – her spine flared hot at what the others would think.

Sora didn't seem to notice her hesitation, instead bounding out in front of her. Artificial light illuminated his form as he fiddled with something on the back of his neck; the gesture confused her until a single chain's tinny jingling rang out, and she realized he was adjusting his crown necklace.

"We have to head to Twilight Town first," he was saying. "It'll be nice, because we can see Hayner, Pence, and Olette again –"

All at once, he stopped in his tracks, and Char only avoided crashing into him by the good grace of her paying attention.

"What?" she asked, warily. A couple of steps brought her to stand next to him, wall brushing against the back of her shoulders, so she could gauge his expression properly. Vacant, yet a vague spark of illumination, as though he were seeking out something just scratching at the edge of his thoughts.

It only took a couple of seconds for her to place his mien's cause. The trio of names he had just spoken carried a connection to Roxas, after all. Yet even though she easily figured out Sora's problem, it worried her; perhaps because Roxas' memories hadn't incapacitated him since before she had told him Roxas' identity.

Before she could say anything, though – or act on the suddenly-overwhelming urge to grasp his hand, or his shoulder, or do _something_ to snap him out of this trance – a familiar voice sliced into the tension.

"I'll go see if they're awake," Goofy called. Only now did Char realize that another buzz of voices entirely had enveloped her and Sora: a buzz that had receded into silence. Into that silence there intruded the scrape of a chair along the floor, then a series of footsteps whose _tap-tap-tap_ gained a heavier quality due to the oversized shoes creating them.

An instant later, Goofy's lanky form appeared in front of them. Cordiality transformed into concern as he looked from leader to girl and back again. "G'morning," he greeted at last, effectively ripping the gauzy trance that had wrapped about the two of them.

Char opened her mouth to speak, but Sora, who had apparently snapped out of his reverie, beat her to it. "Hey Goofy," he said with a smile.

Goofy seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, but ultimately decided not to press the issue of just why the Keybearer had looked the way he had. "Cid made eggs and bacon for breakfast," he announced, turning around and ambling back into the main room. The promise of food spurred Sora forward hot at Goofy's heels, and Char followed at the sudden stir in her own belly.

The hallway opened up into the room the past month had familiarized her with: Merlin's desk, situated atop a platform made of the same gray brick as outside's marketplace; blueprints and maps whose plans all but covered the walls and floor, which made Char wonder if Merlin was angry at Cid for such disorganization; the bright lines of code strewn across the computer screen; and finally the table where the Restoration Committee had gathered to eat dinner last night.

True to form, the motley group of defenders had returned for today's breakfast. Cid stood at the stove with his back to them, and when he brought up one hand to scratch the back of his neck, it shifted Char's attention to the knotted strings under which he pushed his nails. The grizzled man wearing an apron to cook made her muffle a snicker, while Sora uttered a tiny chuckle of his own. At the table, Yuffie sat hunched over her plate, working rapidly on her meal, as though afraid the food would return to its former state and leap from her plate. Probably something about how _great ninjas don't let their prey escape,_ Char thought wryly.

Movement from next to the dark-clad girl drew their gaze to Leon, who was leaning ever-so-subtly away from the human vacuum his fellow committee member had become. Though disgust lingered in trace amounts on his face, one corner of his lips quirked upward enough to give away his amusement. The plate in front of him held only white bits of egg, which almost blended into the china.

Aerith was chatting quietly with Donald and Merlin. Her soft voice, which had gone all but unheard earlier, rang out harmoniously as ever, yet the way she carried even Donald's attention reminded Char irresistibly of how the healer had silenced Leon yesterday.

As Goofy recovered his spot at the table and resumed eating, he turned toward Merlin and said something with his head tilted to the side. He must have asked what the three of them were discussing; when Donald waved a dismissive hand, Goofy's ears drooped visibly, to which the duck immediately began squawking in an odd attempt to soothe his friend's disappointment.

Watching all of them, Char felt a sudden tightness in her chest that channeled upward and solidified in the middle of her throat. If anyone had approached her the first time she had followed Sora into Merlin's home – allowed the echoes of her derision toward Merlin's offer to teach her magic to spiral into silence – and asked how she regarded the Restoration Committee, she would have laughed in their face. Mustered up more scorn and thrust it into the open and clarified her indifference toward them.

But that was a month ago, and so much had happened, and a tingling sensation began its slow burn at the back of her eyes when it hit her that along the way, the committee had become something like family.

_Well yeah,_ the contemptuous part of her piped up, _fighting at someone's side tends to make you bond pretty damn fast._

She and the others needed to succeed in defeating the Organization and closing the paths along which they sent Heartless to each world. That goal took precedence over any petty shadow of missing someone.

Still, it hurt to think she might never see these people again.

Not until now did she regard Sora's tendency to interrupt her reveries with so much gratefulness. That boyish voice stroked across the surface of her consciousness and sent ripples into its formerly undisturbed surface, forcing her to return to the far less turbulent reality before her.

"Morning, everybody," Sora greeted.

Leon looked up first; whether that attentiveness came from his natural tendency to stay alert or not, Char thought the jerk of his head away from Yuffie contained just a bit too much haste. "Good morning, you two," he answered. As his gaze swept over both of them in turn, it settled for just half a second too long on Char, who couldn't hold back a flinch at the expression on his face. Maybe she had been right to be concerned about how the committee would react to them walking out together.

Beneath hot embarrassment, defiance tunneled its way up inside her, and she raised one eyebrow at Leon. In response, he slid his attention back to Sora, lips giving off the barest hint of a twitch upward. _It's his own little way of mocking me, I guess. _"I heard you're ready to fight the Organization today," the Gunblade wielder said.

"I sure hope so," Donald interjected from Leon's other side. He leaned over the table, the orange of his webbed feet flashing as they pressed against his chair, and fixed a beady glare on the two of them. "You guys slept long enough."

Sora gave off a surprised grunt. Char took it upon herself to swoop in and save him the humiliation of a half-baked explanation. "We were tired," she told Donald curtly, before moving to the nearest empty chair. Which, thank the gods, was situated next to Goofy and not Donald.

After a few moments, during which she could almost feel the others' stares burning into her with the heat of any Heartless-fueled blaze, she whipped her head toward Cid. "So I heard we're eating eggs and bacon," she said, hating how loud her own voice sounded. "Any left?"

Yuffie guffawed around a mouthful of eggs on the other side of the table. Char's face burned.

* * *

The four of them stood in front of the Gummi ship – a myriad of bright colors that stole every glimmer of sunlight beating down on Radiant Garden's marketplace and washed the concrete and bricks around them an even paler gray. The Restoration Committee fanned out in a semicircle in front of them: almost protectively, Char thought.

"Be careful out there, all right?" Leon said. He had his arms folded across his chest in a deceptively dismissive stance, but the expression on his face as his eyes lingered on Sora told another tale. "No telling what the Organization can do in its own territory."

"We've fought a couple of them already," Sora pointed out, pounding one fist into the opposite palm. "I think we can handle it."

_Wow, Key-boy, overconfident much?_

Leon narrowed his eyes. "Don't get too cocky," he echoed Char's mind. "It's fine to feel confident, but it sounds like you already know what they can do. Keep that in mind when you're fighting them."

Although mussed dirty-blonde hair and the flash of magical light off deadly, moving waterfalls darted across Char's thoughts, Donald and Goofy were clearly thinking of another battle entirely. They let out dual murmurs and brought their hands to their sides, as though reminded of grievous wounds there. Char wondered about their reactions for a couple of seconds, before Sora's words from last night floated back to her.

Of course. The trio had gone up against Dilan – Xaldin – not long after Riku had taken her away. If that opponent had proven difficult enough to make Donald and Goofy cringe, then Char understood their hesitation to remember. Back in their apprentice days, Dilan had helped train her in wielding her dual swords, and he hadn't allowed her any mercy just because she was a girl who lived with him. The phantom pressure of lances bashing into her ribs and arms made her copy the others' actions and put one hand against her already-bruised ribcage with a muted wince. Blunted though their points had been, even that pressure had hurt.

Sora's face had begun to fall, so Yuffie quickly cut in with her own, much more direct brand of reassurance. "Don't worry," she told Sora, clapping his shoulder. "You'll knock 'em dead. Literally."

In the face of what they were about to go up against, Char felt her eyes straining to roll in their sockets at Yuffie's cheerful tone. Said cheerfulness didn't mark anything unusual, yet this time it sounded more feigned to her than ever.

Goofy's voice halted that desire to express her derision in even that silent way, though. He sounded a little shaky, but determination overrode any anxiety that might have caused that tremor. "Y'know what, Yuffie? You're right. Why, I bet if we all fight together, there's nothing we can't do!" he added to Char and the others.

While Donald chose to eschew self-control and rolled his eyes, Sora bobbed his head up and down in agreement. "See, Goofy's got the right idea," he said, hiking one thumb over his shoulder at the knight in question.

Leon still looked a little disbelieving, though for perhaps the thousandth time that morning, a tiny smile brushed at his lips. "Well, with that kind of confidence, I guess you guys have it in the bag," he dismissed them with a wave of his hand.

Aerith had remained silent up till now, merely clutching the bag of healing items she had purchased yesterday; the brightening sunlight swirled together with the Potion's sparkling green liquid and practically forced Char to squint against the newfound glare. "Somehow I can't tell if you're joking or not, Leon," she teased. Somehow, even that quiet admonishment held so much playfulness that it drew out laughter from everyone watching.

Just as Sora's chuckles began to fade, he glanced over at Char. Oddly, even though her countenance barred everything short of anxiety and fear, his grin widened at the sight of her. It made no sense that he would draw strength from her frayed nerves now – especially considering she was sure she resembled someone trying to hold back the urge to vomit. It wasn't far from the truth, actually.

But the admittedly-magnificent bacon and eggs did not tumble about under fear's palm just because of who they were fighting. Char had readied herself for this inevitable showdown practically since the moment she had realized her resentment toward Twilight Town's dilapidated mansion and every bit of evidence toward its crumbling foundation under her feet.

No, her feelings were because of this farewell, right after she had acknowledged her friendship toward the people of whose existence she had only just become aware.

In her mind's eye, the mental image of a recent goodbye floated back to her attention's forefront: except that time, the sun had had to battle ample foliage for purchase on the ground, and she had been painfully aware that her departure was the only event to break the tension since the blade on Copperhead's scythe had first flashed in the Shadowed Desert's woods.

Last time it had been more picturesque. Romantic, even. A dramatic farewell in the forest, punctuated by an embrace from one who would never have initiated it three days before, struck the heart more powerfully than a near-cordial goodbye surrounded by construction and bricks.

But Char had buried any romantic part of her long ago. That goodbye had just hurt.

Both times, she knew the people to whom she was bidding farewell would go on fighting – would go on _living,_ even though Falcon had so desperately fought it. And both times, she cursed the weight that settled in her chest at the thought of never seeing these people again.

She couldn't fight it, though: despite her knowledge that she couldn't blame every burst of softness she had on Sora, the fact remained that he had instilled that ability in her in the first place. Taught her to _feel,_ if she wanted to get sappy about it.

_Gods, when did I get so overdramatic?_

Probably at the same time Sora had come to draw strength from her, as well as her from him.

Looking around at the people in front of them – at other friends from whom Sora, Donald, and Goofy drew their resolve, at people she had come to fight alongside as well – Char finally found her voice again. Ripped it away from its comfortable rooting in a dark corner of her heart and buoyed it back to its vantage point again.

"You know," she said, drawing everyone's eye – and she tried not to recoil beneath the weight of all their stares – "when we fight the Organization, I've got some idea of what their weaknesses are." When her words met with surprised stares turned blank with confusion, and mild suspicion in Donald's case, she sighed in partially feigned exasperation. "I trained with them when we were all apprentices together."

Yuffie's eyes lit up. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot you guys grew up together. You know, before –" A swiftly-delivered stare from Aerith stopped her before she could mention the other apprentices' fates, a demand for silence that Char wholeheartedly appreciated.

Leon nodded slowly, as though turning Char's revelation over in his mind for every logical point. "You're right. You'll be a good asset for the fight then."

"Like I haven't been the whole time?" Char couldn't help asking, with a playfully quirked eyebrow. "And anyway," she went on before anyone could interject, before she could lose her nerve, "this is Sora we're talking about. The Keyblade chose him for a reason."

Silence. Yuffie gagged on an imaginary spit take, and Leon just blinked a couple times, while Aerith tilted her head to the side and smiled. Donald squawked in surprise. Goofy just stifled a laugh behind his hand. Sora actually spun toward her, arms flung out to the side as if to contain the weight of his surprise.

"Did you just…" he began, voice cracking on the second word.

"…directly praise Sora?" Donald finished just as incredulously.

"Maybe I did," Char answered, unable to keep a defensive edge out of her voice. "Is that a problem?"

"Well, it only took you a month to do it," Leon muttered, brushing a piece of brown hair out of his eyes. Char narrowed her eyes at him, but restrained the mighty urge to tell him to shut his mouth. Somehow, she figured that wouldn't go over well with the stoic Gunblade wielder.

Goofy lowered his hand from his mouth, whose amused smile gained a gentler form. "Y'know, you guys helped us out a lot," he told the members of the Restoration Committee. "I just wanted to say thanks."

Yuffie grinned wider, while Leon rolled his eyes, though the set of his jaw softened considerably. Aerith clasped her hands in front of her. "What are friends for?" she said.

Sora shook his head. The shock of Char's unexpected kindness had worn off, leaving him only with a quiet little smile. So different from his normal uncontrollable grins. "No, Goofy's right," he insisted. "Thanks for everything. We need to say that much to you, since we might never see each other again."

"Oh, come on," Yuffie argued. "What was it you said, Squall?"

Leon's eye twitched. Before he could launch into his typical protest as to her prolonged use of his given name, she lifted one half-gloved hand and curled her fingers against her forehead. Just as Sora had done the first time they had reunited. "We may never meet again," she intoned in an exaggeratedly deep tone, "but we'll never forget each other." She laughed, voice regaining its high-pitched timbre. "Geez, you are the _king_ of cheesy lines."

"Better than constantly forgetting someone's name," Leon replied without missing a beat. Aerith chuckled to herself.

"Don't we need to leave soon?" The squawk from next to Char made them all turn, then look down. Donald had his arms crossed and one webbed foot tapping, eyes narrowed into a squint. Yet his stance's brusqueness faltered when he shifted his weight from one skinny leg to the other, almost as though he had kept himself in that particular pose for the conversation's majority, and Char discerned a quiver there.

She considered, for about a fraction of a second, teasing Donald about his reluctance to say goodbye to the friends who had helped them for so long. Ultimately, though, she relented.

Because watching Sora shrug and step forward to tap his knuckle against Leon's, watching the Gunblade wielder return the gesture with a small grin, watching Aerith change the angle of her healing items' glare as she passed off the bag containing the Potions to Goofy, watching Yuffie pout only briefly at Leon's jab before deciding to smile again, Char knew she had no room to mock Donald's reticence.

The next thing she knew, the blurred view of Radiant Garden's ruined marketplace – blurred, wait, when had Char begun holding back tears? – traded in slate gray for bright pink, and she blinked to accommodate the change. Unfortunately, that blink also meant loosening the invisible floodgates behind her eyes by the tiniest iota: not enough to release their humiliating contents, but enough to sting Char's pride.

"Look after them, all right?" Aerith said, holding out her arms. "I know the boys can handle themselves, but they still need you."

Char blinked again, this time in confusion. "Need me?" she echoed, like a parrot. Somewhere in her mind, in the part where common sense still retained its hold, she knew she should step forward and return the embrace Aerith was offering; but Char also knew she had to clarify that first. If anything, _she_ needed Sora and the others more than the opposite.

Aerith nodded patiently, lowering her arms back to her sides. "You're their friend," she reminded the stunned redhead. "They'll always need you."

Even though she was a healer and shouldn't have possessed her companions' warrior-like reflexes, Aerith immediately responded when Char moved forward and pressed her face into her bare shoulder.

* * *

The sound of the Gummi ship's door sliding closed behind them had never sounded so loud.

* * *

"So," Char said to Sora, "why Twilight Town?"

Even as she asked the question, she found herself partially dreading his answer. While he couldn't possibly know about Twilight Town's virtual replica – Roxas' memories of his days in the dusk-wrapped world extended only to the friendships he had forged there, it seemed – Char wondered where Sora had acquired the information he toted around.

Then again, Twilight Town was the most probable culprit for hiding an entrance to the World That Never Was. When Ansem had designed Roxas' prison and Namine rehabilitated Sora's memories, the man had announced his certainty of that prison's lack of weaknesses; yet Axel had managed to sneak past those apparently impenetrable defenses, along with his lesser Nobodies and Dusks. If he, a member of the Organization if only in title, had slipped into the virtual Twilight Town, it only made sense for Sora and his companions to utilize that weakness and exploit it for themselves.

Really, it made Char suspicious about the source of Sora's information.

Sora froze in his seat before finding the map less accusatory than her gaze. He raised and lowered one shoulder, at the same time scanning the room, as though trying to find Donald and Goofy for support. They had both gone to prepare themselves for the flight to Twilight Town, though, so he found nothing.

Dark-clad shoulders slumped in defeat before he looked back at her, with an entirely-too-fake smile on his face. "I just thought we should see Hayner, Pence, and Olette again," he explained.

Char frowned. _Lies._ "And?" she pressed. She was aware of her own hypocrisy in her growing annoyance at Sora lying – or at least omitting some of the truth – but his reluctance offended her anyway.

Still, he hesitated, choosing to card a hand over his brown spikes rather than meet her eyes. As she gradually realized that her normal tactics would fail to summon the information she wanted, an odd glaze came over his eyes – almost as though he were remembering something he felt an unwilling, but powerful, attachment to.

It was the exact same expression that had seized him in the hallway of Merlin's house.

Before she could think on it, though – before anything besides _maybe this was why he just stopped and stood there and scared me so much_ could cross the barrier between abstract emotion and solid thought – a hoarse voice called out to them, grew closer as its source waddled out from his room.

"All right," Donald announced, pawing at the sparkling green vials to keep them from spilling forth. "I found some Potions and Ethers in the drawer in my room, and I don't even want to know how long they've been there, but –" He stopped immediately, free hand stilling in its attempts to retain his grip on his burden, and glanced from one teenager to the other with eyes gradually narrowing.

It must have been an incriminating picture, Char thought with an internal cringe she only just remembered to suppress: her leaning across the Gummi ship dashboard, perched atop one elbow, and basically squinting at Sora; Sora himself fidgeting in the pilot seat, eyes trained on the map, and tapping his stubby nails against the steering wheel in a way that the leather muted.

"What's going on?" Donald finally asked. He crossed the room to the ship console, let his healing items drop on the dashboard; the ensuing clatter of glass containers on glass casing made all three of them wince, albeit less obviously with the duck. He wedged himself into the chair next to Char and trained his glare on her, and even though he remained silent, he might as well have screamed _what did you do?_

"I just wanted to know how you guys got the idea to head to Twilight Town," Char said, at the same time fighting a sudden battle to keep her voice level. Both out of annoyance and fear. _For gods' sake, we just got over all this suspicion and tiptoeing around each other. _"Sora fed me some nonsense about wanting to see the Twilight Town gang one last time." As she spoke of what Sora had said, the boy's shoulders jerked in a flinch, making her next query tremble a little. "Is there actually a weak point in that world we can use to get to the Organization, or not?"

"Of course there is!" Donald shot back immediately, only to stop and look startled, as though he had no idea why he had said that.

"And how do you know that for sure?" Char demanded, slamming her palms against the console and glowering at him. "Now we're right back to the original question: who told you to go to Twilight –"

"Char, calm down!" Sora finally found his voice and spoke, much more strongly than Char had expected after he had avoided looking at her. Char stopped, let her fingers relax on the glass panel, and slowly, reluctantly, turned to face him, almost fearing what she would find.

Once upon a time, she might have found the way his eyebrows drew together over annoyed blue eyes and the cast over his face amusing. Now, though, the fact that he was actually allowing himself to express rage startled her: both because he reminded her irresistibly of Roxas that night when he and Riku had fought, and because he seemed so different from the boy who had held her close and stroked her hair this morning.

Seeing her shock, Sora sighed, closed his eyes, let his face soften. "Seeing Hayner, Pence, and Olette again is only part of it." He opened his eyes again and looked from Char to Donald as he continued. "The reason we know for sure to go to Twilight Town is because –"

"Gawrsh, guys, what's all the yellin' about?"

Goofy's question ringing out from the direction of the Gummi ship's rooms should not have made Char jolt like it did. Out of the four of them, he was the only one who had yet to join the argument; yet his lanky form ambling out of the hallway coaxed surprised reactions out of all three of said altercation's participants. Donald whirled around, all but falling off his chair with the movement's force but still managing to hang on by the armrests; Sora jerked in his chair before relaxing, though not without what Char placed as _guilt_ on his face.

Which bewildered her, because she could not fathom why Sora would look contrite at Goofy's appearance.

She followed Sora's gaze, trying to puzzle out his emotions. Both pairs of eyes landed on Goofy's gloved, bulky hand, which had come up to rub against the back of his head. Really, a more fitting word for what Goofy was doing was _grazing, _as just the tiniest amount of contact with the dark fur along his skull induced a wince.

_Now that I think about it,_ she thought, _Sora did say Goofy took a big hit to the back of the head in the Pride Lands yesterday._

Before she could do much more than remember the last time Goofy had sustained such a near-fatal injury, though, the knight lowered his hand, as though realizing how vulnerable it made him look. He glanced from one friend to the other before speaking.

"We're goin' to Twilight Town because of that photo we got, right?" he asked.

Char's eyes widened. Although she couldn't ignore how Donald immediately hopped forward and clung to the back of his chair with a series of enthusiastic nods – a sure sign that Goofy was lying too, however unintentionally – she dismissed any resentment at knowing the trio's lies to her. If Goofy had prolonged the discussion about their unknown advisor, her rapidly calming temper might have flared back up to the surface; his changing the subject to something she remembered being around to see only helped her forget her annoyance entirely.

Blackness had surrounded the group – an environment to which Maleficent's timely intervention had whisked them away – shapeless and unbreakable but for a single box lying in its midst. Within the box they had found a bar of that accursed sea-salt ice cream, and a photo, likely taken by a bystander in the virtual Twilight Town, of the Twilight Town gang, plus Roxas.

Thinking of the foursome like that felt wrong, for some reason: like Roxas' additional memories of Hayner, Pence, and Olette were as false as the people he had come to know. _The trio plus one. _It was like an equation, a formula that Ansem had put together to stall for time.

However fabricated Roxas' surroundings had been, the friendships he had forged with them were real, if Sora's strange reactions of wistfulness and unjustified camaraderie around the Twilight Town trio indicated anything. No matter how much Char denied the Key of Destiny's humanity, she found it in herself to admit that at least the personality he had donned in the virtual world had been shaped by his friends there.

So Char banished that line of thinking just as Sora blinked owlishly. "Photo?" he echoed, cementing Char's knowledge that they were still withholding something from her.

Goofy nodded, ears bouncing with the movement. Right after they settled, his face tightened in what looked like repression of a wince: an action whose echo Sora did not bother concealing. "The picture of Roxas with the Twilight Town gang," he explained.

Donald leaned farther into the back of his chair. If the Gummi ship manufacturers had not bolted the chairs to the floor, Char felt certain he would have toppled it over with his feigned enthusiasm. "Yeah, Sora," he agreed, turning to the Keybearer. "I kind of wondered why your –" He stopped, seemed to choke on the term; Char felt an irrational surge of rage stir within her belly at his reticence. _Just say it,_ she wanted to tell him. _Sora has a Nobody. It doesn't make him any less of your leader or friend._

And then she had to stop and do a mental double take, because just a month ago a thought that even vaguely failed to insult Nobodies would never have crossed her mind.

The duck gave a minute shake of his head, as though shaking off excess droplets of water, before continuing. "Anyway, I wondered why Roxas would be with the guys from Twilight – are you okay?"

He sounded genuinely concerned, and that startled Char into leaning away from him to try and gauge Sora's expression. The boy had the heel of his hand pressed into the meat of his cheek and his head angled toward the floor, as though trying to find answers in the dust time and a lack of cleaning had scrawled across the tile. When Donald veered the conversation away from Roxas' choice in friendships and toward Sora's emotional state, though, the brunette jerked in his seat. His hand darted downward toward the control panel, fingers twitching. He glanced over at the others.

"Yeah, Donald, I'm fine," he said, a clearly feigned smile on his face.

Char narrowed her eyes. "Sora," she growled, curling her fingers around her armrest and leaning toward him. "No one looks the way you just did and feels fine."

"You can tell us what's botherin' ya," Goofy added. He placed one hand on top of Donald's chair and gave a nod. "Is it about the Organization?"

Sora sighed, shook his head, rubbed beneath his nose with his index finger. "Not exactly." He paused; Char could almost hear him wavering on whether or not to exaggerate the illusion further with something determined like _I already know we're gonna pummel those guys._

Even though he left that remark unspoken, though, its silence cut into her chest as deeply as if he had decided to lie further. _Because he won't do that. He knows we know there's something wrong._

"Then what is it?" Donald demanded, harshly. Any vitriol, good-intentioned or not, blazed to a standstill when Char drove her elbow toward his ribs in a silent order to calm down.

Sora shrugged. "I just… Goofy, your head still hurts from when that Heartless in the Pride Lands hit you," he blurted.

The knight reared back a little, blinked a couple of times. His hand brushed over the back of his head in what seemed like an unconscious action; though he couldn't have intended it to have that result, the action made Sora wince alongside him. "Gawrsh, Sora, it ain't that bad," he protested. "Donald can heal me before we go fight the Organization, and I can still wallop the Nobodies." On the last part, he put up his fists and gave the boy an encouraging grin.

"Yeah," Donald added, but he was blustering, and Char could hear as much. "C'mon, Sora, if that's all you're worried about –"

"It's not," Sora interrupted, so abruptly that Donald's bill snapped shut with an audible _clack. _Silence enveloped the room in a thick, suffocating haze, a fog that, strangely, only the sound of the others breathing could penetrate. Char could practically see Donald and Goofy struggling with themselves on whether to press Sora, or just encourage him without entirely knowing why.

She inhaled, exhaled, repeated the process while muffling a sigh. _Just wait. He'll say it eventually._

Sure enough, within moments, Sora spoke up. "You guys have stuck with me for so long," he admitted in a near-whisper. "I just realized I never really thanked you for it."

Char fell back in her seat. "You have to be kidding me," escaped her before she could stop it.

Donald rounded on her immediately. "Char –"

"No, duck-boy, he needs to hear this," she cut him off, without taking her eyes off Sora. The Keybearer had met her sudden interjection with a near-jolt off his seat and wide eyes, but as he calmed down, he stared at her with his mouth slightly open and clenching fists. It occurred to her that he was anticipating every thought heaving for release at the tip of her tongue, but she found herself disregarding any concern of what he might say and barging forward anyway.

"Donald and Goofy first came to you because their king told them to," she said. "It was an order. Find some dumb-looking kid with a giant key and follow him around; simple enough. If that was really all it was – duty to a monarch – then they would have left you the minute His Majesty disappeared into the realm of darkness."

From next to her, Donald and Goofy exchanged glances; Char was aware of this only because of the dual shifts of black and white in her periphery, so she could not see the exact emotions in their eyes when they did so. As a result of that inability, fear lanced briefly through her chest that perhaps she was revealing too much of what she knew of Sora's past – an old fear whose claws tugging at the old memories threatened to tear.

"She's right," Goofy said. Char waited for Donald to chime in, but he had apparently taken her vitriol to heart and was staying silent.

"They've fought with you this whole time both because of their king and because they want to protect you," she went on, with her heart suddenly threatening to free itself from her chest. Nevertheless, she ignored it, even though breath came to her only in her voice. "The way I see it, you've proven yourself more than worthy of such allies. Time and again, you've also proven yourself worthy of hauling that Keyblade around."

With the newfound rapidness in her pulse came more words, words whose desire to encourage channeled its way through her entire body and made her fingers tremble. _It wouldn't have left Riku and gone back to you in Hollow Bastion if you weren't good enough, you said your friends are your power and that hasn't changed._

But _that_ would have definitely given away that she knew more about him than she let on – information that nights on the Gummi ship relating the past had not yielded to her – so she stuffed them back down inside her heart and let different words flow forth.

"You don't need to thank them. Or me," she added. Oh gods, the tremble had worked its way into her voice now; fantastic indeed. "You've given that to us just by fighting alongside us in battle and being concerned about us. And stuff." _And now my vocabulary has flown out the window, good job, Nightblaze, that's a good encouraging monologue right there._

Sora had almost become a mirror of her at this point: jaw dropped slightly to draw in more air, both hands gripping his armrests as though to anchor himself to the reality she was pressing upon him. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she glimpsed his fingers twitching against the leather; but not once did she surface from the perfect, glossy blue of her eye contact with him.

However, he did: looked away from her and tilted his head toward Donald and Goofy. A not-so-subtle shift from surprise to anxiety marked his features, but after a second, during which Char imagined their other two companions giving nods of approval, his focus slid back to her.

"We wouldn't fight for you if we weren't your friends," Goofy said. "And it's like Char said, you stickin' by us is thanks enough."

"All for one, one for all," Donald interjected.

Sora nodded, and relief stirred in Char's chest as the grin from this morning made an illustrious return. "You're right. You're all right," he added, even though Char had done nothing to indicate indignation at his not explicitly including her. "We've gone this far together. We might as well finish what we've started."

He leveled his gaze back to Char's as he spoke the last part. For the first time since they had taken down that giant Heartless in the realm between – since the Gummi ship's missiles had found their mark in their foe's vulnerable center and mapped bright, destructive fireworks across the sky – the desire to pull him toward her surfaced and tickled at her fingertips.

Like before, she tamped it down, though this time she knew she could not dismiss it as her hormones projecting and leave it at that. A different time, a different place.

_When this is over, at Sora's island?_

But that was definitely a thought best left untouched for the gut-stirring, heart-accelerating anxiety it brought, so she nudged the impulse to kiss him over to leave room for any notions of the future beyond the Organization's demise in the back of her mind.

Donald's triumphant squawk emitting from behind her made her turn around for the first time in a few minutes. The duck stood on his chair, still at a point where the top of his head just reached the top of the sitting Sora's, and curled his hands into determined fists. "The Organization won't know what hit 'em when I'm done," he declared. Though his enthusiasm still sounded awkward, at least this time it seemed genuine.

Especially when he swung one fist at the air and Goofy ducked away in surprise.

The dog straightened again, his startled expression ebbing away into one of determination. "Yeah, that's the spirit, Donald," he said. "And while we're at it, we'll find the King and Riku there, too."

"We'll be there with you, too!" piped up a tiny voice from beneath the Gummi dashboard.

Sora glanced down and smiled at the two chipmunks who leaped into view. "Of course you guys will help too," he said, reaching forward and ruffling the top of Chip's head with one fingertip.

The dark-nosed pilot danced back, startled, into a guffawing Dale's waiting grasp. As the red-nosed chipmunk nudged his companion upright again, he beamed a buck-toothed grin of his own at the four of them. "I reckon you'll give the Organization what for," he predicted.

"And find your friends while you're at it," Chip recovered long enough to say.

Char tilted her head to the side. The chipmunks had tagged along for this long, helping steer the ship through the worst of its situations – massive Heartless, her lack of driving skills and all – and handling it all as gracefully as creatures of their physical caliber could be expected. If the gateway to the World That Never Was really was tucked into Twilight Town, though, the flight to the dusk-wrapped world would be the last time the chipmunks accompanied the group.

"You know," she began – and almost flinched at the way everyone turned toward her; expecting another long-winded, inspirational speech, no doubt. Nevertheless, she ignored their stares and continued. "If we go to Twilight Town and stop the Organization from there… this will be the last trip we make on the Gummi ship."

Dale gasped and clapped one tiny hand over his mouth. "Gosh, Char, I didn't even think of that!"

"So when we drop you guys off at Twilight Town, it's goodbye?" Chip's high-pitched voice threatened to crack further.

"Yeah, that does make sense," Donald mused. "We won't need the vessel if we can trust…" Suddenly he trailed off, shot a glance at Char as if to confirm whether she was listening, and quickly clamped his beak shut. The redhead sighed internally. _Guess I'll find out the source of their information later._

Still, in the face of yet another goodbye, she didn't want to dwell on the secret whose revelation, however ugly and unpleasant, Goofy's interruption had let them evade. The chipmunks, clad in their fitted pilot outfits, were staring at her with overly bright, dark eyes; if she hadn't known any better, she would have caught herself searching for spite there.

But they weren't her fellow apprentices, tainted by bitterness and knowledge of darkness – for the gods' sake, Chip and Dale were _talking chipmunks,_ and the fact that she could delude herself into thinking they could muster anger now said a lot about her own paranoia. She had just reminded them that they had to leave each other, yet they seemed more sad than angry about it.

The lack of time she had spent actually in the driver's seat had not acquainted her well enough with them. In fact, she distinctly recalled the one time she _had_ been allowed to drive glancing down occasionally to see furry brown backs quivering in terror. She had to give them credit: their flying skills far surpassed any of the group's, but they had the good grace to let Sora or Donald take control of the Gummi ship time and again.

Chip and Dale's faces looked void of anything vaguely resembling that of a hardened pilot now.

"You guys can still fly us up to Twilight Town," Goofy told them. Their stubby tails twitched and their ears pricked at that. "But then you gotta take the vessel back to the castle."

"And tell the queen we've got everything covered," Donald said, puffing out his chest.

Dale nodded. "You're absolutely right, Donald, old boy." The last part made Char blink; she had never heard that nickname applied to the duck before. Honestly, she half expected him to bristle and snarl at the chipmunk for the overt familiarity.

Again, though, surprise stirred within her because of the pilots. Donald just let out a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes. "I told you to stop calling me that," he grumbled.

His half-hearted indignation met with dual guffaws from Sora and Goofy alike. The former's amusement subsided long enough for him to address the chipmunks. "Well, as much as I want to tease Donald about this –" which met with a freshly annoyed growl from the mage in question – "we've got an organization to fight and friends to find."

Hearing his affirmation of his goal coaxed a smile onto Char's face, a smile that she did not bother trying to suppress. _He's going to be fine,_ she thought.

"Would you like to do the honors?" she asked Sora, sweeping one hand out toward the steering wheel.

"Right," he agreed, and flicked a couple of switches. Char wasn't familiar enough to know what that particular combination signified, but a tangible shift beneath her feet told her that the Gummi ship was finally lifting off from the ground. The Keybearer flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, even as Chip and Dale jumped back into their cockpit and his friends all settled into their respective chairs.

"Full speed ahead to Twilight Town!" Goofy cheered.

* * *

Not much else to say besides my typical request for reviews. So... you know the drill.


	85. Chapter LXXXV

Chapter 85! We're finally getting around to the World That Never Was arc, and I'm partly excited and partly scared. Excited because it'll be good, and scared because... well. Feelings.

Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

Sora should have known better than to think the Gummi ship's final journey would go smoothly. Really, he should have. The encouraging words from his friends had lulled him, though, and strengthened his resolve to the point where it near blinded him to any possibility of danger before they reached their destination.

"Get out of the way!" Donald ordered, mashing a square-shaped button with the heel of his hand. In response, multiple lasers honed in on the swarms before them and rendered them to ash with flaring, bright red light.

"Why are there so many of them now?" Sora groaned. He pushed a myriad of buttons close to the steering wheel, at the same time trying desperately to veer the ship away from enemy fire with his free hand. He knew that dodging this many enemies at once probably required the use of both hands, but if Donald was trying to be helpful, he would too.

"Think of it this way," Char gritted out. She was clinging to her seat with white-knuckled hands and half leaning forward, as though her increased attentiveness would make the attacking ships disappear. "You see the little symbols on their bodies?"

"No," Donald shouted back caustically, "we're not really bothering to _look at their bodies,_ considering they're all coming at us at – wak!"

Sora received that single noise as a paltry warning before white blurred in front of his eyes and practically yanked the steering wheel out of his hand. The Gummi ship lurched to one side, all but toppling Sora and the others from their seats; Donald managed to stay upright only by practically melding his torso with the wheel, and Goofy fairly clung to the ship's dashboard with wild fear in his eyes.

"What was that –?" Sora began indignantly, and then he saw why. Blinding green light erupted where the ship had hovered moments before; Donald's intervention had saved them an unpleasant fate.

The mage was giving him a coldly triumphant look, so Sora tightened his hands around the wheel and muttered an apology. _Pay attention! _he scolded himself. "What about their bodies, Char?" he tossed over his shoulder. Beside him, Goofy reached forward and flicked a series of switches in rapid succession, causing more lasers to impale the rapidly approaching foes.

Char sighed: a shaky sound, but one whose tremor steadied short of her voice. "The symbols on their bodies," she explained, pointing with her index finger. Surprised into glancing away, Sora blinked at her; how she had gotten a look at any details of the constant barrage was beyond him.

He opened his mouth to say as much, only to jolt forward and almost meet the windshield as something crashed into the ship. Jerking his head back around, he saw the culprit pull back and rotate its multiple turrets around to charge up another blast. The enemy ship's frontal attack had somehow avoided cracking the windshield – a miracle of the technology used by Disney Castle's engineers, he had learned back on his first journey – so he squinted to see what Char meant by _symbols._

Sure enough, between the foe's turrets, he spotted a vaguely thorn-shaped insignia, one with multiple other thorns branching out on either side. Now that he was thinking about it, the symbol did look familiar. Sinuous strides and undulating forms came to his mind, both of which belonged to the Dusk Nobodies whose numbers he had reduced.

"Gee, they look like them Nobodies we've fought," Goofy remarked, peering closer. He looked back at Char. "You think these guys are Nobodies, too?"

Char gave a single, tense nod, even as the ship gave another lurch forward. "I'm pretty sure, yeah. And if this many Nobodies are guarding Twilight Town…"

"Then we _have_ to be on the right track," Sora murmured, eyes widening. Somewhere in his chest, a presence whose name he knew all too well was expressing its irritated confirmation: an unspoken _I told you so_ regarding Axel's advice.

_He wouldn't lie to Roxas,_ Sora thought,_ not to his best friend,_ but that trod a little too close to the possibility of Nobodies – the very creatures who swarmed around them and followed baser instincts in trying to kill them – having feelings, so he stomped the thought out at once.

Some of his inner turmoil must have shown outwardly, because he could feel Char's eyes searing into his temple. For the second time today, ever since she had spoken the seemingly-innocent question about his information's source, Sora found himself longing to tell her the truth; and for the second time today, he found himself stuffing the words back down his throat. Her distrust toward Nobodies aside, even he knew that the group had taken a huge risk in listening to an Organization member: for all intents and purposes, one of the enemy.

The Nobodies were still his enemies. This aerial assault around them proved it.

A few well-aimed shots brought down the aerial Nobody in front of him in a matter of seconds. That gave the group a moment's reprieve before more swarms of Nobodies appeared in the felled foe's place.

"Crap," Char hissed under her breath. She whipped her head toward Sora, mouth already open in a demand for action, but he was already moving his fingers over the console's buttons and responding. Missiles rent the dark sky around the Gummi ship as they chased down the Nobodies and cleared the swarms of red and blue.

"How'd you figure out the honing missiles?" Goofy asked, tilting his head to the side.

Sora flashed a grin over his shoulder. "I've flown this thing a few times, remember?"

"Yeah, I guess you've learned some stuff about how the vessel works," Goofy said.

"Sora actually knowing what he's doing," Char remarked. "Color me surprised."

Sora's burst of confidence trickled down into indignation at once, and he tossed a sour look Char's way. "Oh, come on." She snorted and looked away, yet he caught the tiniest upward lift of one corner of her lips and realized she was only trying to lighten things. _Great, like I didn't feel bad enough around her already._

Light flashed at that moment, assisting his own efforts in shaking the bitter thought out of his consciousness. He returned his attention to the battle before him – which was probably the better idea in the first place – in time to see that light's source. Two jagged gray doors were sliding apart from one another, and something gleamed out from the gap at Sora before more Nobodies darted forward and obscured it.

"Through there," he muttered under his breath. A flick of his wrist pulled the Gummi ship into a sharp dive forward, forcing surprised yelps out of the others at the sudden descent in altitude. Sora narrowed his eyes; as much of a hypocrite as failing to warn the others made him, he did not waver in concentration even in the brief time it would have taken to apologize. The ship barreled forward, shooting the obstacles out of the sky all the while, until it had left the doors behind.

"Warn us before you do that!" Donald yelled, scrabbling at his seat's leather.

"Well, Donald, if he'd taken the time to warn us, we couldn't have gotten out of the way," Goofy protested, but even his attempt to justify the years taken off his life sounded strained.

"Yeah," Char mumbled, "but you didn't have to almost throw us through the windshield."

"Look," Sora said, "do _you_ want to pilot the ship through all these Nobodies?" When his question met with silence and an averted gaze from Char, he sighed, more out of resignation than smugness. "Let's go," he said. "All we can do is keep on ahead." In his periphery, Goofy's ears bounced as he nodded, and even the tense white lines of Donald's shoulders relaxed in his agreement. Char said nothing, only tightened her grip on her armrests, as though steeling herself for the remaining flight.

_This is the last one we've got. Let's make it count._

More castle-like structures stretched before them: imposing silver-gray towers arching up into the darkness, the vaguest outline of another gate in the distance, the same gleam that Sora had spotted beaming out like a sun. It almost resembled a city, the way it was laid out ahead of them.

If, of course, a city kept firing persistent rounds and sending its heartless citizens forward to push newcomers back to the gate.

Sora freed one hand from the steering wheel and groped desperately for the console button that would release honing missiles. In the two seconds it took for Donald to realize what the current pilot was doing and slam his palm down on their only hope, more of the turret-like Nobodies had swept in. The missiles exploded so close to the Gummi ship that their resulting light blinded Sora and forced him to throw one hand over his eyes.

He spread his index finger and middle finger apart so he could see to fly, only to drop his hand again and clutch the steering wheel for dear life as he drove the ship to the right. This time, though, proved futile in evading the newest threat: barely seconds later, the ship suddenly jolted beneath them and threw them forward.

Multiple things crashed through Sora's senses in the next few moments – Donald squawking; Goofy's voice breaking free of its normal pitch in favor of a higher shriek; a weight toppling forward into his lap; the feeling of his center of gravity shifting and the console's edges digging hard into his palms in his attempt to not fly out of his seat.

When the ship steadied, he swung his head from side to side, amazed at how he had failed to collide with the console's edge. The Heartless-inflicted wound on his forehead had begun to throb anew, but a moment's probing tentatively about with the pads of his fingers told him he hadn't torn it open. Donald had latched himself onto Goofy, who in turn was rubbing his skull and wincing.

Before the guilt at letting his friend get hurt could plague Sora again, he demanded, "Is everyone okay?"

"I think so," came a voice from slightly below. He glanced down and, with a surge of heat along his entire body, identified the weight that had fallen onto his legs. Char braced one elbow against the seat on the far side of his thigh and squeezed her eyes shut, as though trying to get her bearings back.

Sora did not dare look at Donald and Goofy to see their reaction, but the lack of giggles from their direction told him dizziness still kept them from true amusement. "G-good," he stammered out.

Char opened her eyes, angled her head back to see; then it seemed to hit her just where she had landed, and her cheeks flamed bright red. The first attempt to scramble out of his lap resulted in her head colliding with the steering wheel. Sora tried not to wince at her muffled swearing as she pulled herself back into her seat. And he swore he heard her mutter something to the effect of "why don't these damn things have seatbelts."

He stared determinedly at the skies before him instead of reflecting on what had just happened. Although he still couldn't tell what exactly had rammed the ship, he could see a sizable expanse of gray buildings – the city caricature's extension, it seemed – beyond a few Nobody ships. One of the ships darted slightly to the left, allowing the bright light lining the structures to shine forth, and Sora had to squint to avoid the worst of its piercing effects.

"Look," Goofy's voice sounded from next to Sora; a white-clad finger appeared and he followed its path to where Goofy was pointing. "There's some more doors," the knight went on.

"Yeah, but are they going to open for us? I still don't know how the last couple did," Donald snorted, sitting back in his seat and folding his arms. One webbed foot jiggled at his side, as though he couldn't remain completely still.

"Do we have any other choice?" Char muttered.

"Only one way to find out," Sora said. With the advent of his fingers' pressure on a few buttons, more honing missiles darted forth and eradicated the Nobodies. No sooner had the foes simultaneously fallen did a barely audible _whoosh_ penetrate the sound barrier offered by the windshield.

His eyebrows jumped up on his forehead at the responding gray shift: the gates slid apart, revealed glowing red lights peeking out from within their confines. "What do you know, it worked," he commented.

When a pensive hum sounded from Char's side, he glanced over, at the same time steering the ship closer to the newfound pathway. "What's up?"

She started, then turned her head to look at his face – a gesture that surprised him, considering what had happened barely minutes before. Rather than dwell on the fresh remembrance of her warmth and weight on his lap, though, Sora focused on what she had to say next. "Nothing," she said, the final syllable dissolving into a sigh. One hand moved up to push her bangs off her face. "I just… I can't help but feel like the Organization's making fun of us. Letting us through here so easily and all."

"What do they have to make fun of?" Donald asked from Sora's other side. The console rattled alarmingly, but Sora relaxed, if only a little, when he saw the mage clench his palms from where he had slammed them against it. "We've proven what we can do!"

Sora grinned. "Yeah, I think it's even better that they're underestimating us. It'll be easier to beat them that way."

Char stared at him a moment longer, before her lips slanted upward in a tentative smile of her own. "You've got a point." In spite of himself, Sora felt his grin widen; she had seemed so uncertain this morning, and had hardly bothered to hide it. Whether that uncertainty arose from having to fight her former friends, he didn't know: a strange reason, since she had made her resolve perfectly clear, but Char had surprised him in the past. Now he could see how unfounded his worries had been.

_At least I could make her feel a little better._

Char was still smiling as she turned back forward again, only to gasp and lunge to the side. Sora's confused blink encompassed the time it took for the ship to lurch to the left, causing Donald and Goofy to yelp in surprise again and Sora to pitch sideways. Again, he seized the console's edge for support.

The ship righted itself again, and Sora glared at Char, who was lowering her hands from the steering wheel and pressing one to her chest with a visibly relieved expression. "What was that for?" he demanded.

"You almost drove us into a building, idiot," she retorted. "Stop staring at me and watch where you're going." Although her annoyance sounded genuine, her blatantly pointing out his attention's direction wobbled audibly and deadened her voice's edge.

Sora turned back around and realized her words' truth. His periphery gave him a glimpse of the gray tower the Gummi ship had almost just broken before the ship's continuous forward movement left that behind. "Oh," was all he could say.

"At least we're almost out," Goofy said. The shock at his near meeting the false city's skyscraper had worn off, and he leaned forward in his seat to get more comfortable. "That light from before looks kinda close now."

"I don't know how you can tell," Donald grumbled. "All I see are those red lights."

True to his complaints, passing through the gateway, however unceremoniously, brought them into a silver-white room whose uniform brightness seared spots into Sora's vision every time he blinked. The whiteness twitched at some corner in Roxas' memory, but the red lights whose glow ebbed and flowed along the room's walls touched at Sora's recollection of Radiant Garden's Heartless factory. He couldn't help wondering if this held the same significance, but for Nobodies. At the center of the room, a gigantic, pale blue orb sat, light pulsing to the same rhythm as its fellows at the perimeter.

Other than the red lights and blue orb, the Gummi ship was the only splash of color in the room – and the breathing of the ship's inhabitants, the only sound of life. After the constant noise of firing missiles and the group talking, the silence was almost more palpable.

Donald let out an unnerved squawk, while Goofy nodded in agreement with his friend. "This place is creepy," Char breathed.

"Yeah," Sora murmured. A sudden chill wracked his shoulders and made them twitch violently. _And cold, too. _"I wonder how we can get out of –"

A newfound influx of blue – and not his favorite icy shade – made him whip his head toward the core. Its once-calm rhythm had become erratic in the last couple of seconds, and the lights lining the walls flickered in tandem with it. Sora fought the urge to squeeze his eyes shut against the onslaught and simply squinted against it.

Then, all at once, the brightness bathing his vision lessened. Gratefulness surged through him, only to die when he heard Donald hiss, "You've gotta be kidding."

Sora followed her gaze and instantly knew why the light had lessened. The swarms of Nobodies that had plagued them outside detached themselves from the walls – some long-bodied and marked by the same shade of red as their prior forms, and some shaped like dual turrets joined together – and surrounded the ship.

Goofy gulped audibly, while Char's grip on her armrests grew white-knuckled. "Any bright ideas, Sora?" she gritted out.

"And make it fast!" Donald added, voice equally strained as he stared out at the seemingly endless circle.

Sora hesitated, twitched his fingers against the steering wheel, felt his shoulders grow tense. Although a hint of a red glow shone through the circle the Nobodies had formed, the Gummi ship wouldn't come close to fitting through that gap. From the looks of things, the Nobodies planned on attacking in the next few moments; that gave him maybe that long to think of a concrete plan. The others' stares as he tried to think wasn't facilitating the process, either.

He surveyed the room, pupils darting from one edge of his vision to the other. The Nobodies blotted out the walls' white, though, and kept him from finding an easy escape.

_If that blue orb started glowing when they came out, then – _His eyes widened. _Wait a minute, the orb!_

"Hang on, guys," he called. Already, he was bracing one hand against the console, stretching his index finger out toward the button that summoned honing missiles; four deep breaths of preparation resounded in the ship's cockpit before he whipped the steering wheel, hard, to one side.

The Nobodies' once-organized line flew into chaos in an instant. It reminded him of the reaction garnered by stepping on an anthill, but with much deadlier inhabitants: inhabitants whose pincers drew forth energy instead of venom in their bite; whose collision with the offending being caused violent tremors instead of a mild twinge. Sora narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth together even though the latter action made his brain rattle even more in his skull; he tightened his grip on the wheel to give himself some sort of tether to reality. Black fuzz began to converge in his periphery, but he blocked it before it could unite and take his consciousness.

Rather than focus on the chaos raging around him, he honed in on the single glimmer of blue that was steadily widening under his constant assault. He was vaguely aware of his friends' presence around him; whether their cries arose from pain or not, he didn't want to consider. For his part, at least, the only agony built up in his tensed shoulders and forehead wound.

A cramp began to manifest in the finger mashing the missile button, but he clenched his jaw harder against it. With every Nobody his missiles swept aside, the orb's erratic blue glow grew ever brighter, until a gap wide enough for the ship to squeeze through soaked his vision in clear, watery cyan.

"Sora, hurry," Char's voice croaked out from next to him.

He didn't dare risk throwing a glance over at her, just shouted to be heard above the roaring in his ears. "I know!"

One push of the button, and bursts of light embedded themselves into the orb.

The response came almost instantaneously: a bright blue explosion forced him to throw an arm over his eyes, and when he lowered it, the same clear whiteness from before all but blinded him again. Cyan fragments were falling from where the core had been, but other than that, the ship proved victorious as the only color in the room once again.

Sora slouched back in his seat with a quiet breath of relief. One, two, three blinks of his dry eyes swept away the colorful, dancing spots in his vision. _I didn't even blink when I was flying through all those Nobodies,_ he realized.

Now that the danger had passed, he let himself remember that he wasn't alone inside the ship. The others were also beginning to calm down in the wake of the core's disappearance. Donald all but collapsed onto the dashboard with a muffled noise of relief; Sora could hear the chipmunks falling against each other in their small cockpit as well. Goofy slowly uncurled himself from his seat, wide eyes becoming more visible as he lifted his head from his knees and looked around; when he saw the threat had gone, his forehead drooped back onto his knees again. Char slowly opened her own eyes from where she had squeezed them shut: when, Sora guessed with a guilty twinge, he had begun his reckless charge closer to the core. Her slight sickly pallor told him she was probably restraining her breakfast from making a second appearance.

Just as Sora opened his mouth to ask if everyone was all right, a stark contrast in the whiteness drew his eye: from a hole past where the core had been, a glimpse of dark skies peered out at them. "Is that the way out?" he asked, motioning toward it.

"Maybe," Donald deigned to answer. It sounded like a perfunctory response, until he actually saw what Sora was referring to and straightened in his seat.

"Do you think we can get through there?" Goofy asked, glancing back at Sora.

The boy shrugged. "Only one way to find out," he repeated himself. Honestly, he found himself doubting the possible exit's credibility as well. Still, it was their only chance at reaching Twilight Town.

Miraculously, the ship could fit through what had looked like a narrow tunnel from a distance. Sora kept his body tense and one hand close to the missile button the entire time, in case more foes ambushed them.

However, it looked like the core had truly caused all the chaos, and with its destruction came the chaos' destruction as well. True to his sight, the sky's clear, dark expanse met the Gummi ship as it emerged from the core's room.

"Wow guys, look at that view!" Dale piped up from the chipmunks' cockpit.

_I can't exactly enjoy it right now,_ Sora thought, a little irritably, but chose not to voice his thoughts. Instead, he readied an affirmative response, only for it to die on the tip of his tongue when he spotted a familiar, lit shape. A life he hadn't lived floated into his mind at the clock tower's appearance, along with the barely-familiar taste of sea salt ice cream lingering on the tip of his tongue.

"And there it is," Char muttered from next to him.

Light enveloped Sora's vision; an instant later, it cleared and gave way to the dusk-bedizened skies and uniform buildings and winding train tracks of the world that would open the final leg of his journey. The Keybearer drew in a deep breath, held it for a second, let it out again. For some reason, the air tasted different on the exhale.

"Here we go," he murmured.

* * *

Sora didn't have to know about Roxas' existence or that he had spent time in Twilight Town to recognize that his companions had only explored one part of the city. Not only did the train tracks whose bridges stood up far in the distance wind off to gods knew where, but the Gummi ship passed many other buildings on its way to a place to land. From this far above, the buildings looked like blocks, and the meandering alleys between them like flowing rivers.

"Where are we going to land?" Donald asked.

"Wouldn't that alley by the Twilight Town gang's place be a good spot?" Goofy piped up.

Sora turned his head and let his eyes linger on the knight. Confusion must have registered on his face, because Goofy elaborated. "Well," he began, "that photo of Roxas has him with Hayner and those guys, right? We gotta ask about that, at least."

"Oh yeah," Sora murmured aloud, eyes widening. "Well, over by the Usual Spot, then?"

Donald nodded. "Yeah, good idea," he told Goofy, who rubbed a finger under his nose sheepishly.

A moment's scrutiny from Sora revealed that they were already close to the back alley that led to the Usual Spot. The ship made a sharp, yet smooth dive – much more soothing than dodging the Nobodies and the core had required – toward the designated spot.

The ground met the bottom of the Gummi ship with a tangible tap. Having finally finished the flight, Sora took his hands off the wheel to flex his wrists. Pain lanced through them as he did so, making him realize just how much tension the aerial fight had put on him.

Char took a deep breath and then let it out with a gusty sigh. Immediately, Donald whirled toward her with narrowed eyes. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she snapped back. "Just… preparing myself, is all."

Sora tilted his head to the side. "For what? Fighting your old friends?"

She jerked, as though she hadn't expected him to interject, then deflated visibly. "Not exactly," she muttered.

"Then what is it?" Goofy gently pressed.

One shoulder raised and lowered. "Everything that's ahead, I guess."

"We'll be fine," Sora assured her. "Didn't we tell you before? The Organization won't know what hit 'em when we're done."

Char hesitated, clearly wanting to argue, but she let the matter drop. "Right then," she said. "Are we going to leave the ship sometime soon, or…?"

Her abrupt shift into brusqueness was not lost on the others; Donald kept his eyes in suspicious little slits as he glanced at Goofy, who just looked bemused. "Yeah," the duck said at last. "Yeah, we should go."

Goofy nodded, confusion dissolving into determination. "Do we have all the stuff Aerith gave us?"

"Right here," Char announced, holding up the bag of vials that Aerith had bestowed on them in Radiant Garden.

Sora blinked at her. "Were you holding those the whole time?" he asked incredulously.

She shrugged, a little self-consciously. "No, I just had them in this little compartment." With her free hand, she slid open part of the dashboard's underside.

Donald gaped, while from the mini cockpit, Dale's voice rang out. "Gosh, Char, how did you find that?"

"I don't know, I observe," she said, balancing the bag in her lap. Despite the spread of the bag's weight across her thighs, its contents still threatened to spill onto the floor next to the ship's brake pedal. "Can we divvy these things up now?"

"Okay, okay," Sora said, unable to keep a giggle out of his voice. Just that hint of amusement elicited a scowl from her, so he clamped his jaw shut and took the bag she all but thrust him. Fear didn't necessarily silence him, so much as her agitation. The moment she had one hand free, it flew to her thigh and she began tapping two fingers against it, and she directed her gaze at one particular brick on the nearest wall as though it could soothe her. He felt a surge of frustration at knowing that his words of reassurance couldn't help her.

His wrists nearly buckled under the bag's weight, keeping him from noticing anything else. Fortunately, his reflexes saved the Potions, Hi-Potions, and, the occasional flash of sparkling blue told him, Ethers within from meeting the floor. After a couple of seconds spent steadying the bag on his lap, he stuffed a few items in his pocket, being careful to evenly distribute each kind, and passed it over to Donald. "Careful, it's heavy," he said, only belatedly realizing that his and Char's efforts would have lightened the bag.

"Yeah, yeah," Donald muttered. True to Sora's thoughts, the duck easily grasped the bag and began rummaging around inside it. Glass clinked and plastic rattled, soon joined by Donald muttering under his breath as he took his spoils.

"Hey, don't take _all_ the Ethers, Donald," Goofy said.

"I need magic, all right?" Donald shot back. "We're gonna be fighting a lot. I might run out of mana."

"Duck boy's got a point," Char remarked. Her support surprised Sora – he distinctly remembered her scoffing at Donald's magic – but he said nothing of it.

As Donald finished, albeit after poking his beak into the bag one last time, and handed Goofy the bag, a familiar, high-pitched voice floated up from the miniature cockpit. "I guess you'll be taking your stuff and leaving then, huh?" Chip asked.

Sora nodded, then remembered they couldn't see him. "Yeah, it looks like it."

A pause, then the two chipmunks jumped up onto the dashboard. Sora almost started at how shiny their eyes looked. "Gosh, then I guess this is it," Chip went on, rubbing at his eyes.

"You crying there, partner?" Dale gave a half-hearted quip.

"Of course I'm not," Chip retorted. "I just… have something in my eye."

"Oh, come on," Char muttered. "It can't be more obvious that you're tearing up." At the undisguised harshness in her voice, Sora couldn't help tossing a hard stare her way; to her credit, she seemed to recognize how cold she sounded and simply narrowed her eyes at the ground.

Turning back to the chipmunks, he said, "I'm sure this won't be the end. Even after I go back home with Riku and Kairi, I'll find a way to visit you guys." As unlikely as that possibility was, he found himself clinging to it with everything in his heart. The knowledge that he would never see his Disney friends again after his journey's end had always prowled in his thoughts, like a Heartless ready to attack, but he had shoved anything to that end aside in favor of the present.

He repressed a sigh. Even now, when the end seemed so certain ahead, uncertainties remained on that sunset-lit horizon.

The chipmunks brightened visibly. "If anyone can find a way to do that, it'll be you, Sora," Dale said with an encouraging nod.

Sora nodded back, suddenly unable to speak. The affirmation of just how much faith his friends had in him swelled in his chest.

"Tell Queen Minnie we'll be back real soon with the King," Goofy told the two little pilots, who each gave firm salutes in turn.

"Aye, aye, sir," Chip agreed, sounding as though he spoke around a lump in his throat.

Donald was watching with a newly bright sheen in his eyes, but now he shook his head as if to clear it. "Let's just go," he said gruffly. "The Organization isn't going to take care of itself."

The mage's brusqueness snapped Sora from his touched reverie and pushed him to his feet. He reached out his hand to Chip and Dale, and they each seized his index and middle finger and shook them as firmly as their statures would allow. "It's been great traveling with you guys," was all he could say. Professional, almost mechanical out of context, but he meant every word.

He had bidden many other world natives goodbye over the course of his journey, but only now did he begin to feel pain at leaving behind two companions who had stayed with him for so long.

As he turned away, he heard two respective thuds and recognized those as Donald and Goofy placing their feet on the ground as well. However, it took a couple more seconds before the flash of red told him Char had followed suit.

No sooner had they all descended the ramp into the alley did they hear the _whoosh_ of the ramp receding back up into the ship. Sora turned just in time to see the vessel's bright colors surge up into, and eventually ascend past, Twilight Town's beige. He kept his eye on the Gummi ship's departure until a cloud passed over and proved opaque enough to eclipse its form; when the wind carried the cloud away, the ship was gone. Only pale orange sky met his eyes.

"Goodbye, Chip and Dale," Goofy called, cupping his hands around his mouth to yell after the ship. "Thanks a lot!"

"They can't hear you anymore, you big palooka," Donald reminded him, but his voice's roughness blunted any edge in his scorn.

"You think we won't need them to come back?" Char suddenly said.

Sora tore his gaze from the skies and looked toward her. Her undisguised vitriol took him aback. "What do you mean?" he asked, more out of cautiousness than anything else.

Char shook her head, brought one hand up to palm her forehead and curled her fingers inward to tease her bangs. "I mean what if it turns out your little source lied to you?" she clarified. As her pupils moved from Donald and Goofy and back again, her glare faltered, as though she didn't even believe in her own suspicion.

Donald huffed and shoved his fists against his hips. "Oh, come on," he said. "We've gotten this far, and you're still on about that?"

All at once, Sora realized why she had sounded so angry. Guilt flickered through him once again at his inability to reveal Axel as their advisor. _I just don't want to have to turn around,_ he argued with himself.

"Well," he said aloud, "even if we can't get to the Organization's world from here –" and his heart gave a pang at the possibility, unlikely though it seemed – "we can still ask about the picture of Roxas. Right?"

"Yeah, Sora's right," Goofy added with a nod.

Char rolled her eyes, already dropping her hand and turning away. "I guess you're right," she muttered. Even though he couldn't see her face, Sora could hear her frustration loud and clear. After a couple of seconds, she turned her head and gave them a pointed stare. "Aren't you coming?"

While Donald stomped after her with no small amount of grumbling in his wake, Goofy trailed behind with Sora. The knight's gaze flitted from Sora to Char and back again, and Sora could feel that stare on him, but he could not acknowledge it. Char set a fast enough pace to all but leave the others behind – or at least try to.

The Keybearer kept his eyes on Char's back as she walked. Inside him, annoyance warred with concern at her behavior: so reminiscent of those initial days of this journey that it actually frightened him a little.

He saw her shoulders tense, then relax, as though in that split second she had both agonized over a decision and then put it to rest. Never once did her stride falter or the rhythm of her footsteps change.

It hit him, all at once, why her attitude unnerved him so much: she did not let him walk ahead and lead them. Even on her worst, most prideful days, she had at least let the Keyblade wielder take his rightful place.

Sora rubbed his arms, suddenly wracked by a chill born of more than just the wind tousling his hair. Char's decision to remain in the lead felt so absent-minded, so not her, that the bacon and eggs he'd had for breakfast began a violent dance in his gut.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked over. Goofy maintained his steady amble as he leaned in to avoid being overheard. By whom, Sora found himself wondering. "D'you think Char's okay?" he whispered.

Sora sighed, at the last moment remembering to cloak its true extent in a soft exhale. "She's probably just worried about having to fight her friends," he assured Goofy in a low tone.

Goofy looked doubtful, but simply nodded in response. "Yeah, I think you're right," he said. "Gawrsh, I know if I had to fight you or Donald, I'd be scared too."

Sora smiled a little. "You know it wouldn't come to that." His words met with a sheepish shrug.

_But it's come to that with Char and her friends,_ he thought. _Is that why she's acting like this?_

They approached the red curtain that closed off the Usual Spot from the back alley. When Char reached the makeshift door, she quickly pivoted away so her back faced the wall. Donald, who had directed his glare at the ground, looked up at the sudden absence of color beyond the beige concrete and swung his head toward her. "Now what?" he demanded.

Char raised one palm in an imitation shrug. "They might be doing something in there," she said. "Remember what happened the last time we just barged in on them?"

"Hayner did get kind of mad," Goofy recalled.

"Well, they know us now, so it'll be fine," Sora said – all but tossed over his shoulder, really. Passing by Char, he resisted the urge to check her facial expression for any gratefulness that he had taken the lead again; he knew that would definitely mirror his own emotions, anyway.

He pulled the curtain back, already opening his mouth to utter a greeting. At the same time, his muscles tensed in mental preparation to evade a dart that might have strayed from its original path to the board on the opposite wall. Oddly, he found himself picturing that exact same scene far more vividly than simple assumption would allow – and, rather than picturing Pence as the offender, wild blonde hair bristling under the fingers rubbing over it passed across Sora's mind. The image's lucidity – almost like that of a memory – suggested it was another of Roxas' recollections.

_Maybe it has to do with the photo?_

Any decision to find out in the next few minutes subsided the moment a room devoid of anything besides boxes replaced red cloth.

"They're not here," he said.

Char gave a stifled snort as she came up to poke her head in beside him. A nudge at his bare calf told Sora that Donald had joined them, and a bemused noise behind him suggested Goofy had done the same. "Yeah, no kidding, they're not here," the redhead said.

"You don't think anything happened to 'em?" Goofy asked, fingers curling anxiously over his chin.

Sora blinked, wondering why the knight had immediately gone to the worst conclusion; then he remembered having to fight off all the Nobodies the last time they had come to Twilight Town. He heard a quiet intake of breath from next to him and, glancing at Char, saw that she was thinking the same thing. A contemplative cast showed itself through her narrowed eyes, though, so Sora spoke to his other companions.

"I'm sure they're fine," he said, more to assure himself than anything else. "We can go check around town and see if they've gone out anywhere."

Donald nodded. "That's a good idea."

Char acknowledged the others' agreement with her own "hm" of assent. Sora took in her folded arms and the finger she pressed against her chin; the desire to ask what held her in such deep concentration threatened to pry his mouth open, but he forced his self-control back against it. Ultimately, his self-control won.

However, the same could not be said of Goofy. "You okay?" he repeated the same question he had directed toward Sora earlier.

Char jolted visibly, as though he had shoved her headfirst into freezing water. The hand on her face dropped at once and settled against the opposite arm. "Yeah," she said. "Let's go."

"Sure, don't tell us what's going on," Donald grumbled. "That's fine."

At his snide comment, Char's jaw clenched visibly, as though keeping back an urge of her own. Like Sora, though, she relented, even though her desire probably reflected something more along the lines of decking Donald than Sora's had.

In the end, she followed them as they turned around and began to walk back toward the middle of town. Before Sora could do more than sweep the curtain to its original position, though, white flashed next to him. It was his only warning before something solid collided with his shoulder and nearly toppled him.

He righted himself and put out his hand to summon the Sleeping Lion; in his mind, _white_ connected to _Nobody_, and dread scrawled its mark across the inside of his belly at the knowledge that those things were this close to town –

But then Donald snarled out, "Hey, what's the big idea?" and Sora lowered his hand. His assailant's height made him tilt his head back to meet the scornful eyes that he only vaguely remembered from the battle in the sandlot. The name Seifer sprang to his mind, along with mild annoyance at his deliberate shove.

"Can't believe you're back here," Seifer said, lips curling into a sneer that oozed from his words.

"Hello to you too," Char replied.

He spared only a flick of his pupils her way before returning the brunt of his glare to Sora. "So," he jeered, "are you back to cause more trouble? Because I'm not having that."

"Like last time was our fault!" Donald spat, fists flying to his sides as he puffed out his chest.

"Yeah," Sora agreed. Seifer's eyes narrowed sharply; a strange look flashed behind baleful blue and he opened his mouth to speak, but Sora continued. "Didn't you give us that trophy? The one that goes to the 'toughest guy in Twilight Town?'" As he spoke the last part, he folded his arms, fingers twitching against his forearms; only after they had stilled did he realize he had almost set air quotes around the title Seifer had bestowed on him.

_Char used to do that,_ he recalled. _She really is rubbing off on me._

Seifer rolled his eyes and folded his own arms. "So? What's your point? Things change." He began to circle around them, gaze roving from Sora to Char and then back again. Sora bristled beneath his stare; the belligerence burning there suggested he was ready to spring to a fight at any moment.

"That doesn't even make any sense!" Donald snapped. "Sora helped you and now you're acting like it didn't happen!"

Goofy had remained silent till now, no trace of the hostility that so easily found a current among his companions. Perhaps as a result of that lack of replication, he startled Sora and the others when he piped up, "Do you know Hayner, Pence, and Olette?"

The trio of names stopped Seifer mid-pace. A beat, then he muttered, "Yeah, I've heard of 'em. What do you want with those lamers?"

"They're not –" Sora began indignantly, only to find green cloth smothering his rebuttal.

Char kept her hand over his mouth. "We need to talk to them," she said. "Do you know where they could be?"

Seifer snorted and raised his palms toward the twilit skies in a mocking shrug. "Gee, I just don't know."

Sora flinched when the hand over his mouth pressed further down and her nails dug into his cheek. When was the last time she had trimmed those anyway, he wondered, before Char spoke through gritted teeth. "We don't have time for this," she hissed. "Unlike you, we don't have time to strut around being complete _ingrates_ to someone who saved their life not too long ago. If you know something, then tell us; otherwise, get the hell out of our way. Because we can't afford to deal with you right now."

Seifer blinked. The combination of her rage-filled words and her own glower trained so fiercely on him lent a spark to the air that soon proved too much for him. "All right, fine!" he growled. "They went to the old mansion. Happy?"

Char withdrew her hand from Sora's face, and the Keybearer let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Thank you," the redhead said, the tight quality of her voice loosening into her regular tone, albeit with more sickly sweetness. She glanced over to Sora, Donald, and Goofy. "Let's go, guys."

As she strode off toward the outline of the train tracks, veering sharply away from Seifer, the blonde in question shook his head with an audible snarl and stomped off in the sandlot's direction. Sora quickly realized what had just happened and tossed an awkward "uh, thanks" over his shoulder to Seifer before scurrying to catch up with Char.

It only took a couple of seconds for his run to match Char's flounce. Once it did, he slowed up to maintain that pace and tilted his head, trying to gauge her expression. Even his glimpse of the side of her face granted the same unnerving anger that had coursed through her words.

"Uh, thanks for doing that," Goofy said, and Sora fought the surprised jump that threatened to shake along his muscles. In his bewilderment at her outburst, contained though it had been, he had neglected the possibility that their other companions shared that bewilderment.

"I mean, you didn't really have to yell at him," Donald said dryly, "but we know where to go now."

Char rolled her eyes. "Didn't have to yell, my ass," she muttered, before raising her voice. "Yeah, well, if it worked, that's all that counts, right?" Although her brisk walk should have packed breathlessness into her words, somehow, her annoyance sounded unimpeded nonetheless.

"The old mansion is this way," she tossed over her shoulder. They passed beneath an arch; as they did so, bright, green light leaked into Sora's periphery and made him glance over toward its source. What met his eyes was a sign situated above another arch, beyond which the pathway sloped downward. He blinked at the neon-lit 3 that had drawn his gaze, wondered why he was slightly surprised that it wasn't blocked off.

"And how do you know where the mansion is?" Donald inquired, the old suspicious ire immediately back in his words.

Sora spoke up before Char could unleash more of the dark storm rapidly gathering into visibility on her face. "She used to live here, remember?" he said to Donald. "And we did meet her at the mansion."

"Sora's right," Goofy put in.

To Donald's credit, he sounded properly abashed when he grunted his remembrance. Sora risked trying to meet Char's eyes again and found she had beaten him to it. She remained silent, but undeniable gratefulness simmered in previously-shadowed bright blue. That gratefulness manifested in the small smile that tugged visibly at her lips, the sight of which coaxed a smile from Sora in return.

Somehow, he got the feeling that her outburst at Seifer had partially been an outlet for her anger and pain. Despite the pang at knowing he himself couldn't soothe her, Sora still appreciated the fact that she could smile right now.

He turned his gaze straight ahead again. The closer they got to the center of town, the greater the grim outline of sharp towers in the distance became. Those towers reminded him of the first day of this journey: waking up inside the strange pod in that white room, the reasons for which still mystified him; deciding to search for King Mickey and Riku alongside Donald and Goofy; exploring the mansion's foyer and first hearing Char's voice from above; the redhead's abrasive bluntness irritating him; her declaration that she would follow them shocking and confusing the group all at once.

Back then, his awkward, angry new companion had terrified and fascinated him in turns. Now, she was marching alongside him into what might as well have been her personal maw of hell.

Watching her, Sora felt the urge to grab her and hold her rising up anew inside him. Unlike last night, though, when her admission to having an idea of Riku's location had made Sora succumb to that desire, he held it and kept it at his core.

However, thinking of last night heralded the birth of hope as well – a feeling that, unlike its twin, Sora did not try to stifle. _Riku and Kairi. They're waiting for me in that world, I'm sure of it._

He let the thought channel throughout his body until it reached his feet and pushed him ahead of the others.

* * *

Whenever Riku made a point of avoiding a certain place, he always had a concrete reason. Regardless of Char's jibes – which struck him as hypocritical, since she would rather have avoided Hollow Bastion's streets altogether – he knew he was justified in skirting around anywhere that brought up bad memories. Even dropping off Char in Hollow Bastion had stirred anxiety within him and prodded demons best left asleep. Demons born of defeat, and sorrow, and betrayal whose fault he knew lay with him.

It was funny, then, that the exact same feelings resumed their dull ache inside Riku at a different place entirely. In this world, a white castle lay just ahead of him beyond a vast, dark gulf; in this world, clouds permanently blanketed the sky. Here, Sora's Nobody had taken him down as opposed to Sora himself.

_I still had to use darkness to even have a chance against either of them, though, _Riku reflected as he stopped in front of the skyscraper. Against the stormy sky's gloomy backdrop, any caricature of city lights looked obscene; indeed, its garish contrast forced his eyes into slits. Squinting proved a mistake, however, as it pushed rainwater that had congregated onto his eyelashes into his eyes.

He blinked a couple of times before lowering his face from the skyscraper. The minutes he had spent in thought had routed his eyes toward it and scored colorful splotches into his vision. Already, Riku could feel impatience setting in to his heart and ramping up its speed. Whether or not that impatience arose from unease at the site where Roxas had fought him, Riku was unsure; however, he did know that he wanted the person he was meeting to get here soon.

_Gods know what the other Organization members are doing. I'm surprised none of them have found me yet._

Before he could lift up his wrist to check an imaginary watch, a raspy voice sounded from behind him. "Didn't think you'd actually show up."

Had Riku not known any better, he would have tensed and put his arm out to summon his Soul Eater. But the tone in that voice was that of amusement, and derision that time had all but honed to a fine point within that voice's owner. So instead, Riku spun around with his hand ready to clutch his blade's hilt.

Axel put his palms up in the air. "Aggressive, aggressive," he laughed. That damn wolf grin widened even more, acid green eyes glittering even more in the darkness. "I can't say I blame you, though."

Riku narrowed his eyes, lowered his arm. "Where's Namine?" he asked.

Axel's smile faltered, and he sighed and folded his arms. "Right to the point, as always," he said.

"Why else do you think I'd be out here?" Riku answered, trying to keep his voice calm. _Arrogant hedgehog,_ he thought. "I'm not exactly taking a walk."

If he'd had his way, he couldn't help thinking, he wouldn't have had to trust a member of the Organization with something so important. The fact that Axel had kidnapped Kairi only enforced Riku's mistrust of the Flurry of Dancing Flames. But Ansem having ordered Namine's destruction and Char busy preparing to journey with Sora had given him little choice in the matter. Axel had basically given up Namine so she could bring back Sora's memories, and so he had been the first candidate in protecting her. From the sound of things, Axel wasn't exactly unfamiliar with shielding Namine.

Axel raised one eyebrow, appraised Riku a moment longer. When amber eyes failed to waver from pale green – one advantage of Riku's increased height: he could stare down the gangly Axel with far more intimidation – the Nobody threw back his head and laughed to the stormy skies. "Yeah, okay. You've got a point there, Superior Number Two," he grinned.

Riku flinched. "Don't call me that," he muttered.

Ignoring him, Axel went on. "Namine's on her way," he said.

Riku glanced back up in surprise, annoyance at the nickname instantly forgotten. _On her way? What else could she be doing?_

His confusion must have shown on his face, because Axel actually deigned to elaborate. "She's gotta get her drawing stuff." One hand reached up to ruffle the back of his spiky hair. "I don't get it, but maybe that's because I can't draw to save my life. Never could."

_What life?_ Riku thought dryly, but said nothing. He shifted from one foot to the other, suddenly uncomfortable. In the continuous drizzle, colors blurred together, and even though Axel's hair was a shade more reminiscent of the flame he controlled, the rain dampened it to a bloodier red –

Blood red. Char's hair. The sunlight spilling onto Char's hair as she told him Axel had taken Kairi.

_Focus,_ Riku ordered himself, before rage could take Axel's red and coat it over his view. He averted his eyes nonetheless, just in case the sight of the Nobody incensed him anyway. _You're not here to fight, you're here to retrieve Kairi's Nobody. Sora will have to take care of Kairi._

Still, he couldn't bring himself to believe Char would direct Sora to the Princess of Heart. Not out of any spite toward Sora's former crush – gods, Riku would hope Char wasn't that petty – but because she didn't even know where Axel had put Kairi.

Riku muffled a sigh against the back of his throat. Regardless of his attempt at self-control, though, some resigned sound must have eked out of him, because Axel glanced over. "What's up with you?" he asked, even though his lack of worry made itself obvious.

Riku opened his mouth, not quite knowing what would come out. A flippant reply? A snarl for Axel to mind his own damn business? Personally, he was banking on the latter.

As fate would have it, though, at that moment, swirling darkness unlike that created by the clouds above materialized just next to Axel. Out of the undulating, shadowy whorls, the newcomer stepped forward, one whose pale form and adherence to light colors belied her name as a being of darkness.

Namine looked up at Riku with her lips gradually pushing upward, and he felt his own mouth moving to match her smile. "Hello, Riku," she greeted, adjusting her sketchbook in her grasp.

Riku nodded back to her. "It's been a while," he said. He gestured one hand at the drawing pad in her arms; the thing nearly took up her entire torso, reminding him simultaneously of his increased height and just how small Namine was. The Organization had kept her all but malnourished, but her frame was slight and slender as well. "Got any new drawings for me to see?"

Axel cleared his throat, making the two of them turn to him. "I hate to break up this little reunion," he said, "but if you stand out here in the rain much longer, you won't have any drawings to look at." One black-clad finger lifted up toward the stormy sky.

Riku blinked, then looked back down at Namine. All at once, it hit him just why she was clutching her sketchbook flush against her body. _She's wearing white. And it's raining._

Axel's derisive snicker told him just how much red the realization had poured onto his face. Frankly, he was surprised that the rain hitting his face didn't immediately sizzle upon impact with the heat rushing to his cheeks.

"Thanks for looking after her," Riku muttered in lieu of anything sardonic. Anything along the lines of a good retort eluded him, to his annoyance. His search for said retort grew even more difficult, though, when he made the mistake of meeting Axel's eyes. They all but glowed in the continuous mist, and Riku couldn't help but wonder if they had shone like that in the island's sunlight when they had landed on Kairi.

_You don't want a fight you don't want a fight just take Namine and go –_

"Riku," Namine murmured, and then a tug on his sleeve: brief and gentle, but firm in its unspoken message. _Don't. _

Riku drew himself up – he hadn't even realized anger had hunched his shoulders – and took a few deep breaths of the stormy air. Of course he had to avoid a brawl; what would Sora and Kairi do if he got too badly hurt in a pointless fight here?

In his attempt to calm himself, he turned away from Axel, whose mouth immediately flattened out into a seemingly impassive line, as though it had previously been fighting back a smirk. After a few seconds of Riku honing in on the rain's continuous, rhythmic cadence and attempting to memorize the exact path of the skyscraper's lights, he heard Namine speak. "Axel, what are you going to do now?"

A pause, during which he imagined Axel shrugging. "I dunno. Probably take a nap or something."

Riku narrowed his eyes. _At a time like this?_

Then again, taking a nap during the final battle was exactly the sort of thing Axel would do.

He heard Namine emit a quiet sigh. For some reason, it sounded almost _resigned_.

Then the whoosh of a dark portal opening up behind him resounded, surprising Riku into turning around. He caught a final glimpse of flaming red hair before the swirling shadows swallowed Axel.

In the silence that followed, Riku glanced back down at Namine, only to blink when he found her blue-violet gaze already boring into his. She wanted to catch up on everything he had gone through since their separation a month ago; he could see the longing in her face.

But determination quickly overtook that.

"I know where they're keeping Kairi," she said.

* * *

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